GEOG 121 Midterm

Globalization

The set of processes making the world more connected, moving us from a world organized around nations toward globality. Steger: "planetary interconnectivities, mobilities, and imaginations." It's uneven, affecting places differently. Ex: K-pop spreading worldwide through streaming. (Steger)

Globality

The CONDITION (end state) of a world with tight economic, political, cultural, and environmental connections across borders. Globalization = the process; globality = the condition. Still evolving. (Steger)

Global imaginary

People's growing awareness of the world as one single whole. Doesn't erase national identity but weakens the nation as the main frame. Ex: seeing climate change as "our planet's" problem. (Steger)

Globalism

Political ideologies that turn the global imaginary into agendas and stories about whether globalization is good or bad, serving particular interests. Ex: the pro-free-trade argument that open markets help everyone. (Steger)

Blue marble

The 1972 Apollo 17 photo of the whole Earth from space; a symbol of the global imaginary, seeing the planet as one connected, borderless whole.

Transplanetary

Connections linking people anywhere on the planet to anywhere else, treating the world as one social space. Ex: a video call between Lagos and Toronto. (Scholte)

Supraterritorial

Connections that go beyond territory, so distance and borders barely matter; nearly instant. Ex: money moving electronically between stock exchanges in seconds. (Scholte)

Time-space compression

The feeling that the world is "shrinking" because faster transport and communication make distance matter less. Massey asks WHO experiences it, since it's not equal. Ex: a weeks-long letter replaced by instant email. (Massey, Steger)

Global sense of place (Massey)

A place isn't defined by boundaries or one deep-rooted identity; it's a unique "meeting place" where social relations stretching across the world intersect. Places are processes, have no fixed boundaries, contain conflict, and are still unique. Ex: Kilburn High Road, London.

Differentiated mobility and power geometry (Massey)

Different groups relate to global flows differently: some control movement, some move without control, some are stuck on the receiving end. Ex: jet-setting executive vs. undocumented migrant vs. pensioner who can't go out at night.

Disjunctive flows (Appadurai)

Global flows of people, technology, money, media, and ideas move on different paths and speeds, not in sync; these mismatches shape global culture and politics. Ex: Saudi Arabia accepts guest workers but stays closed to immigration as citizenship.

Global -scapes (Appadurai)

Five dimensions of global cultural flow (look different depending on who's looking): ETHNOSCAPE = moving people; TECHNOSCAPE = moving technology; FINANCESCAPE = moving money; MEDIASCAPE = media and the images it creates; IDEOSCAPE = political ideas (freedom, rights, democracy).

Cognitive/mental maps

The maps of the world we carry in our heads, shaped by experience and media rather than accuracy; they reveal our knowledge gaps and biases. Ex: picturing Africa as smaller than it really is.

Geography

The study of how and why things are arranged across Earth's surface and how places connect. Coe et al.'s four ways to think spatially: patterns in space, distinctive places, networks, and territorial power. (Coe et al.)

Space

The broad, abstract dimension in which things are located and connected; can be uneven, linked by networks, and carved into territory. (Coe et al.)

Absolute location

An exact position on Earth using a fixed coordinate system. Ex: 40.7° N, 74.0° W (New York City).

Latitude/parallels

Imaginary horizontal lines measuring distance north or south of the Equator (0°) to 90° at the poles. Called parallels because they never meet.

Longitude/meridian

Imaginary vertical lines measuring distance east or west of the Prime Meridian (0°, Greenwich) up to 180°. Each line is a meridian, running pole to pole.

Relative location

Location described in relation to other places. Ex: "30 minutes west of Raleigh," or a port next to a major shipping lane.

Geographic unevenness (Coe et al.)

Economic activity, wealth, and consumption are spread very unequally across space, creating winners and losers; we tend to treat our local situation as "normal." Ex: bottled water production and consumption vary hugely by place.

Network

Connections linking places across space: production networks, waste/environmental networks, and the capitalist world system. Ex: a water bottle links a spring, plastic makers, shippers, retailers, and waste sites. (Coe et al.)

Scale

The level at which we view a process (body, home, local, urban, regional, national, global). Scales aren't a strict hierarchy, processes run at many at once, and scales are human-made. Ex: Nestlé stopped by locals in tiny McCloud, CA. (Coe et al.)

Place

A unique mix of human and physical features at a location, shaped by flows from elsewhere. Ex: Perrier's naturally carbonated spring in Vergèze, France becomes part of the brand. (Coe et al., Massey)

Territory

A bounded space plus the power to control it; mostly governments, but not only. Ex: a university banning bottled water on campus; a country controlling its borders. (Coe et al.)

Colonization/colonialism

Colonization = a country taking control of another land, settling it, and ruling its people. Colonialism = the overall system of that rule and economic exploitation. Ex: Spain conquering the Incas and running silver mines with forced labor.

Imperialism

A powerful state extending power over other places, directly (colonies) or indirectly (economic, military, political pressure). Colonialism is one form. Ex: British Empire; Dutch and British East India Companies. (Steger)

Core/periphery

Model of an unequal world economy: the CORE (wealthy, industrial) controls capital and gains from trade; the PERIPHERY (poorer) supplies raw materials and cheap labor. Ex: colonial Bolivia exported silver while Europe captured the wealth.

Columbian Exchange (Lewis and Maslin)

The massive swap of plants, animals, and diseases between the Americas and Afro-Eurasia after 1492, transforming diets and farming worldwide. Ex: potatoes, tomatoes, maize, cocoa went out; wheat, sugar, horses, cattle, smallpox came in.

Demographic collapse and climate change (Lewis and Maslin)

Disease, war, slavery, and famine killed ~50–80 million Native Americans (~90%; ~10% of all humans). Abandoned farmland regrew as forest, absorbing CO2, causing a CO2 dip around 1610 and global cooling (Little Ice Age). Humans changed the climate.

Transatlantic slave trade

Forced transport of millions of Africans to the Americas from the 1500s, as a "trading triangle": European goods to Africa, enslaved people to the Americas, sugar/tobacco/cotton back to Europe. (Lewis and Maslin, Steger)

Plantation

A large farm growing one cash crop for export, worked by forced or very low-paid labor; the economic engine of the slave trade. Ex: Caribbean and Brazilian sugar plantations.

Ecological imperialism

Alfred Crosby's idea that Europeans conquered lands with biology (diseases, crops, animals, weeds), not just weapons. Ex: smallpox weakening the Incas before Pizarro.

Ecological windfall

The huge "free" boost Europe got from the Americas' land and resources (food, cotton, timber, silver) without using its own land; helped Europe pull ahead. Ex: American cotton feeding British industrialization. (Pomeranz)

Ages/periods of globalization

Steger's five periods: prehistoric (10,000–3500 BCE), premodern (3500 BCE–1500 CE), early modern (1500–1750), modern (1750–1980s), contemporary (1980s on, "great convergence"). Globalization is ancient and can reverse (fall of Rome, interwar 1918–39).

Potosi

City in Bolivia with Cerro Rico, the world's richest silver deposit (found 1545); produced ~half the world's silver for a century, the "treasury of the world." Horrific cost: forced mita labor and mercury pollution ("mountain that eats men"). (Wojcik, Lewis and Maslin)

"China Ship" (Arranz et al.)

The Manila galleon (nao de China), sailing Acapulco–Manila 1565–1815, carrying American silver to Asia and Chinese silk and porcelain back, linking the Americas, Asia, and Europe in the first global trade circuit.

Silver/Spanish pieces of eight (Wojcik)

The Spanish real de a ocho (peso), minted from American silver, became the world's first global currency. China used silver as money, so Spanish silver flowed via Manila to buy Chinese goods.

Bretton Woods Regime (Peet)

Post-WWII economic rules agreed by 44 nations in 1944; created the IMF and World Bank and led to GATT/WTO. Currencies pegged to the US dollar, dollar to gold. Peet: framed as cooperation but designed by the US to serve US interests, making it the dominant power.

International Monetary Fund

Bretton Woods institution for global financial stability. Members pay into a pool and borrow when they can't pay for imports/debts. Votes based on contributions; the US (~16.5%) can block changes needing 85%. Loans come with conditionality (policy changes). (Peet, Wojcik)

World Bank

Originally the IBRD, created at Bretton Woods to rebuild Europe after WWII; later shifted to development loans for poorer countries (mission: end extreme poverty). Must join IMF first; voting weighted toward the US. (Peet, Wojcik)

United Nations Security Council

UN body for international peace and security: 15 members, 5 permanent with vetoes (US, UK, France, Russia, China). Can approve sanctions and military action.

Structural Adjustment Programs

IMF/World Bank loan conditions in the 1980s–90s forcing indebted countries to adopt free-market policies: cut spending, privatize, remove trade barriers, focus on exports. Critics: deepened poverty. Ex: cutting food subsidies to get loans.

US Dollar

The world's main reserve currency since Bretton Woods (others pegged to it; only one convertible to gold). Most trade, debt, and oil priced in dollars, giving the US huge financial power, including sanctions. (Peet)

Third World Debt Crisis

Starting 1982 when Mexico couldn't repay, many developing countries defaulted on Western bank loans after US interest rates spiked. IMF/World Bank lent more, tied to Structural Adjustment Programs.

Economic sanctions (Stein and Cocco)

Penalties pressuring another country to change behavior without military force: trade bans, asset freezes, cutting off from global finance. Financial sanctions are now "the weapon of choice," mostly usable by powerful states. Ex: cutting Russian banks from SWIFT in 2022.

Mobility

The ability to move (people, goods, money, ideas). It's unequal: depends on power, wealth, and passports. Ex: US vs. Syrian passport visa-free access.

Migrant/migration

Migration = moving from one place to another to live, within a country or across borders. A migrant is someone who does this, for any reason (work, family, safety, study).

Labor migration

Moving mainly to find work, often from poorer to richer regions and often temporary. Ex: South Asian construction workers in Dubai; Mexican farmworkers in the US.

Immigration/emigration

Immigration = moving INTO a new country; emigration = LEAVING your home country. Ex: moving Philippines to Canada = emigrating from the Philippines, immigrating to Canada.

Kafala system

Sponsorship system for migrant workers in Gulf states (and Lebanon, Jordan) tying a worker's legal status to their employer, who often controls their visa, job changes, and exit. Enables exploitation. Ex: Qatar World Cup stadium workers.

Remittances (Wojcik)

Money migrants send home to family. Over $554 billion in 2019, more than many countries get from investment and aid; over 30% of GDP in some countries. Help families but can create dependency. Ex: US-to-Mexico corridor topped $30 billion in 2017.

Coerced/forced migration

Movement people are pushed into by threats they can't control (war, persecution, disaster, slavery), not by choice. Ex: the slave trade; people fleeing war in Syria.

Refugee

Someone who fled their country due to well-founded fear of persecution (race, religion, nationality, political opinion, social group) or war, and has been officially recognized with legal protection under international law.

Asylum-seeker

Someone who fled their country and asked for refugee protection elsewhere, but whose claim HASN'T BEEN DECIDED YET. Every refugee was once an asylum-seeker, but not all asylum-seekers become refugees.

Internally displaced person

Someone forced from home who stays INSIDE their own country. Since they didn't cross a border, they aren't legally refugees and have fewer protections. Ex: people displaced within Sudan or Ukraine.

Flexible citizenship (Ong)

Strategies people use to respond "fluidly and opportunistically" to political-economic change to build wealth and status, working citizenship across borders. Ex: Hong Kong elites with multiple passports before 1997; "astronaut" parents; "parachute kids."

Graduated sovereignty (Ong)

Governments create different zones within their territory with different rules, rights, and obligations, often to attract global capital; zones don't always follow borders. Ex: special economic zones with looser labor laws.

Falling coffee prices (Sieff)

When global coffee prices drop (oversupply, speculation), farmers at the start of the chain absorb the loss while roasters, brands, and cafés keep most of the value. Many growers earn less than production costs.

Fair trade organizations (Sieff)

Groups certifying products like coffee and guaranteeing farmers a minimum price plus a community premium. Critics: premium is small, certification costly, still embedded in normal commodity chains. Ex: Fairtrade label on coffee. (Sieff, Sparke)

Follow the thing methodology (Cook et al.)

Research tracing one product through its whole journey (farm to store to consumer), studying people at each site ("multi-locale ethnography") to de-fetishize the commodity and reveal hidden labor. Ex: papaya from a Jamaican farm to UK supermarkets.

Logistics (Cowen)

Managing the movement and storage of goods from raw materials to customer as one total system. Began as a military field; became a business "revolution" in the 1960s that reshapes global space and power. Ex: Amazon's supply chain.

Containerization (Cowen)

Shipping goods in standardized metal boxes moving directly between ships, trains, and trucks. Developed largely by the US military; slashed loading time and port labor costs; "most important invention" of economic globalization; weakened dockworker unions.

Just-in-time (Cowen)

Production where parts arrive exactly when needed instead of being stockpiled, cutting storage costs; depends on fast, reliable shipping. Opposite of Ford's "just in case." Weakness: one disruption halts everything (COVID shortages).

Intermodalism (Cowen)

Moving goods across multiple transport modes (ship, rail, truck, plane) as one seamless system, usually by container. Ex: container from a ship in LA to a train to Chicago to a truck.

Flags of convenience (Cowen)

Registering a ship in another country (Panama, Liberia) to avoid taxes, safety rules, and higher wages. Over half the world's ships. Ex: in 1949, 306 of Panama's 462 ships were American-owned.

Fordism

Henry Ford's assembly-line mass production of standardized, cheap goods, with relatively high wages so workers could buy them. Ex: Model T built entirely at the Rouge River plant in Detroit, all in one place. (Sparke)

Scientific management

Frederick Taylor's method ("Taylorism") of breaking work into small, timed, repetitive tasks to maximize efficiency, giving managers control over how work is done. Ex: time-and-motion studies.

Universal Product Code

The barcode on products (1970s) letting items be scanned and tracked, so stores track inventory instantly and send demand info back up the supply chain. Ex: a Walmart checkout scan telling suppliers to make more. (Sparke)

Walmart

World's biggest retailer and key example of a buyer-driven commodity chain: as a massive buyer it controls global supply chains and pushes suppliers to cut costs. In 2004 it would have been China's 8th-largest trading partner. (Sparke)

Commodity/commodification

Commodity = anything produced to be bought and sold on a market. Commodification = turning something not for sale into a product. Ex: water into bottled water; education into global degree programs. (Sparke, Coe et al.)

Trade-to-GDP ratio

Total trade (exports + imports) divided by GDP; measures how open/globalized an economy is. Globally it dipped after the Great Depression and only returned to imperial-era levels around the 1980s. (Sparke)

Trade deficit

When a country imports more than it exports. Ex: in 2010 the US imported ~$2 trillion in goods but exported ~$1.3 trillion, a ~$645 billion merchandise trade deficit. (Sparke)

Commodity chain

All the steps linking a product's raw materials and parts, assembly, distribution, marketing, and sale to final consumption. Ex: a Japanese TV made in Mexico from Indonesian parts, sold at Walmart. (Sparke)

Outsourcing

A company hiring other companies, often abroad, to do part of its production or services. Ex: Nike designing shoes but contracting factories in Vietnam to make them. (Sparke)

Global Triad

The three regions dominating world trade: North America, Europe, and East Asia. Trade between and within them dwarfs other trade, leaving regions like Africa marginal. (Sparke)

Vertical/horizontal integration (Sparke)

Two ways to run a commodity chain. VERTICAL: the company owns and controls the steps itself (Ford's in-house plant). HORIZONTAL: it outsources steps and coordinates through the market (Nike, Walmart). Horizontal is increasingly common.

Maritime chokepoint (Milne et al.)

A narrow sea passage much global shipping must pass through, so blocking it disrupts world trade. Ex: Suez Canal (Ever Given, 2021), Panama Canal, Strait of Hormuz, Strait of Malacca.

World's factory floor (Robles, Chang, Gamio)

The idea that China has become the main place the world's goods are made, dominating manufacturing from electronics to clothing to solar panels.

Import reliance (Robles, Chang, Gamio)

How much a country depends on imports from another country for key goods. Ex: the US relying on Chinese imports for electronics, toys, and critical minerals, making it vulnerable to tariffs or disruptions.