Human Geography final

Population

• inhabitants of a given area/who lives with in a place and area

• Nested within one another

  • World, country, state

Change in # of a population

• Fertility

• Mortality

• Migration

Demography

• scientific study of a the size, composition, and distribution of human populations and their changes

Population Geography

• study of the ways in which spatial variations in the distribution, composition, migration and growth of populations are related to the nature of places

• How they differ across space? How are space, place, and population intertwine

Demographics

• Characteristics of the people often collected using a census

  • Perceived ancestry/racial identity, sex, age, religion, language, occupation, family status, migrant

Class

• Relation to means of production

  • you either own or control

  • Or you are the means

Population distribution

• Pattern of human settlement, spread of people across the earth, influenced by availability of resources

  • Water, food, shelter

• some areas are more ideal than others

  • Midlatitudes, low lying areas, near body of water, soul quality

• Influenced by human factors

  • Transport/trade networks, economic opportunity’s families ties, political decisions

Population density

• # of people per given geographical unit

  • People per square mile

Arithmetic density

• # of people per given geographical unit

• Average # of people in an area

• Divided a region’s population by its total area

Physiological density

• divided a regions population by its amount of arable land

• captures the concept of “carrying capacity”

Agriculture density

• compares the # of farmers to the area of arable land

• intertwined with labor and technological dynamics

Social Stratification

• hierarchical division of people into groups based on factors

  • economic status, power, race/ethnicity

  • interplay of racial and cultural identity with class

• Diverse cities, distributed across cities

  • ethnic enclaves, rent districts

Race

• socially constructed

• distinct groups, unequal rank

Race craft

• fitting actual humans to any such grid inevitably class forth the busy repertoire of strange maneuvering

  • saying black people have more asma because of jeans, when it is actually because pollution is unequally applied to them

Racism

• “social practice, it is a double standard based on ancestry”

Ethnicity

• group of people who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguishes them from other groups

  • language, culture, common ancestry, traditions, religion

Population pyramid

• depicts the age and sex of a given population within a specific geographic area

  • county, city, parish, continent, world

• X-axis depicts sex

• Y-axis depicts age

Crude birth rate

• rate of births among a population of 1000

Total fertility rate

• rate if deaths among a given population

Life expectancy

• average length of life expected at birth for a typical male or female in a specific country

• reflects health and well being of a population

Infant mortality rate

• # of deaths of children under 1 year of age per 1000 live births

• good indicator of development and social conditions in a given place

Pyramids and Birth/Death rates

• higher birth rates = more babies = wider bottom

• higher death rates = fewer old people = skinner top

• lower birth rates = few babies = skinnier bottom

• lower death rates = more old people = wider top

• more pyramidal = faster population growth

Dependency Ratios and “Graying”

• percent of population within a population who were either too youn or too old to support themselves

• children (non-working age) + elderly (non-working age)

Demographic Transition Model

• Conceptualization that tracks the changes in birth rates and death rates over time

• 4 or 5 stages

Stage 1

• high birth rate and high death rate

  • high disease and poverty

Stage 2

• high birth rate and rapidly falling death rate

  • rapid population growth

Stage 3

• falling birth rate and falling death rate

  • fewer children needed, improving status of women, later marriage

Stage 4

• low birth rate and low death rate

  • stable or very low increase

Stage 5

• very low birth rate and low death rate

  • similar to 4 but characterized by decline rather than slow growth,

Pro/Anti Natalism

In relation to births

• Pro-natalism = expansive

• Anti-natalism = restrictive

Thomas Malthus

• clergyman, economist, demographer

• “An essay on the Principle of Population” 1798

  • challenging the “Poor Laws”

  • basically said we should not help the poor, we should let them die to save environment

Malthusian Theory

• premise is that human urge, specifically among the poor, is to bread uncontrollable

  • population growth at geometric (exponential) rate

  • food production grows arithmetic (liner line)

• not enough food production/resources, population overshoots its “carrying capacity” and what does this mean for the population growth

2 ways to check/control population

• Preventative: lower birth rate

  • Moral restraint

• Positive: raise death rate

  • War, famine, disease

Reductive

• An idea regarding the association between phenomena which can be described in terms of their simper or more fundamental phenomena

  • 3 realms of place

The Green Revolution 1950-1960

• technological transfer to the developing world

• Rapid increase in the agriculture production

  • Feeding the world

Malthus’s prediction errors

• didn’t see green revolution coming

• food prices went down

• didn’t see the demographic transition

Boserup Theory: Ester Boserup

• Danish economist that countered Malthus

  • specifically in relation to agriculture intensification

• population growth drives agricultural development and technological innovation, rather than being limited by food supply

  • reclaiming land from sea, selective breading, cross breading

Cornucopianism: Julian Simon’s

• human ingenuity and technology can overcome resource/environmental limits

  • people are the “ultimate resource”

  • more people = more ideas

  • allows infinite economic growth

Neo-Malthusianism

• Belief that even though original theory was wrong it should be applied to everything else

• rapid population growth, coupled with high consumption, causes resource depletion, environmental degradation, and inevitable social collapse

  • USAID, is reproduction a right or a privilege?

Ehrlich’s Population Bomb

• rapid global population growth would outpace food production, leading to mass starvation and societal collapse by the 1970s and 1980s

Migration and Mobility

• The ability to move or be moved freely and easily

  • limited by friction

• movement of people from one place to another

Emigration vs Immigration

• Emigration: leaving from

• Immigration: arriving in a new country

• a large source of growth in some counties, not always by choice

  • Atlantic Slave Trade

Countries of Immigrants

• settler colonial, lack of indigenous population

  • U.S., Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Uruguay

Lee’s theory of Migration 1966

• Push factors: push people way from original country

• Pull factors: pull people towards a destination

Push/Pull Factors

• push: bad things people leave for

• pull: things that drive people to new place

  • economic, political, environmental, social

Intervening Obstacles

• things that make it difficult to move

• barriers that make reaching their desired destination more difficult

Push/Pull Economic

• push: places lacking jobs and economic opportunities

• pull: places with grater chances of economic opportunities

push/pull Social

• push: discrimination and persecution

• pull: where they can practice their culture safely

push/pull Political

• push: opposition of policies of a government manifest in discrimination/fear of arrest

push/pull Environmental

push: to escape risk/harm from the environmental threats

Opportunities

disruptions to original migration plan

Ravenstein’s Laws

• most migrants travel only a short distance

  • distance decay

• most migrants traveling long distances usually settle in large urban areas

Ravenstein’s Gravity Model

• the size and distance between 2 cities and counties influence the amount of migration, travel, and economic activity

• the larger the city/country the more pull it has, but the distance between the 2 locations increases the pull/gravity weakness

  • cuba to maimi

International Migration

• over 300 million people live outside the country of their birth

• often seeking better living

Economic Migrants

• seeking an improved standard of living

Refugees

• a migrant facing a well founded fear of persecution

Remittances

• money sent by those working abroad to families in origin countries

Immigration

• response to uneven spatial development

  • vast difference in standard of living

Involuntary Migration

• forced migration resulting from political events/policies or environmental crises

  • Internally displaced persons/refugees

  • African slave trade

Asylum

• protection granted by one country to an immigrant from another country who has fear if they return

Voluntary Migration

• when people willing choose to relocate

Internal Migration

• often rural to urban

• following a step pattern

Transnational migration

• one country to another

  • ethnic enclaves

  • chain migration

Guest worker programs

• relocation to provide labor that isn’t available locally or more expensive

Policies encouraging migration

• Homestead Act

• Visa Program

• Guest worker policies

Discouraging migration

• Quotas

• Education Requirements

• Work restrictions

Postcolonial migration

• the movement of people from formerly colonized nations to former colonial powers

  • Often driven by historical legacies

  • Economic opportunities

  • Search for better living conditions

French Guyana

• prison colony from France

• Prisoners from Indochina

Domestic Migration

• Generally characterized by rural to urban migration

  • Urbanization

  • 54% of world population is urban

Urbanized History of cities

• Turkey

• Mesopotamia

• Ancient Egypt

• China

• SE Europe

Geographies of Development

• a process of change that affects peoples lives

  • Not necessarily good or bad

  • Framed in terms of whether people are able to be or do desirable things in life

Economic development

• process by which the economic well being and quality of life of a nation, religion, or local community are improved according to targeted goals and objectives

• Positive connotation, has become synonymous with industrialization and modernization

Sorting the world

• first world: US/NATO aligned democratic

• Second world: Soviet Union aligned communist

• Third world: neutral or non-aligned nations

Global north vs Global south

• global north has ¼ of the people, but earns 4/5 income

  • Economic divide: rich (western highly developed) and not

Core Periphery

• capital intensive production

• High wage

• Strong capacity/control

• Extracts surplus form below

  • USA, Germany, Japan

Semi Periphery

• exploited by core but exploits periphery

• Politically stabilizing

• Buffering function

• Mixed roles

  • Brazil, china, Mexico

Periphery

• Labor intensive

• Raw material extraction

• Low wage

• Weak states

• Subordinated to core capital

  • Sub Saharan Africa and SE Asia

Development Indicators

• GDP (per capital)

• Poverty indicators

• Infant mortality index

• Gender inequality index

• Human development index

• Literacy

Green Measures

• how does primary focus on growing GDP affect the environment?

  • Why might this be self defeating in the long run

  • Fishing tuna, cutting down trees

World Happiness report

• real GDP per capita

• Healthy life expectancy

• Freedom to make life choices

• Perceptions of corruption

• Social support

• Generosity

Politics

• all about power

• Who gets what and how its decided

• “Politika” Ancient Greek meaning affairs of the city

Political Geography

• study of ways in which humans have divided up the surface of the earth

  • For management and control

• how political structures are distributed across the world, understanding the context of why political structures operate where they do, impacts on peoples everyday lives, global order, power distributed internationally

• Military and economic alliances, boundaries between countries, terrorism, civil military conflicts, and the geography of the electro real process

Geopolitics

• the effects of geography (human and physical) on politics and international relations

Territory

• portion of geographic space that is claimed or occupied by a person, group of people, institution

  • An area “bounded space”

Territoriality

• attempt by someone or group to affect, influence, or control people, phenomena, and relationships, by delimiting and asserting control over geographic area

  • Robert Sack

Sovereignty

• supreme authority within a territory, political authority of a state to govern itself

  • Legitimate

  • De facto vs. De jure

Nation

• a stable community of people with a common culture

  • Ethnic group

• grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups

State

• defined by control and sovereignty over territory

Nation-State

• a homogenous nation governed by its own sovereign state

Multinational State

• states that have more than one ethnic within their borders

Stateless nation

• national without its own state, that wants its own state

• Usually ethnic minority groups

  • Often Indigenous groups

  • Kurds

Forth world peoples

• referred to socially marginalized, often Indigenous minority groups in both developed and developing states, or nation without a state

Transnistria

• Moldova has de jure and de facto

Nationalism

• process of protecting and defending a cultural system

Boundaries

• an invisible, vertical plane that separates one state from, so it can include both the airspace above the line, on the surface, and the ground below

• Separates territories from one another

Physical boundary

• a natural feature

  • Body of water

  • Topographic feature

Geometric boundary

• straight lines

• Often latitudinal and longitudinal

Ethnic boundaries

• according to cultural traits

  • Language

  • Religion

Centripetal and Centrifugal forces

• influence the solidarity and unity of a state

Centripetal forces

• tent to bind a states people and regions

• Unifying, nationalism, economic prosperity, strong security forces, compactness, undergird legitimacy