Human Geography Final Review

Folk culture

Small, homogeneous, rural group living in relative isolation from other groups

Popular culture

Large, heterogeneous society that shares certain habits despite differences in other personal characteristics

Folk culture is all about:

Folk Life, collective heritage of institutions, stable and close knit, and is usually a rural community

Characteristics of Folk culture

Tradition controls; resistance to change; the homemade and handmade dominate in tools, food, and music; buildings erected without architect or blueprint; use of locally available building materials

Angle American Hearths

Early European colonists established footholds along the East Coast; European settlement areas became cultural hearths

Declines of Folk Cultural Regionalism

Decline during the 20th century; urban-rural contrasts; widespread adoption of new inventions

Popular culture is all about:

Urbanism; ever changing; the general mass of people; global uniformity!!!

Aspects of pop culture and globalization

America; American Hegemony; Americanization

American Exceptionalism

Puritan roots; republicanism; immigrants; Cold War

Cultural roots of America

Religiosity; individualism; anti-intellectualism

Individualism in America

Laissez faire emphasis; distrust of the state and public sphere; never formed “social” democracy

Rise and decline of US Hegemony

US is both product and producer of colonialism; 1898 Spanish-American War marked rise of US imperialism; after WWII, US emerged as the world’s hegemon: United Nations, Bretton-Woods agreement, GATT, IMF, and World Bank; 1946-1973: Golden Age for US industry: no destruction during WWII, US produces ½ world’s manufacturing output, and diffused to the World in the name of pop culture; 1970s oil shocks ended post-war boom: US economic hegemony has ebbed, especially in manufacturing; US remains by far the world’s economic and political superpower

Americanization

The influence of USA on the culture of other countries (technology, culture, lifestyle, etc.)

Americanization of Media

MTV, CNN, MSNBC; American way of life; Hollywood, American movie industry

Americanization of business and brand

Computers; fast food; global brand

For much of the world’s people, globalization:

Is synonymous with “Americanization”

The US is the leading:

Symbol and practitioner of “neocolonialism;” US is a reluctant empire

Cultural Imperialism

The practice of promoting, distinguishing, separating, or artificially injecting the culture of one society into another

History of cultural imperialism

The Greek culture, European colonization, Russification, Muslim; imperialism and spread of Westernization; industrial colonialism phase and the penetration of capitalism; TNCs, Transnational institutions, and USA

The world’s cultural diversity will be (is being) threatened by:

The diffusion of Westernization/Americanization

Debates on cultural imperialism

A threat to or an enrichment of its cultural identity; the use and role of new information technology; trend of electronic colonialism; homogenization (unity) vs. differentiation (diversity)

Globalization is accelerating the process of:

Cultural influence and vice versa

Criticisms of homogeneous global culture arguments

Overgeneralization of homogenization of global culture; the power of locality; localized by hybridization or localization; not uni-directional but multi-directional

Cultural hegemony

The philosophic and sociological concept that a culturally-diverse society can be ruled (dominated) by one of its social classes

Karl Marx & Antonio Gramsci

The dominant voice in the mass media, in schools; cultural norm

Cultural hegemony is neither monolithic nor unified:

Rather it is a complex of layered social structures

No culture is static:

Cultural interaction is constant

Current cultural globalization trends and processes

New global cultural infrastructures of technology; the rise in velocity of cultural exchanges; western culture as the core marker; the rise of TNCs; the rise of business culture as the main driver; the shift in the “geography” of cultural interaction

Economic Geography

The study of how people earn their living; how livelihood systems vary by area; how economic activities are spatially interrelated and linked; the study of the location, distribution, and spatial organization of economic activities across the earth

Brief history of economic geography

Location Theory and the Neoclassical Approach (1900~), Behavioral Approach (1960~), Marxist Political Economy (1970~), and New Economic Geography (1990~)

Location theory and the neoclassical approach (1900~)

Alfred Weber’s industrial location theory; locational analysis and modeling; least cost in transportation; resource vs. power vs. market

Behavioral approach (1960~)

Bounded (limited rationality); cognitive information and human choices

Marxist political economy (1970~)

Failure of locational analysis; social and spatial inequities in economic development; David Harvey; production was influenced by Capital by Karl Marx and the Mode of Production; historical materialism, class struggle, and neglect of space; social class included workers and capitalists

New economic geography (1990~)

Social, cultural, and political context; eclectic collection of philosophical standpoints and social theories; Paul Krugman

Primary industrial economic sector

Material extraction

Secondary industrial economic sector

Refining and manufacturing

Tertiary industrial economic sector

Service

Quaternary industrial economic sector

Knowledge industry

Quinary industrial economic sector

Non-profit organizations

Physical factors for agricultural activities

Climate (temperature, precipitation, amount of sunshine), topography (flatland), and soil (a thick layer of sediment)

Isolated State

A classic model in geography by Johann Heinrich von Thünen; fashioned in 1826 to explain the economic patterns developing around European cities; based on four concentric land-use rings surrounding a market place; land use was a function of transportation costs and land price; the Isolated State became the foundation for modern location theory

Example of isolated state: Chicago

First ring: dairying, grain, and grain-fed livestock. Second ring: cash grains. Third ring: grain, livestock, and general farming. Fourth ring: hog and cattle raising, general farming, and orchards

Johann Heinrich von Thünen isolated state discoveries:

Early in the 19th century he observed that lands of apparently identical physical properties were used for different agricultural purposes; around each major urban market, he noted a set of concentric rings of different farm products; the ring closest to the market specialized in perishable commodities that were both expensive to ship and in high demand

Subsistence economic agriculture system

Goods and services are created for the use of the producers and their kinship groups; little exchange of goods and only limited need for markets

Commercial (intensive or extensive) economic agriculture system

Dominant in nearly all parts of the world; producers or their agents, in theory, freely market their goods and services

Planned economic agriculture system

Government agencies controlled both supply and price; locational patterns of production were tightly programmed by central planning departments

World of fishery: exclusive economic zone

(International) law of the sea; state’s economic rights over the exploration and use of marine resources; 200 nautical miles

Uruguay round

Multilateral Trade Negotiation (MTN); General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (WTO); goal: free trade of agricultural products; criticism: developing countries’ agricultural and not cooperative but competitive

Manufacturing industry

Fabrication, processing, or preparation of products from raw materials and commodities; mechanical or chemical transformation of materials or substances into new products; involved in material processing and goods production; movable, rather than spatially fixed; locational decision involves the weighing of the locational “pulls” of a number of cost considerations and profit prospects

Types of manufacturing industries

Foods, chemicals, textiles, machines, and equipment; refined metals and minerals derived from extracted ores; lumber, wood, and pulp products

Locational decisions in manufacturing

Raw materials, power supply, labor, market, and transportation

Least-cost theory by Alfred Weber (1909)

The optimum location will be found where the costs of transporting “raw materials to the factory” and “finished goods to market” are at their lowest; explains the optimum of a manufacturing establishment based on minimizing three basic expenses: relative transport costs, labor costs, and agglomeration costs (the clustering of productive activities for mutual advantage); Weber concluded that transport costs are the major consideration determining location

Location theory: types of location

Raw materials-oriented, market-oriented, transshipment-oriented, labor oriented, accumulation oriented, and free from location

Silicon Valley

Proximity to a major research university; large pool of well educated people; proximity to a major metropolitan area; recreational water within one hour drive; entrepreneurial culture supportive of risk-taking and forgiving of failure; network of global business linkages; abundant venture capital; high amenity region

Criticism of Location Theory

Distance and transportation cost; no fixed location for raw materials and market; no fixed labor power

Service industry

Producing a “service” instead of just an end product; providing services rather than goods to producers and consumers based on primary and secondary industrial economic sector

Characteristics of service industry

Even spatial distribution (not quality but quantity); population distribution and economic condition; no standardization; no mass-production; no mechanization

Types of service industry (according to who demands)

Consumer service (restaurant, convenient store, retailing) and producer service (advertising, accounting, design, and marketing research)

Types of service industry (according to who supplies)

Public service (government, electricity, water, water management, public transportation) and private services (service from private company)

Factors of service industry

Population, purchasing power, patterns of social structure, and development of industry

Locations of service industry for consumer services

Dispersion (example: convenience store, big box retail, etc.) and aggregation (examples: gas station, automobile sale, etc.)

Locations of service industry for producer services

Adjacent to corporations (example: stock company, insurance company, etc.) and related to information, transportation, and communication

Examples of service industry

Retail and wholesale business, transportation service, and information and technology service

Examples of big box retail

Walmart and target

Road transportation

Door to door connectivity; mobility; proximity; least geographical limitation; least route limitation; traffic congestion; potentially unsafe

Rail road transportation

Punctuality; safety; some geographical limitation; some route limitation; large startup cost; no door to door connectivity

Air transportation

Speedy; global freight business; tourism (overseas trip); can be expensive; usually safe

Marine transportation

Good for long distance; global freight business; tourism (cruises); slow

Transport cost

Cost per mile diminishes the more you travel

Freight transport costs (lowest to highest)

Water, rail, road, and air

Economic geography of transportation and regional changes

Proximity and connectivity; satellite cities; and metropolitan cities

Economic geography of transportation and land use

Increased accessibility; increased land value; land use change; increased traffic generation; increased traffic conflict; deterioration in level-of-service: arterial improvements

Knowledge and information industry: types

Aerospace sector and IT (information and technology: computer, semiconductor, game software, animation production, and telecommunication)

Knowledge and information industry: characteristics

Knowledge and creative idea; short lifespan; connected to primary, secondary, and service industry; less need for natural resources; inexpensive transport costs

Knowledge and information industry: adverse effects

Unequal distribution of information; cyber crimes; alienation of humanity; unemployment

Knowledge and information industry: Geography

Shortened (mental) distance (ex. Online school); spatial aggregation; spatial dispersion (telecommuting)

Positive aspects of globalization

Economic growth and technological revolution

Negative aspects of globalization

Rich poor gap; environmental degradation

Human development

Multidimensional; no single appropriate development framework; economics and standard of living; human development index

Human development index

An index used to rank countries by level of “human development” which usually also implies whether a country is a developed, developing, or undeveloped country

Reason for uneven economic growth and development

Naturally (Physical and human factors; modernization theory) and structurally (alternative view by Marxist school of political economy; capitalism; dependency theory and world system)

Fundamentals of capitalism

Profit-oriented; surplus value (neutral); exploitation of labor (for Marxism); dynamic and creative (against Marxism)

Contradictions of capitalism

Over-accumulation; the inevitability of crisis; expansionistic

Modernization theory

modern transformations of social life; looks at the internal factors of the country; assumes that traditional countries can develop in the same ways modern countries did

Geographies of capitalism

Geographical expansion; affecting each other; scale (from urban to global); new international and spatial division of labor; spatial fix

Dependency theory

Resources (and labor) flow from a “periphery” of poor and underdeveloped states to a “core” of wealthy states; poor countries; not following western countries but being exploited by them; thus, modernization theory is wrong

World system theory

View of imperialism; mechanisms between periphery and core; dependency theory as prototype; organism (cyclical rhythms, secular trends, contradiction, and crisis)

Uneven development is not only a result of but also a prerequisite of:

The capitalist system

Political geography

The study of the organization and distribution of political phenomena, including their impact on other spatial components of society and culture; a systematic field of geography that focused on the spatial expressions of political behavior

State and nation are:

Not synonymous

State

Independent political entity holding sovereignty over a territory

Nation

Community of people with a common culture and territory

Nation-state

A state who territorial extent coincides with that occupied by a distinct nation or people

Stateless nation

People without a state

The evolution of the modern state

Developed by European political philosophers in the 18th century; the concept that people owe alliance to a state

Geographic characteristics of states

Size; shape; location, cores and capitals; boundary

Compact shape for a state

A politico-geographic term to describe a state that possesses a circular, oval, or rectangular territory in which the distance from the boundary exhibits little variation; examples: Cambodia, Uruguay, and Poland

Elongated shape for a state

A state whose territory is decidedly long and narrow; its length is at least six times greater than its average width; examples: chile, Vietnam, and Laos

Protruded shape for a state

A type of territorial shape that exhibits a narrow, elongated land extension leading away from the main body of the territory; examples: Thailand and Myanmar

Fragmented shape for a state

A state whose territory consists of separated parts not a contiguous whole; the individual parts may be isolated from each other by the land area of other states or by international waters; examples: Philippines and Indonesia