Geography 103 - Week 10: Extractivism and Commodity Chains

Week 10: April 1 and 3

Class Agenda

• Tuesday: Introduction to unpacking the iPhone, extractive industries and extractivism, and commodity chains.

• Thursday: Overview of writing assignment (2), environmental and health impacts of extractivism, environmental justice, and group work (if time allows).

Pop Quiz

• Students were asked to write their full name and Net ID on a piece of paper and answer whether the in-class midterm review was useful for preparing for the exam (Yes, No, or I did not attend).

• There was no right answer.

Unpacking the iPhone

• iPhones and cell phones have become a part of daily life around the world.

• We rely on cell phones to connect with our family and communities.

• We access information through our phones.

• Cell phones can be described as one of the technological agents of globalization.

• There are more mobile phone subscriptions than people.

• Phones are also physical objects created from component parts made up of raw materials which have to be processed and assembled into a final product.

• This process is global: goods are produced and consumed in different locations. As companies look to make profit, they seek out cheap labor and cheap materials.

• Example: Car manufacturing in Mexico after the passage of NAFTA.

• Global commodity chain:

  • Corporate headquarters and products designed in California.

  • Minerals which make up component parts mined around the world.

  • Component parts assembled across Asia.

  • Component parts assembled into phones in China, specifically in factories in Special Economic Zones (SEZs).

  • Products shipped via container ships and airplanes from factories in China around the world.

  • Products consumed around the world.

• The location of where resources are mined and where products are assembled is a result of political decisions and struggle.

• Apple originally tried to manufacture its computers in California (1980-90s) but ultimately moved production to China to take advantage of low labor costs.

• Trump is trying to negotiate a “peace” deal with Ukraine that ties US support to access to the country’s supply of rare earth minerals.

• Landscapes of energy massively exceed the point of extraction. Spaces of extraction may begin in a physical sense with the hole in the ground but they extend in a rhizomatic structure of branches, links and nodes that becomes increasingly dense as one moves towards the point of consumption (Bridge, 2009, p. 8).

Extractive Industries

• Extractive industry involves the extraction of raw materials (biomass, fossil fuels, metals and non-metallic minerals) from the earth.

• Examples of extractive processes include oil, gas, coal, timbers, mineral mining, dredging and quarrying.

• Extracting raw materials is generally understood as a type of primary industry.

• Involves a range of infrastructure (rigs, pipelines etc.) and increasingly utilizes sophisticated machinery and technology (along with digitization), to increase productivity while decreasing operational costs.

• Distinct global and regional patterns of extraction:

  • Sites of resource extraction are normally located in marginalized places.

  • Countries with large natural resource endowments are often some of the poorest countries in the world.

• Extractive industries have been subjected to major criticisms:

  • Forcible displacement of marginalized peoples via land grabbing and land enclosures of rural, ancestral and indigenous lands.

  • Their targeting of conflict and disaster zones (new frontiers of development).

  • Expansion into conservation and biodiversity areas (e.g., national parks, watersheds, wetlands).

  • Contribution to environmental and human health risks (including greenhouse emissions, waste generation, air and water pollution etc.).

Discussion Questions

1. Are there any extractive processes that take place in the place(s) where you are from?

2. If there are no extractive processes now, have there been in the past? What were they?

3. What have the impacts of these extractive processes been on the environment and community?

4. Have there been any political struggles over the extractive processes?

Extractivism

• Extraction is the material removal of natural resources.

• Extractivism is a process whereby material nature is converted to resources/commodities.

• These resources are central to the history and continuation of capitalism.

• Capitalism is an economic and social system structured around making profit.

• A worldview in which “nature” is a resource to be commodified for human consumption and capital accumulation.

Commodity

• An economic good, such as a product of agriculture or mining; an article of commerce, especially when delivered for shipment; a mass-produced unspecialized product.

Extractivism

• The extraction of resources for the creation of commodities is central to the history of colonization.

  • Colonization is a process of domination and dispossession. The colonizer is able to dictate what happens on the land.

  • Colonization is always incomplete and there are always struggles over land and resources.

  • Spanish and Portuguese colonizers in Latin America mined gold and other metals which fueled economic development back in Europe.

• The geography of extraction changes over time as new resources become useful and valuable.

• New Jersey has 588 abandoned mines, clustered in the north of the state.

• These mines were largely operational in the 18th and early 19th centuries.

• Primary material mined was iron, but also copper, graphite, lead, manganese, mica, sulfide, uranium, and zinc.

• Iron was extracted from underground mines, refined in nearby refineries, and used to make tools and other products which were shipped to England and Europe.

• Mining changed the landscape of New Jersey:

  • Holes dug deep into the earth to extract iron ore.

  • Trees were cut down to create charcoal to fuel the blast furnaces which were used for refining iron ore. Farmers later established farm on this clear-cut land.

  • Refineries and other industrial processes were built to turn iron ore into a usable product.

  • Canals and railways were constructed to transport iron ore and iron products.

• Mining required human and non-human labor:

  • Indentured immigrants and the enslaved were likely the earliest workers in New Jersey’s iron mines.

  • Animals like mules were used to transport iron ore.

• The creation of mines in the early colonial period required dispossession of indigenous lands.

  • Earliest iron mine (Mt. Hope) in operation since 1710.

• We can still see the legacy of mining on the New Jersey landscape.

• But, iron mining has moved to other geographies: Australia, Brazil, China, Russia, India

Commodity Chains

• Primary industries are connected to extensive global commodity chains and consumer markets. We can think of a commodity chain as a network of labor and production processes whose end result is a finished commodity like an iPhone.

  • An internationally integrated process of economic links between corporations and workers whereby resources are gathered, transformed into goods and services, and distributed to consumers across the world.

• Commodity chains are a fundamental part of economic globalization.

  • There is a general North/South divide in where each part of the chain is located.

  • Extractive industries and manufacturing tend to be located in the Global South.

  • High-level service and technological industries tend to be located in the Global North.

  • However, this picture is not so clear cut in reality as there are many intermediary relationships of production.

World Systems Theory

• Introduces the idea of the semi-periphery.

• Semi-periphery countries are peripheral in relation to the core but maintain an advantage over the periphery.

• There is a relationship between semi-periphery countries as well as with the core.

• Shifting Geography of Paper Production:

  • Core - Scandinavia, New England, Canada. Provide the tech

  • Semi-periphery - Brazil. Provide the pulp

  • Periphery - Paraguay. Provide the timber

Supply chain for Car Battery Components

• Metals mining, refining, cathode production and battery production.

• Upstream: Refining (Nickel, Cobalt, Lithium).

• Downstream: Automaker, cell production.

• Lithium extraction process: extraction, processing, refining, battery manufacturing electric vehicle appplication and end is disposal or recycle.

Case Study: Bauxite

• Bauxite is an amorphous clayey rock that is the chief commercial ore of aluminum. It consists largely of hydrated alumina with variable proportions of iron oxides.

• Bauxite is the most important ore in aluminum but it has only thirty to fifty-four percent iron oxide. The remaining mixtures to produce aluminum are titanium dioxide, silica, and other iron oxides.

• Aluminum is one of the most globally minded metals, second to iron.

• Aluminum has many uses, particularly as an alloy when combined with other metals:

  • Packaging (cans, foil, etc.)

  • Transportation (trucks, train cars, etc.)

  • Construction materials (siding)

  • Electricity generation infrastructure (generators, transformers, etc.)

• Bauxite is usually strip mined because it is almost always found near the surface of the terrain.

• Strip mining requires the complete removal of vegetation and topsoil, a very destructive practice.

• Strip mining involves a range of environmental and human health implications such as deforestation, dust pollution, and exposure to toxins.

• Guinea is one of the world’s poorest countries but has the world’s largest bauxite deposits.

• Since 2015, the Guinean government has prioritized growing the Bauxite mining sector, including seizing lands from local farmers to create Bauxite mines.

• Mining largely occurs in the Boké region in the northwest by the Alumina Company of Guinea (now privately owned through a deal with a Russian mining company), La Société Minière de Boké (a joint Chinese venture), and Halco Mining (US company, owned primarily by Alcoa and Rio Tinto Group).

• Alcoa operates 6 aluminum refineries in Spain, Australia, and Brazil.

New Frontiers of Extractivism

• Extractivism as the process of turning nature into commodities that can be bought and sold.

• Capitalism is always seeking new ways to make profit.

• Material nature is being increasingly enrolled in global capital markets and in new ways.

• This involves complex processes of privatization (carbon markets, ecosystem services) which constitute different and emerging forms of extraction.

• But, new types of extraction rely on similar processes of enclosure, dispossession, capital accumulation to create commodities.

Example: Bioprospecting

• Bioprospecting is the exploration for compounds found in the natural environment that have some potential commercial scientific or medical value.

• Specifically, bioprospecting is interested in finding small molecules, macromolecules and biochemical and genetic information that can be used to create products.

• This could be for the development of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, environmental remediation, etc.

• Bioprospecting can involve studying indigenous knowledge systems and uses of plants and other organic materials.

• Novel and less disruptive solutions could be found through bioprospecting the oceans, in particular drawing on the arsenals of molecules, enzymes and genes found in largely unexplored groups of microscopic marine organisms.

Example: Collagen

• Collagen is an organic substance extracted from pigs, cows, and fish.

• It is at the heart of a global beauty craze as influencers claim it improves nails, skin, and hair.

• Brazil is one of the world’s largest cattle-producing countries.

• Increased cattle ranching has led to rapid deforestation in the Amazon, accounting for 80% of forest loss.

• Collagen is derived from cattle also raised for meat production and contributes to the profits that ranchers make.

• Collagen is sold by multinational corporations. For example, Nestle owns Vital Proteins, which is promoted by celebrity Jennifer Aniston.

• Unlike beef cattle production, producers do not have to track environmental impacts of collagen production.

Impacts of Extractive Industries

• Extractive industries have been subjected to major criticisms:

  • Forcible displacement of marginalized peoples via land grabbing and land enclosures of rural, ancestral and indigenous lands.

  • Their targeting of conflict and disaster zones (new frontiers of development).

  • Expansion into conservation and biodiversity areas (e.g., national parks, watersheds, wetlands).

  • Contribution to environmental and human health risks (including greenhouse emissions, waste generation, air and water pollution etc.).

• Contribution to environmental and human health risks (including greenhouse emissions, waste generation, air and water pollution etc.)

  • Strip mining, underground mining, forestry, and industrial agriculture require clearing large tracts of land to extract resources.

    • Deforestation

    • Development of associated industries

  • Extractive industries often require the use of large amounts of water which drains local aquifers.

  • Waste products (such as mining tailings) contain toxic substances and are often stored for long periods of time in containment structures.

  • Greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change.

    • Destruction of vegetation and soil releases greenhouse gases.

    • Use of energy throughout the extraction and distribution process.

Impacts Case Study: Fracking

• Hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) is a technique used to enable the extraction of natural gas or oil from shale and other forms of “tight” rock (impermeable rock formations that lock in oil and gas and make fossil fuel production difficult).

• Large quantities of water, chemicals, and sand are blasted into these formations at pressures high enough to crack the rock, allowing the once-trapped gas and oil to flow to the surface.

• Fracking was developed in the late 19th century but put into heavy use after 2000.

  • Technological advances in fracking technique made the process more effective.

  • Investment increased in fracking as fossil fuel prices rose in the late 20th century.

• Since 2014, hydraulically fractured horizontal wells have accounted for the majority of new oil and natural gas wells developed in the United States, surpassing all other drilling techniques.

  • In 2016, nearly 70 percent of the country’s 977,000 producing oil and natural gas wells were horizontally drilled and fracked.

• The process begins with the drilling of a long vertical or angled well that can extend a mile or more into the earth. As the well nears the rock formation where the natural gas or oil lies, drilling then gradually turns horizontal and extends as far as thousands of feet.

• Fracking fluid is then pumped in at a pressure high enough to create new fractures or open existing ones in the surrounding rock. This allows the oil or gas to flow to the surface for gathering, processing, and transportation, along with contaminated wastewater that is stored in pits and tanks or disposed of in underground wells.

• The EPA identified 1,084 different chemicals reported as used in fracking formulas between 2005 and 2013. Common ingredients include methanol, ethylene glycol, and propargyl alcohol.

  • The impacts of these chemicals on human health is largely unknown.

• Fracking uses massive amounts of water.

  • In the United States, the average can run between 1.5 million and 9.7 million gallons of water to frack a single well, according to the USGS.

• Fracking fluid can contaminate groundwater sources, including from leaks during the transportation process.

  • It is unclear how far fracking fluid can travel underground and may contaminate underground aquifers beyond the frack site.

• Industrial development associated with fracking depletes and degrades natural resources.

• Forcible displacement of marginalized peoples via land grabbing and land enclosures of rural, ancestral and indigenous lands

  • Land inhabited by marginalized groups is considered disposable and available for industrial development.

  • 2023 study published in Science Advances found that indigenous *disproportionately and systematically impacted by environmental conflicts stemming from the ongoing extractive and development projects of major industrial sectors around the world.

Impacts Case Study: Uranium Mining

• From 1944 to 1986, nearly 30 million tons of uranium ore were extracted from Navajo lands under leases with the Navajo Nation.

  • US government needed uranium for nuclear weapons during and after World War II, particularly during the arms race of the Cold War.

  • Significant uranium deposits on indigenous land and US government guarantees purchase.

• Many Navajo people worked the mines, often living and raising families in close proximity to the mines and mills.

  • Though the US government began conducting studies on the impact of radiation exposure in the 1950s, Navajo people were not informed of the risks and often worked without protection.

• 1979: Church Rock Uranium Mill (New Mexico) spill: Around 1.3 tons of uranium and 46 curies of radioactive particles traveling 80 miles downstream on the Puerco River, reaching parts of Arizona and New Mexico, specifically Navajo Nation lands.

  • Groundwater used for drinking and irrigation is contaminated.

• 520 abandoned mines remain on Navajo land and have not been remediated.

  • Mines are close to water sources and homes.

  • Many homes are contaminated with radiation.

  • Connection between radiation exposure and cancer.

Settler Colonialism

• Recall Patrick Wolfe’s definition of settler colonialism as a structure, not an event: “ …settler colonialism has both negative and positive dimensions. Negatively, it strives for the dissolution of native societies. Positively, it erects a new colonial society on the expropriated land base—as I put it, settler colonizers come to stay: invasion is a structure not an event.”

• Colonization is ongoing.

Impacts of Extractive Industries

• Extraction has uneven impacts around the world. We can think of it as an example of uneven development: the unequal distribution of economic development on a global scale.

• The places which have the largest endowments of natural resources are often the poorest.

• Communities are unequally exposed to the environmental harms of extraction. Environmental racism is one concept we can use to describe how these harms are unequally distributed.

Environmental Racism

• “Environmental racism includes differential exposure to harm and limiting of access to resources that are reliant on, or that reproduce forms of, racial differentiation. ” (Dictionary of Human Geography, p. 203) Reverend Ben Chavis in 1983

• 1970s: North Carolina designates Warren County as a landfill for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a toxic chemical substance whose production was banned by congress in 1979.

• With a population that was roughly 62% black, no other county in the state had a higher percentage of black residents, and only a few of the state’s one hundred counties could claim higher poverty rates.

• Term coined by Reverend Ben Chavis, who in 1982 was the director of the United Church of Christ’s Commission for Racial Justice.

• Warren County citizens form Warren County Citizens Concerned (WCCC)

• 1982: First shipment of PCBs arrives in Warren County. Hundreds of protestors laid down on the highway to prevent their arrival.

  • On the first day of action, 55 protestors were arrested. The protests lasted six weeks. By the end, 523 arrests were made.

  • Landfill gets built anyway and continues to receive contaminated waste until the 1990s.

• 1987: Chavis leads landmark study on toxic waste and race.

  • The study found that race rose to the top among variables associated with the location of a toxic waste facility.

  • Three out of five Black and Hispanic Americans lived in a community that housed what the EPA called an “uncontrolled toxic waste site,” a closed or abandoned site that posed a threat to human health and the environment.

• Environmental racism remains a significant force in how environmental harms are distributed.

• Example: Amazon and other warehouses In New Jersey, a 2024 report by the Environmental Defense Fund found that warehouses over 100,000 square feet are disproportionately located near communities of color and low-income areas. Latinos are more likely to live near a warehouse. Though they consist of 20.2% of the state’s population, 36.7% of Latinos are “warehouse neighbors. ” Black populations are 1.4 times more likely to live near a warehouse. While 70% of the state’s population, whites are 1.2 times less likely to live near a warehouse.

Defining Race and Racism

• “Racism, specifically, is the state-sanctioned or extralegal production and exploitation of group-differentiated vulnerability to premature death. ” (Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Golden Gulag, 2007)

• Gilmore defines racism around the ability to live or die. This is controlled by the state (“state-sanctioned”) or forces beyond the state (“extralegal”).

Environmental Justice

• “The right of everyone to enjoy and benefit from a safe and healthy environment, regardless of race, class, gender or ethnicity. More specifically, environmental justice is a social movement that takes social justice and environmental politics as fundamentally inseparable. ” (Dictionary of Human Geography, p. 201)

• A social movement that recognizes that environmental harms, degradation, and pollution are not evenly distributed. The most marginalized live in the most toxic environments.

• Connected to and distinct from the traditional environmental movement.

  • Traditional environmental movement grew out of the conservation movement of the 19th century focused on “preserving” the natural environment as pristine and free of human intervention.

  • Traditional environmental movement in the past has not taken into account the different experiences of communities of color, poor communities, and indigenous nations.

• Fight against PCB dumping in Warren County, NC is an early example of environmental justice organizing against environmental racism.

Environmental Justice and Labor Struggle

• Extraction has negative impacts on the environment. This includes the human communities that live near and work within extractive industries.

• Labor struggle and environmental justice struggles can be interconnected.

  • We see this connection in the experience of Navajo uranium mine workers.

  • We see this connection in the film Harlan, County U.S.A.

Harlan County U.S.A.

• Harlan County U.S.A. takes us into the coal mining operations of the Duke Power/Eastover Mining Company in Kentucky

• It focuses on the 1973 union strike of coal miners and their families

  • “I knew they were the enemy”

  • “For once I was able to take the offensive”

• “Both lungs were broke down / from breathing bad air”

  • Black lung is common among miners

  • Mining takes a toll on the body

  • Mines are found to be unsafe, particularly compared with international mine operations

• Mine explosion kills miners and disrupts the surrounding environment.

  • “Damn dirty, filthy mine”

• We don’t see much of the environmental struggle in the film, but we do see how mining has transformed the landscape in Harlan County.

• The film shows us how coal extraction is embedded within the social and economic system of capitalism.

  • “It’s a feudal system…there is a very rich class of people and there are the coal miners”

  • “If you go to Harlan County / There is no neutral there / You’ll either be a union man / Or thug for DH Blair”

  • Coal miners living in shacks without electricity and running water owned by the company

  • Coal companies owned by oil companies

  • Coal companies operate unsafe mines and pay little

• It also shows us that violence (the state/ the police/hired guns) is required to enforce the power of the coal company.

• The union contract does not always allow workers to organize against their employers (no strike clause).

  • Union has its own internal power structure and will even resort to murder!

• Coal Company Profits up 170%, Miners Wages up 4%, Cost of Living up 7%.

Discussion Questions

1. Who are the “main characters” of Harlan County U.S.A.?

2. What is a picket line? What is a scab?

3. Describe the power dynamics at play during the miners’ strike. What is the role of: the police, the union, the workers, the coal company?

4. How do gender and gender roles show up in the documentary?

What did you learn about strikes and labor organizing from the documentary? What did you learn about coal mining?

Geography 103 - Week 11 Notes

Course Housekeeping

• Course housekeeping for the week of April 8 and 10.

• Review of the class agenda.

  • Tuesday:

    • Land as Property

    • Enclosure

    • The Commons and Other Approaches to Land

  • Thursday:

    • The Rise of Industrial Agriculture

    • Contemporary Food Systems

    • Other Ways of Producing Food

Assignment Calendar

• Writing Assignment 2:

  • Part 1: April 10

  • Part 2: April 17

  • Part 3: May 1 (last day of class)

• Pop Quizzes:

  • Two quizzes remaining

• Extra Credit:

  • Harlan County USA questions: April 10

• Final Exam:

  • Review session: May 1

  • Wednesday May 14, 4-7pm

Final Exam Details

• Date: Wednesday, May 14, from 4-7pm.

• Location: Usual classroom.

• Format Update:

  • 40 multiple-choice questions (0.5 points each).

  • 10 ID questions where you will match a term to its definition (1 point each).

• Review Session:

  • On the last day of class, Thursday, May 1.

• Material:

  • Includes select topics from the first half of the class.

  • Cumulative material from the second half of the class.

  • A study guide will be shared in the last week of class.

Pop Quiz 3

• Instructions:

  • Write full name and Net ID on a piece of paper.

  • Answer the following question:

    • Do you like the multimedia (readings, film, music) homework assignments?

      • A. Yes

      • B. No

      • C. Unsure

• Drop off paper with Professor Katz at the end of class.

• Note: There is no wrong answer!

Relating to Land

• Ways we use and interact with the land around us.
  *References to wards and a plan of the city of New York.

Land Value

• Land has many uses and ways of thinking about its value.

• Classical and Marxist economics:

  • Commodities have multiple values, including:

    • Use Value:

      • The tangible features of an object which satisfy a human need or want.

      • Not necessarily quantifiable.

    • Exchange Value:

      • The rate at which an object can be exchanged for another object.

      • Usually quantifiable in terms of a monetary price.

      • Example: 10 coats = 1 laptop or 10 coats = $1,000.

Use Value vs. Exchange Value

• Land clearly has a use value:

  • Living on it, growing food, playing sports, traveling, etc.

• It also has an exchange value:

  • Land can be bought and sold for a price.

• Use value and exchange value are disconnected:

  • Visible in the housing market.

Buying a Home: Use Value vs. Exchange Value

• Reasons to have a house (use value):

  • Basic shelter from the elements.

  • A place to create social relationships and community.

  • An investment that might increase in value and later be sold.

• Housing prices not based on use value:

  • Determined by comparable sales, location, interest rates, etc.

• Acquiring a house:

  • Typically involves acquiring a mortgage (a loan from a bank which is paid back with interest over time) to pay for the sale.

  • The house serves as “collateral,” assets pledged to secure a loan.

  • Banks can repossess a home if mortgage payments are not made.

  • The bank does not care about use value; they are concerned with exchange value.

Defining Property

• Land does not inherently have an exchange value.

  • To have exchange value, it must be able to be bought and sold and become a commodity.

  • To be bought and sold, it must become private property.

  • Property is the commodity form of land.

• What is property?

  • “Relationships between persons with respect to the use or benefit of valued things.” (Dictionary of Human Geography, p. 593)

  • Property includes the object itself and the relationships that govern the use of that object.

  • Legal scholars describe property as a “bundle of rights” or a “bundle of sticks.”

Property as a “Bundle of Sticks”

• Owners may possess all or some of these rights:

  • Right of possession:

    • Legal ownership of property.

  • Right of control:

    • Ability to determine what occurs on the property.

  • Right of exclusion:

    • Ability to prevent others from entering the property.

  • Right of enjoyment:

    • Ability to use the property as desired.

  • Right of disposition:

    • Ability to transfer the property to another owner.

Property as a Solution to Poverty

• Hernando De Soto, a Peruvian economist, argues that people in informal settlements or businesses lack formal land title (property).

  • He calls this “dead capital,” where assets cannot be leveraged for growth and profit.

  • Formal title would allow people to access loans to expand businesses or improve homes, leading them out of poverty.

• Critiques of De Soto’s thesis:

  • Ignores the informal credit market.

  • Assumes formal property rights are universally desirable.

  • Studies show formal land titling efforts have not significantly impacted socio-economic advancement.

Land as Property: Historical Perspective

• Land did not always have an exchange value and was not always property.

• Land became property at a particular historical moment and in a particular time and place.

• This involved legal innovations that reorganized society and the relationships between people and land.

• “Land as property” is a predominant way we think about and engage with land today, but it is not the only way.

• Other forms endure and have been invented.

Land as Commons and Enclosure

• Prior to the 14th century, most of England’s land was “commons.”

  • Commons are lands without a single owner.

  • Anyone could grow food, graze cattle, sleep, eat, and play on these lands.

• Enclosure:

  • A gradual process converted the commons into property, making land a commodity for buying and selling.

  • After enclosure, half of England’s land was owned by single owners.

  • Enclosure is a physical and legal process.

    • Landowners erected physical fences and barriers.

    • The British Parliament passed laws enabling enclosure.

  • Enclosure is connected to colonialism and capitalism.

    • British colonists exported their system of land tenure to the colonies.

    • The working class was birthed from the process of enclosure.

Land Before Enclosure

• Land was organized into manors controlled by lords who retained title.

• Commoners/peasants had rights to the land and paid rent to the lord for access.

  • Commoners practiced subsistence farming (for reproduction rather than mass production).

  • Land was farmed in long strips due to plow technology.

  • Commoners had access to the “commons,” governed collectively through a manorial court controlled by commoners.

Commoners' Lifestyle Before Enclosure

• Commoners practiced subsistence farming, working only as much as needed.

• Medieval life was dominated by a calendar of rituals and festivals rather than work.

• Historians estimate commoners worked about half the days of the year, meaning the land was not actively cultivated year-round.

• Strip farming made it difficult to use land at scale.

• Consensus decision-making was slow.

Enclosure Begins

• Landowners began converting arable land to sheep grazing.

  • The Statute of Merton of 1235 allowed the lord of a manor to enclose land, provided sufficient commons remained for his tenants.

• Social changes from 1235-1450 laid the groundwork for enclosure:

  • The Black Death (bubonic plague epidemic, 1346-1353) led to massive population loss, especially among commoners.

    • Fewer workers meant they could lobby for higher payment for their labor.

  • Grain prices decreased, while wool prices rose, pressuring landowners to increase revenue.

  • This also incentivized commoners to move into sheepherding and enclose land for their own purposes.

Enclosure Continues

• Enclosure was initially chaotic, with landowners undertaking evictions and gradual takeovers of common land.

• Commoners also began to enclose their strip fields.

• In the early 1600s, King James I and King Charles I began draining fenland (peat bogs) previously used for hunting and grazing.

  • Fenland was converted to agriculture and taxed at a higher rate to the crown.

Formal/Parliamentary Enclosure

• Final stage of enclosure.

• Historian Edwin Gay estimates that only 3% of England’s arable land had been enclosed before parliament intervened in 1760, though other historians suggest this number could be low.

  • Enclosure involved a legal/political process.

• Policy makers believed that land would be more productive if enclosed and used for agriculture, leading to a labor surplus for England’s growing industrial sector.

  • British colonization of North America, India, and other parts of the British Isles shifted the economy to industrial production, reducing the need to produce organic material at home.

  • The focus of enclosure shifted from producing sheep pasture to agricultural land.

• Around 4,000 acts of parliament enclosed 7 million hectares of land between 1760 and 1870, amounting to one-sixth of England’s total area.

Impacts of Enclosure

• Urbanization:

  • Those who do not own land do not receive any compensation for the loss of the commons.

  • Many move to find work in England’s growing cities.

  • Food supply increases, sustaining growing urban populations.

  • Growing wage labor/urban population increases demands for consumer goods because they do not have access to land to sustain themselves.

  • Birth of the “working class.”

  • Overall population doubles between 1750-1850.

Economic and Environmental Impacts of Enclosure

• Small landowners sell land to larger owners, leading to some consolidation in land ownership.

• Agriculture booms with new innovations in farming techniques and planting of new crops that could not be easily planted in strip farms.

  • Agricultural productivity rises.

• Changes in the natural environment: peatlands and bogs drained for agricultural production.

Connection with Colonization

• Availability of goods from colonies helps shift away from subsistence production.

• Economy shifts to production of goods for trade.

• Enclosure repeated in Britain’s colonies.

  • English East India Company instituted the Permanent Settlement of Bengal (1793), a process of enclosure across the Bengali countryside that replaced the local commons with a landlord-based system to increase productivity.

  • In North America, enclosure was justified through the rhetoric of productivity. Native populations were seen as failing to cultivate land that could otherwise be put to “productive” use.

Resistance to Enclosure

• Peasants revolted against enclosure beginning in the 14th century.

  • Captain Pouch revolts of 1604-1607: the terms "leveller" and "digger" first appeared, referring to those who levelled the ditches and fences erected by enclosers.

  • Levellers sought to create a type of property holding that would serve commoners, not necessarily opposed to enclosure.

• A small amount of commons still exist in England.

  • Example: Port Meadow in Oxford.

    • The Oxford Freemen have managed Port Meadow since 1551.

Tragedy of the Commons

• Academics have theorized about the viability of sustaining the commons and their role in our economic and social life.

• One important theorization is the “tragedy of the commons.”

  • Developed by Garrett Hardin, ecologist and microbiologist, in a 1968 paper in Science.

  • Controversial figure: associated with eugenics thinking and population control policy.

  • Negative assessment of the commons.

    • "Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all."

Hardin's Argument

• Humans are self-interested actors.

• If presented with a common resource, humans will take more and more of it for themselves.

  • Example of sheep grazing land: Each shepherd adding more sheep, benefiting individually but harming the collective due to overgrazing

  • "Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all."

• Private property is the solution to human selfishness.

  • Related to De Soto’s argument about private property.

Critiques of Hardin's Theory

• Hardin’s theory has been critiqued by many, including political scientist Elinor Ostrom.

• Ostrom was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in economics in 2009.

• Her work focuses on how humans manage “common pool resources” (forests, fisheries, etc.) sustainably.

  • She refutes Hardin’s argument that private property is the only solution to sustainable resource management.

• Ostrom demonstrates that communities develop complex structures to manage resources, though these structures do not always succeed.

Ongoing Struggles Over Enclosure

• Communities around the world push back against the enclosure of the commons and the creation of property out of land.

  • Some struggles are rooted in other approaches and relationships to land not rooted in private property.

  • Other struggles are experiments with alternative land tenure practices.

• Land enclosure is often connected to extractive industries and the use of land for commodity production.

  • Struggles over land enclosure can be connected to struggles over extraction.

MST Land Struggles

• Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) = Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement.

  • A mass social movement, formed by rural workers to fight for land reform and against injustice and social inequality in rural areas.

• Land ownership in Brazil became increasingly concentrated after the 1964 coup which began a period of military dictatorship (1964-1985).

  • In the mid-1980s, out of 370 million hectares of total farm land, 285 million hectares (77%) were held by latifundia (large estates).

  • $1 <br>ewline hectare = 2.47 <br>ewline acres = 100 <br>ewline square <br>ewline meters$

MST Creation and Impact

• Created through a process of occupying latifundios (large landed estates) and became a national movement in 1984.

  • MST initially occupied land in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, deeming this land to be “unproductively used.”

• Over more than two decades, the MST has led more than 2,500 land occupations, with about 370,000 families. These families have settled on 7.5 million hectares of land that they won as a result of the occupations.

  • It is not just about access to land. Through their organizing, these families continue to push for schools, credit for agricultural production and cooperatives, and access to health care. They also have pushed back against the role of multinational corporations in Brazil, particularly in the agricultural sector.

• Currently, there are approximately 900 encampments holding 150,000 landless families in Brazil.

MST Organization and Government Response

• The MST does not have any formal leadership.

• It is organized into groups of 10-15 families (known as a “nucleo de base”) which elect representatives to regional, state, and national coordinating bodies.

• Many other groups lead land occupations alongside the MST in Brazil.

• The Brazilian government has been openly hostile to land occupations as well as somewhat conciliatory.

Community Land Trusts (CLTs)

• A CLT is a nonprofit corporation that holds land on behalf of a place-based community.

  • The land can be used to develop housing and other community spaces.

• The CLT owns the land underneath the development.

  • CLTs split ownership of land and development.

  • Land is still treated as property, but in new ways intended to support community growth and housing affordability.

• Residents purchase homes and lease the land underneath the home from the CLT.

• Bylaws established by the CLT set out how much the home can be sold for and to whom.

  • This is intended to circumvent speculation in land for redevelopment that drives up home prices.

  • Land stays in the control of the CLT board/community.

New Communities CLT

• The first official CLT was New Communities, founded in Georgia in 1969 by civil rights organizers and Black farmers.

  • At the time, Black farmers were being driven off of their land by white landowners and intimidated against political participation.

  • The goal was to acquire land that would be in the hands of the Black farming community, to build a base for self-sustaining agriculture and political organizing.

• New Communities was able to buy nearly 6,000 acres of land and won a $100,000 planning grant from the federal Office of Economic Opportunity.

  • The plan for the land included community-designed housing, transit connections, an education system and university, a health center, a cooperative grocery store, and childcare center, in addition to collectively-owned farmland.

Challenges and Recovery of New Communities

• The land was under cultivation until 1980 when a severe drought impacted crop production.

  • New Communities lost its land in 1985 after they failed to secure an emergency loan from the USDA.

  • However, New Communities won $12 million in <em>Pigford ewline v. ewline Glickman</em> (1999), a class action lawsuit against the discriminatory lending practices of the USDA.</p></li><li><p>They used this money to buy 1,600 acres of former plantation land near Albany that once belonged to the wealthiest slave owner in Georgia. The land is now used for farmland and training new farmers.</p></li></ul></li></ul><h3 id="9eec170f-b5a9-4902-93c6-c40eb1e334cb" data-toc-id="9eec170f-b5a9-4902-93c6-c40eb1e334cb" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Contemporary CLTs</h3><ul><li><p>Today, CLTs are present across the United States.</p></li><li><p>For example, the East Harlem/ El Barrio CLT acquired 4 buildings in NYC in 2020.</p><ul><li><p>These buildings will provide 38 permanently affordable apartments and 3 affordable commercial and community spaces.</p></li><li><p>16 homes will be deeply affordable to families earning 35$38,000 for a
    ewline family
    ewline of
    ewline three$) and 4 will be reserved for people transitioning out of homelessness. The remaining vacant apartments will be affordable to residents at or below 100$CO2$), methane ($CH4$) and nitrous oxide ($N20$).</p></li><li><p>Tied to the industrialization revolution (c. 1750s) and the energy transition to fossil-based fuels in the 1900s.</p></li><li><p>Earth's average surface temperature over the past 500 million years. For most of the time, global temperatures appear to have been too warm (red portions of line) for persistent polar ice caps. The most recent 50 million years are an exception. Image adapted from Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.</p></li></ul><h5 id="71495ebb-2b59-4f19-beba-c660b656b80a" data-toc-id="71495ebb-2b59-4f19-beba-c660b656b80a" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Climate Change</h5><ul><li><p>Climate variability: shorter-term variations (daily, seasonal, annual, inter-annual, several years).</p></li><li><p>Climate change: long-term trends in climate averages (decadal or longer).</p><ul><li><p>Related to meteorological hazards (e.g., hurricanes, droughts, and other atmospheric phenomena).</p></li><li><p>Non-linear with many complex feedback loops.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Global warming: the increase in the planet's overall average temperature in recent decades.</p></li></ul><h5 id="8087c716-50ad-4f2c-80de-f7fcaa5fd5fb" data-toc-id="8087c716-50ad-4f2c-80de-f7fcaa5fd5fb" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Climate Change</h5><ul><li><p>What are some of the causes of climate change and global warming?</p></li><li><p>The primary cause of current climate change is due to human activities, largely increased greenhouse gas emissions due to burning fossil fuels.</p></li><li><p>For this reason, we say that climate change is anthropogenic. (Remember the Anthropocene!)</p></li></ul><h5 id="1c6d5067-fc26-4460-a274-ed98ed970ac7" data-toc-id="1c6d5067-fc26-4460-a274-ed98ed970ac7" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Climate Change</h5><p>The Greenhouse Effect</p><ul><li><p>The greenhouse effect is the process through which heat is trapped near Earth's surface by substances known as greenhouse gases.</p><ul><li><p>The greenhouse effect is vital for life on Earth, keeping the planet at a suitable temperature.</p></li><li><p>Without the greenhouse effect, the average temperature on Earth would be about -18o C, which is too cold for liquid water, and therefore life as we know it could not exist.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>However, human activities are increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which is boosting the greenhouse effect and altering the planet's climate.</p><ul><li><p>The enhanced greenhouse effect is where extra greenhouse gases in our atmosphere trap too much of the Sun's energy. This causes global warming.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Some consequences of the enhanced greenhouse effect, include:</p><ul><li><p>a) Rising average temperatures; b) Shifts in snow and rainfall patterns; c) More extreme climate events such as heatwaves and floods; d) Desertification of fertile areas; e) Melting of glacial masses.</p></li></ul></li></ul><h5 id="f815bc92-8ab9-4c8a-96a4-5050e6a97fa0" data-toc-id="f815bc92-8ab9-4c8a-96a4-5050e6a97fa0" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Climate Change</h5><ul><li><p>The enhanced Greenhouse Effect impacts the Earth’s “global heat budget.”</p></li><li><p>A global heat budget refers to the balance between the incoming solar radiation that reaches Earth from the sun and the outgoing infrared radiation that Earth emits back into space.</p></li><li><p>Incoming heat should roughly equal outgoing heat to maintain a stable temperature.</p><ul><li><p>Outgoing heat has been decreased due to the increase of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere.</p></li></ul></li></ul><h5 id="de12a597-6615-493a-aecc-fdc9c2314c4a" data-toc-id="de12a597-6615-493a-aecc-fdc9c2314c4a" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Climate Change</h5><ul><li><p>The cumulative impact of the enhanced Greenhouse Effect is an example of climate forcing.</p><ul><li><p>Climate forcing is the physical process of affecting the climate on the Earth through a number of forcing/driving factors.</p></li><li><p>Examples of forcings: variations in solar radiation levels, volcanic eruptions, changing albedo (reflectivity) and changing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.</p></li><li><p>These factors are specifically known as forcings because they drive the climate to change and exist outside of the extant climate system.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Current period is characterized by a positive radiative forcing driven largely by human activities.</p></li></ul><h5 id="a5eaf892-5167-469d-b9a1-6ee948de79d9" data-toc-id="a5eaf892-5167-469d-b9a1-6ee948de79d9" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Greenhouse Gas Emissions Today</h5><ul><li><p>According to the US Energy Information Administration, most (about 74$CO2$emissions accounted for about 80$CO2$emissions.</p></li><li><p>Natural gas accounted for about 36$CO2$emissions.</p></li><li><p>Coal accounted for about 9$CO2$emissions.</p></li></ul><h5 id="788a8ea2-4b4d-4bb8-b3fb-6d03dd289d91" data-toc-id="788a8ea2-4b4d-4bb8-b3fb-6d03dd289d91" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Greenhouse Gas Emissions Today</h5><ul><li><p>Consumption of fossil fuels accounts for most of the energy-related$CO2$emissions of the major energy-consuming sectors: commercial, industrial, residential, transportation, and electric power.</p></li><li><p>Although the industrial sector was the highest energy end-use sector in 2023, the transportation sector emitted more$CO2$because of its near complete dependence on petroleum fuels.</p></li></ul><h5 id="a1ab4976-1b8e-4d93-9a93-8be867a77f3d" data-toc-id="a1ab4976-1b8e-4d93-9a93-8be867a77f3d" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Greenhouse Gas Emissions Today</h5><p>History and Geography of Climate Change</p><ul><li><p>The drivers of climate change are not evenly spread out across the globe and across history. Historically, the United States has been the largest emitter of carbon dioxide.</p></li><li><p>Regionally, Europe and Central Asia have historically been the largest emitters of carbon dioxide. Today, China is the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide.</p></li></ul><h5 id="451743b9-6a66-43f4-9094-be440ab68234" data-toc-id="451743b9-6a66-43f4-9094-be440ab68234" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">History and Geography of Climate Change</h5><ul><li><p>Why do we see these geographical differences in greenhouse gas emissions across time and space?</p></li><li><p>One answer: greenhouse gas emissions is directly connected to colonialism, industrialization, and extraction/extractivism.</p><ul><li><p>Beginning in 1850, global$CO2$emissions were dominated by land-use change and forestry.</p></li><li><p>The largest emitters at this time were nations cutting down forests for agriculture and fuel such as the US, Russia, and China.</p></li><li><p>In the US, this is directly connected to settler colonialism as settlers moved across the continent and cleared land for farming.</p></li><li><p>In Europe, land had already been cleared for farming before 1850. (Remember our discussion of private property last week!)</p></li><li><p>At this time, countries like England, France, and Germany were developing their industrial sector fueled by coal.</p></li><li><p>Deforestation also occurred in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of Latin America to grow tobacco and produce rubber.</p></li><li><p>Deforestation has continued, especially in Brazil, as the Amazon rainforest is cut down to make way for cattle grazing land. (Remember our discussion of collagen farming!)</p></li><li><p>China begins to industrialize in the late 20th century, using coal for electricity generation. (Remember our discussion of Chinese economic liberalization in the 1970s and the creation of SEZs!)</p></li></ul></li></ul><h5 id="00c506bb-d1df-4f8a-8925-c8713989fe9b" data-toc-id="00c506bb-d1df-4f8a-8925-c8713989fe9b" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Climate Denialism</h5><ul><li><p>President Trump has called climate change “a Chinese hoax.”</p><ul><li><p>“The social anatomy of climate change denial in the United States” (2024) estimates that 14.8$CO2$emissions relative to 1850–1900,</p></li><li><p>Take into account socio-economic drivers of change, coupled with earth system model climate projections to simulate and understand climate consequences, and model impacts and future risks of different possible future socio-economic development pathways</p></li><li><p>Each scenario uses multiple lines of evidence</p><ul><li><p>Paleoclimate records, observational records, emulators (i.e., simple climate models) and complex Earth system models (ESMs).</p></li></ul></li></ul><h5 id="ea3c0d8c-dbc6-4ee9-9f43-639cd7825121" data-toc-id="ea3c0d8c-dbc6-4ee9-9f43-639cd7825121" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">I. Impacts of climate change</h5><ul><li><p>Climate forcings: is the physical process of affecting the climate on the Earth through a number of forcing/driving factors.</p></li><li><p>These factors are specifically known as forcings because they drive the climate to change and exist outside of the existing climate system.</p><ul><li><p>Example: variations in solar radiation levels, volcanic eruptions, changing albedo (reflectivity) and changing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.</p></li></ul></li></ul><h5 id="19bee192-4eaf-4b3a-a125-78349d399fec" data-toc-id="19bee192-4eaf-4b3a-a125-78349d399fec" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">I. Impacts of Climate Change</h5><ul><li><p>The fact that the climate is changing has ripple effects through multiple geological, ecological, and hydrological systems.</p></li><li><p>Not every extreme weather event is necessarily directly caused by climate change However…</p></li><li><p>Climate change increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events</p></li></ul><h5 id="1c7a802c-da3c-4cb5-81d0-f6f95d6ba775" data-toc-id="1c7a802c-da3c-4cb5-81d0-f6f95d6ba775" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">I. Impact of Climate Change</h5><ul><li><p>Most of the excess atmospheric heat is passed back to the ocean.</p></li><li><p>The ocean is storing an estimated 91 percent of the excess heat energy trapped in the Earth's climate system by excess greenhouse gases.</p></li><li><p>Impacts: sea level rise, coral bleaching, increasing acidification, algae blooms and lower oxygen and habitat disruption</p></li></ul><h5 id="110966a0-b104-4ec0-82ec-bff0f106f80b" data-toc-id="110966a0-b104-4ec0-82ec-bff0f106f80b" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">I. Impacts of Climate Change</h5><p>Annual centers of biomass for three species in the northeastern United States from 1968 to 2015. Dots show change over time. Source: US EPA (2016). Climate Change Indicators in the United States: Marine Species Distribution. Data Source: NOAA (2016). OceanAdapt.</p><h5 id="f7fcf78e-bf1d-4382-b591-122caa9e56c4" data-toc-id="f7fcf78e-bf1d-4382-b591-122caa9e56c4" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">I. Impacts of Climate Change</h5><p>Sea Level Rise</p><p>Rising sea levels increase storm surges, worsen flooding, increase vulnerability to tsunamis, decrease freshwater availability</p><p>Who does this impact?</p><ul><li><p>Approximately 65 million people live globally on small island states</p></li><li><p>Major implications for major cities</p><ul><li><p>NYC is built on a filled in swamp</p></li></ul></li></ul><h5 id="ba9c90c2-1ebb-4221-bf9a-2d6d5d8275de" data-toc-id="ba9c90c2-1ebb-4221-bf9a-2d6d5d8275de" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">I. Impacts of climate change</h5><p>Heat waves</p><ul><li><p>Stagnant warm air masses, and temps that don’t cool much at night</p></li><li><p>Intensity and frequency of high heat events on the rise</p></li><li><p>Health hazard: if a body can’t cool down, it begins to shut down. It is a leading cause of weather related-deaths in the US</p></li><li><p>Especially intense in urban areas, known as the urban heat island effect</p><ul><li><p>This is due to high albedo of concrete, glass and man-made structures</p></li><li><p>Albedo is the reflectivity of a surface</p></li></ul></li></ul><h5 id="9fce3ce6-3741-47fd-a2c0-c333fcfb9a8a" data-toc-id="9fce3ce6-3741-47fd-a2c0-c333fcfb9a8a" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">I. Impacts of climate change</h5><p>Cold Weather events</p><ul><li><p>Climate forcings alter weather patterns</p></li><li><p>Extreme cold events more frequent under climate change</p><ul><li><p>Snow in Texas (1985; 2021; 2024/2025)</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Extreme cold weather events (like a Polar Vortex) happen when the polar jet stream moves south</p></li></ul><h5 id="58342631-f63f-4079-b626-936b62bc5401" data-toc-id="58342631-f63f-4079-b626-936b62bc5401" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">I. Impacts of climate change</h5><p>Wildfires</p><ul><li><p>Climate change exacerbates potential wildfire conditions</p></li><li><p>Droughts, changing rainfall patterns, wind events</p></li><li><p>Wildfires increasing in intensity</p></li><li><p>US West – Projections show that 1C warming could increase burned annual acreage by 600$1.5$million in annual profit.</p></li><li><p>Working class = Young female workers like Ga Hong Mei who travel from the countryside to work in the bead factory. Earn$0.10$per 12 necklaces,$62$per month.</p></li><li><p>Means of production = Bead factory; bead dye vats; bead fastening machines; workers’ dormitory, etc.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>The goal of the capitalist class is to produce surplus value (profit).</p></li><li><p>In order to do this, they must produce and sell more products than are required to cover their costs (surplus product).</p><ul><li><p>If it costs a bead factory owner$1$million to operate his business, he must sell more than$1$million in beads to make a profit.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Surplus profit is then reinvested to produce more profit.</p><ul><li><p>A bead factory owner might use some of his profits to buy new bead-dying machines that can dye beads at a faster rate. This will allow him to produce more beads more quickly.</p></li><li><p>The bead factory owner might also look for other places to invest his profit, such as starting a new business to produce Mardi Gras shot glasses or investing in other development projects.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>What does this have to do with cities?</p><ul><li><p>Harvey argues that building and rebuilding cities is a way for the capitalist class to stabilize the economy in times of crisis; to find a new place of investment for their profits; and to create new markets of consumption for their products.</p></li></ul></li></ul><h5 id="b7d95e68-c011-4cc1-bce1-b87d68d0f741" data-toc-id="b7d95e68-c011-4cc1-bce1-b87d68d0f741" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Example: The Haussmannization of Paris</h5><ul><li><p>1848: France faces poor agricultural harvests and economic depression; unemployed workers in Paris attempt to overthrow the monarchy. These actions are repressed by the government, but the economic situation remains dire.</p><ul><li><p>Paris is crowded, plagued by disease epidemics, poverty, and social unrest.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>1851: Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte (nephew of Napoleon) ascends to power in a coup. He continues to repress oppositional political movements and begins a period of massive infrastructural development.</p><ul><li><p>Colonial infrastructure development abroad, such as the Suez Canal.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>1853: Bonaparte hires Haussmann to redevelop Paris.</p><ul><li><p>Baron Haussmann</p></li></ul></li></ul><p>Example: The Haussmannization of Paris</p><ul><li><p>Much of what we think of as “iconic Paris” today was created through Haussmann’s redevelopment plan:</p><ul><li><p>Wide, straight boulevards</p></li><li><p>Public parks and squares</p></li><li><p>Integration of the suburbs into Paris proper</p></li><li><p>Development of the public sanitation system, including sewers</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Crowded streets and “slums” cleared to make way for new wide boulevards and parks.</p><ul><li><p>Working class and poor residents relocated from the center of the city to the outskirts.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>1870: Haussmann is dismissed by Bonaparte, in part due to the high costs and debt incurred by the redevelopment process.</p><ul><li><p>Rue de Rivoli, the first boulevard built by Haussmann</p></li><li><p>Boulevard Saint-Germain</p></li><li><p>Place de l’Etoile</p></li></ul></li></ul><p>Example: The Haussmannization of Paris</p><ul><li><p>In order to redevelop Paris, Haussmann needed new “financial institutions and debt instruments” (Harvey 2008, p. 26).</p><ul><li><p>Credit Mobilier created by bankers in close collaboration with Haussmann to fund redevelopment and other government initiatives.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Redevelopment also created new avenues for consumption in Paris.</p><ul><li><p>Tourism, cafes, department stores, the new fashion capital.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Both financing redevelopment and creating new avenues for consumption provide ways for the capitalist class to invest its surplus and find new markets for its products.</p></li><li><p>It also stabilized the rule of Bonaparte, reinforcing state power.</p><ul><li><p>Stills from the Emily in Paris trailer</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Harvey’s connection between capitalism and urban development helps us think about who influences the production of urban spaces.</p><ul><li><p>Who is a city for?</p></li><li><p>Who can live where and why?</p></li><li><p>What industries does a city support?</p></li><li><p>What functions does a city serve?</p></li><li><p>What is the power geometry of cities?</p></li></ul></li><li><p>But, is this the whole story?</p></li></ul><p>Discussion Question</p><ul><li><p>Harvey invites us to think about cities as a product of capitalism. What might he be missing in describing how cities develop by focusing only on capitalism and surplus product/value?</p></li></ul><h5 id="69cdafae-097e-4ace-8a20-5369d4c4195a" data-toc-id="69cdafae-097e-4ace-8a20-5369d4c4195a" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Urban Renewal</h5><ul><li><p>Haussmann’s redevelopment of Paris is an early example of urban renewal.</p></li><li><p>Urban renewal is:</p><ul><li><p>“A term referring to a range of strategies aimed at reshaping urban landscapes and remedying social and economic problems associated with run-down inner-city neighborhoods.”</p></li><li><p>“These strategies [are] generally promoted by state actors and business interests.”</p></li><li><p>“…they generally result in massive landscape change and the displacement of large numbers of existing residents” (Dictionary of Human Geography, p. 790).</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Urban renewal targets inner or central city locations which have become rundown due to disinvestment by the state and business interests.</p></li><li><p>These locations are generally inhabited by poor or working class communities and/or communities of color.</p><ul><li><p>Described as “blighted,” unsafe, unsanitary by developers.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Era of urban renewal typically refers to large-scale redevelopment projects in the 1950-70s.</p><ul><li><p>“…characterized by massive public works projects that razed established neighborhoods in favor of new commercial districts, housing projects, and highways in the name of modernization…These projects were conceived and driven by powerful state bureaucracies and, in some cases, by powerful individuals such as New York’s Robert Moses” Dictionary of Human Geography, p. 790).</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Contemporary examples of urban renewal:</p><ul><li><p>Construction of Barclays Center Stadium in downtown Brooklyn (2012)</p></li><li><p>Redevelopment of central Seine area in Paris for the Summer Olympics (2024)</p></li><li><p>Redevelopment of New Jersey industrial waterfront (Jersey City, Hoboken) (1990s-present)</p></li></ul></li><li><p>New Brunswick has its own history of urban renewal, beginning in the 1970s.</p></li></ul><h5 id="6f36462e-71cd-489f-a738-35e687e95cd7" data-toc-id="6f36462e-71cd-489f-a738-35e687e95cd7" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Example: Manilatown in The Fall of the I Hotel (1983)</h5><ul><li><p>Manilatown is part of San Francisco’s larger “Chinatown,” home to Filipino, Chinese, and Japanese communities.</p></li><li><p>In the 1920-30s, Filipino immigrants began to settle in Manilatown, many after serving in the US Army during WW1.</p></li><li><p>US immigration laws prevent the immigration of Filipino women until 1965; the initial wave of immigrants are single men.</p></li><li><p>The I Hotel is one of many single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels in the neighborhood that are affordable and cater to single men.</p><ul><li><p>Close to community amenities such as bars, restaurants, and shops.</p></li><li><p>Many people live in these hotels for decades.</p></li></ul></li></ul><p>Example: Manilatown in The Fall of the I Hotel (1983)</p><ul><li><p>1960s: Several development projects target neighborhoods for urban renewal.</p><ul><li><p>Golden Gateway project targets the Produce Market area which occupies several dozen blocks of space near downtown San Francisco.</p></li><li><p>“The investors just wouldn’t come in…”</p></li><li><p>San Francisco used the power of eminent domain to take property in this area and then sell it to private developers.</p></li><li><p>Eminent domain = government acquisition of private property for “public” use.</p></li><li><p>Part of a larger project of redeveloping land around the downtown financial district to provide new tax dollars for the city and incentivize further private development.</p></li><li><p>Manilatown businesses and low income housing replaced with luxury hotels, condos, and parking lots.</p></li><li><p>Developers want to turn the I Hotel into a parking lot.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>San Francisco’s Produce Market, circa 1959</p></li><li><p>Demolition of the Produce Market, 1963</p></li><li><p>Produce Market, circa 2007</p></li></ul><p>Example: Manilatown in The Fall of the I Hotel (1983)</p><ul><li><p>In the film, we see the manongs (Filipino elders) struggle to stay in the I Hotel (1970). Many have no other place to go.</p></li><li><p>We see Filipino businesses such as the pool hall and barbershop close as rents in the neighborhood increase.</p></li><li><p>The original I Hotel is demolished (1978).</p></li><li><p>A new I Hotel was constructed in 2007 which today provides 104 units of housing for low income seniors.</p></li><li><p>The infrastructure of Manilatown is changed and diminished.</p></li><li><p>But, wait! Doesn’t change always happen? Aren’t urban neighborhoods always being torn down and rebuilt?</p></li><li><p>Yes, change is inevitable. In itself, it is neither good nor bad.</p></li><li><p>But, we can use the concept of power geometry to ask:</p><ul><li><p>Who or what is driving change?</p></li><li><p>What tools or processes make change possible?</p></li><li><p>Who benefits from change?</p></li><li><p>Who suffers because of change?</p></li><li><p>How is the built environment shifting?</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Doreen Massey on power geometry: “It is not simply a question of unequal distribution, that some people move more than others, and that some have more control than others. It is that the mobility and control of some groups can actively weaken other people. Differential mobility can weaken the leverage of the already weak. The time-space-compression of some groups can undermine the power of others.” (Massey 1991, p. 26)</p></li></ul><h5 id="6f3c26b1-963b-4a86-9e67-546ce032efcf" data-toc-id="6f3c26b1-963b-4a86-9e67-546ce032efcf" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Planetary Urbanization</h5><ul><li><p>Why is it so important for us to study cities?</p></li><li><p>It is important for us to study cities because they are now the dominant form of human settlement. More people live in cities than rural areas.</p></li></ul><p>Planetary Urbanization</p><ul><li><p>Why are cities growing?</p><ul><li><p>Global population is increasing unevenly with a concentration in urban areas.</p></li><li><p>Global movement away from agriculture/rural environments to cities.</p></li><li><p>Global population growth is expected to continue, especially in megacities (10+ million inhabitants) and mid-sized cities (1-5 million inhabitants).</p></li><li><p>According to the World Economic Forum, over a third of projected urban population growth will occur in India, China, and Nigeria.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>We are also seeing an increasing number of people living in large urban agglomerations of over$1$$ million inhabitants.

  • With the rise of urbanization, we are also seeing the rise of:

    • Urban informality

    • Splintering urbanism

  • These phenomena indicate a changing urban form, particularly in the Global South.

  Urban Informality

  • According to a 2012 UN Habitat report, about a third of urban inhabitants in the “developing world” live in “slums” and squatter settlements. We can refer to these types of settlements as “urban informality.”

  • These informal settlements often feature:

    • Crowded housing

    • Restricted access to electricity, water, and sanitation facilities

    • A lack of healthcare facilities and other resources

    • Insecure land tenure, threat of eviction

    • Informal economy (businesses operating outside of state regulatory frameworks; including: street vending, unlicensed goods production, domestic work)

  Example: Dharavi, Mumbai, India

  • Nearly a square mile large with a million inhabitants; the densest population area in India.

  • Located near the Mumbai airport, the Western and Central Railways, and upscale Bandra Kula Complex in the southern part of the city.

  • Dharavi was originally a mangrove swamp where fisherpeople lived and worked.

  • During the British Colonial period (mid-19th century), workers began migrating to Dharavi, particularly leather workers and embroiderers from Uttar Pradesh.

  • Waves of migration built out Dharavi’s residential and industrial quarters.

  Example: Dharavi, Mumbai, India

  • A 2023 Al Jazeera article estimates that there are 12,000 small businesses focused on pottery making, garment manufacturing, and recycling.

  • Homes are typically made out of corrugated metal, wooden planks, and other scrap materials.

    • Built without permits, though residents have attempted to secure legal land tenure.

    • Lack of formal infrastructure, such as indoor plumbing.

  • Due to its central location, there have been multiple attempts to redevelop Dharavi since the mid-1990s.

  • Most recently, billionaire Gautam Adani has won a bid to redevelop the area into a “world-class city.”

    • From Adani’s corporate website:

    • Source: https://www.adani.com/en/blogs/dharavi-a-human-centric-transformation

  Splintering Urbanism

  • In Splintering Urbanism (2001), Geographers Graham and Marvin argue that the nature of urban infrastructure has changed in the late 20th century.

  • The modern city was designed to be connected through infrastructure such as street networks and utility grids (electricity, water, sewage, telephone, etc.).

    • A goal of urban planning and design was to create universally accessible and uniform infrastructure.

    • Remember Haussmann’s creation of a network of wide boulevards in Paris.

  • Infrastructure has become “unbundled.” It is designed to only serve certain parts of the city or certain populations.

  • Graham and Martin argue that this phenomenon is occurring globally, though in different ways.

  • Some examples:

    • Uneven drinking water and sewage: in Mumbai, water is distributed to gated communities and wealthy areas through pipes. Informal settlement inhabitants use these pipes as footpaths. They buy bottled water sold by private companies at high prices.

    • Private streets and gated communities: gated communities have sprung up across North and South America and Asia. These communities are walled off from the rest of the city, have their own security patrol and utility service.

  • The unevenness of infrastructure is often highly visible.

  Discussion question: Can you think of other examples of splintering urbanism in the United States

  
  

  
  

  Week 14

  Class Agenda

  • Tuesday

    1. Cities Review

    2. The Right to the City

    3. Black Futures and Marronage

    4. Lockdown Browser Test

    5. SIRS Evaluations

  • Thursday

    1. Final Exam Review Session

  Review: Cities

  Last week we talked about cities as:

  • A unit of geographic measurement whose definition varies by country.

  • A type of human settlement that has existed for thousands of years.

  • The dominant mode of human settlement across the globe as of the early 2000s.

    • This trend will continue in the future due to population increase and the overall decline of agricultural labor.

    • This comes with the rise of increased urban informality and splintering urbanism.

    • unequalscenes.com: Cape Town

  Review: Cities

  We also looked at David Harvey’s definition:

  • “From their inception, cities have arisen through geographical and social concentrations of a surplus product” (Harvey 2008, p. 24).

  • The development of cities is guided by the need of the capitalist class to make profit and have a place to invest that profit.

    • The capitalist class invests in building cities when they need new places to put their surplus.

    • And, cities are places of consumption where the capitalist class can sell their products.

  Review: Cities

  Example: The Haussmannization of Paris

  • Much of what we think of as “iconic Paris” today was created through Haussmann’s redevelopment plan:

    • Wide, straight boulevards

    • Public parks and squares

    • Integration of the suburbs into Paris proper

    • Development of the public sanitation system, including sewers

  • Crowded streets and “slums” cleared to make way for new wide boulevards and parks.

    • Working class and poor residents relocated from the center of the city to the outskirts.

  • 1870: Haussmann is dismissed by Bonaparte, in part due to the high costs and debt incurred by the redevelopment process.

    • Rue de Rivoli, the first boulevard built by Haussmann

  The Right to the City

  HHarvey argues that the construction and urban fabric of cities serves the capitalist class and depends on the exploitation of the working class. This is unjust, unfair, and leaves the working class without control over the urban environment. He proposes a solution to combat this inequality:

  • The Right to the City

    Organizers outside of the I Hotel.

  The Right to the City

  Defining the Right to the City:

  Building on work by French philosopher Henri Lefebvre’s Le droit à la ville (1968):

  “The right to the city cannot be conceived of as a simple visiting right or as a return to traditional cities. It can only be formulated as a transformed and renewed right to urban life.” (Lefebvre 1968)

  Harvey’s definition:

  “The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city. It is, moreover, a common rather than an individual right since this transformation inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power to reshape the processes of urbanization.” (Harvey 2008, p. 23)

  “Greater democratic control over the production and utilization of the surplus. Since the urban process is a major channel of surplus use, establishing democratic management over its urban deployment constitutes the right to the city.” (p. 37)

  Discussion Question

  What is a right?

  What Is a Right?

  What Is A Right?

  • The US Constitution references the concept of natural rights.

    • “All men are created equal.”

    • “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

  • These are rights that are rooted in “human nature” (“self-evident,” “unalienable,” “endowed by their Creator”).

    • They are universal and cannot be repealed by a government.

  • Connected to the idea of natural law: that there is an inherent, universal moral order in all human society that should not be violated.

  • Rights are granted to individual humans.

  What Is A Right?

  • Philosophical inquiry into natural rights dates back to at least ancient Greece and the beginning of the Stoic philosophical movement circa 300 BCE.

    • Stoics believe that man is inherently free and cannot be enslaved.

  • Particular interest in natural rights during the European Enlightenment (18th century).

  • John Locke (1632-1704): English philosopher with influence on the writers of the US Constitution.

    • In The Second Treatise on Government (1689), Locke writes, “The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule.”

    • Locke connects individual freedom with property rights. Because man “owns” himself, he also “owns” the product of his labor.

    John Locke

  What Is A Right?

  • Natural rights are different from legal rights.

  • Legal rights are those determined and guaranteed by law or a form of social contract.

  • Laws might guarantee a natural right.

    • Example: a constitution might guarantee some form of equality between citizens.

  • Example:

    • The First Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees the right to free speech:

  What Is A Right?

  How are natural rights different from human rights?

  What Is a Right?

  • Human rights are similar in concept to natural rights.

    • They are rights that are imagined to be applicable to all human beings.

    • They are applied to individual humans.

  • Human rights emerged as a concept after World War II and the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the newly-formed United Nations (1948).

  • The Declaration has 30 statutes, noting a range of rights:

  What Is a Right?

  • UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not legally binding.

  • It forms the basis for international human rights treaties and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1976) which make the Declaration binding for signatories.

  Preamble to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

  What Is a Right?

  Danish Institute for Human Rights

  The Right to the City

  How does the Right to the City fit into these definitions?

  • We can think of the Right to the City as a type of natural or human right.

    • All human beings should have the ability to live in cities that serve them.

  • It is a collective not an individual right.

    • Different than traditional conceptions of natural or human rights.

  • It is about shaping the space we inhabit as humans: urban infrastructure.

  • It also suggests a process for securing the right:

    • “Greater democratic control over the production and utilization of the surplus. Since the urban process is a major channel of surplus use, establishing democratic management over its urban deployment constitutes the right to the city.” (p. 37)

  Case Study: Right to the City in Brazil

  • Brazil is the one nation in the world that has legally enshrined the Right to the City.

  • Brazil urbanized rapidly from 1940 to 2010 as the country industrialized.

    • Informal settlements (favelas), poverty, and inequality increased throughout this process.

    • The 2022 Brazilian census found 12,348 favelas, home to 16,390,815 people which represents 8.1% of the country’s population. This is a 6.1% increase from the 2010 census.

  • In 2001, a City Statute was inserted into the Brazilian Constitution to recognize the collective right to the city.

    • This builds on 1988 Constitutional reforms which were created through social movement organizing.

    • In the mid-1980s, “social movements – constituted primarily by the National Urban Reform Movement (Movimento Nacional de Reforma Urbana, MNRU) – gathered more than 12 million signatures supporting popular amendments for urban reform based on the idea of the right to the city. The popular amendment on urban policy of 1987 containing 131,000 signatures – which was formulated, discussed and signed by various social organizations participating in the MNRU (such as housing movements, residents’ associations, non-government organizations (NGOs) and professional associations) – recognized the following general principles: the autonomy of municipal government; the democratic management of cities; the social right to housing; the right to the regularization of consolidated informal settlements; the social function of urban property; and the need to combat land and property speculation in urban areas” (Friendly 2013, p. 162)

  Case Study: Right to the City in Brazil

  • 2001 City Statute provides cities struggling with social inequality tools to confront them and affirms that the regulation of property is a public rather than a private issue.

    • Urban land should serve a primarily social rather than financial role.

  • Examples of tools defined by the constitution:

    • “To deal with vacant urban land and real estate speculation, parcelamento, edificacao ou utilização compulsórios (PEUC) requires owners to use underutilized land to make full use of properties” (Friendly 2013, p. 165).

    • “The Statute formalizes and protects the occupied land of the urban poor through the use of special zones of social interest (ZEIS), where community efforts identify special conditions for informal settlements” (Friendly 2013, p. 165)

    • All cities larger than 200,000 are required to have democratic participation in the creation of a master plan.

  Case Study: Right to the City in Brazil

  • Just because a law is on the books does not mean it has achieved the right to the city.

    • Friendly (2013) finds that many Brazilian municipalities lack the resources to carry out the statute.

    • Democratic participation is uneven and it is often unclear what participation means.

    • The statute is not legally binding on cities. Cities can choose which, if any, provisions of the statute to implement.

    • A report in Polis magazine from 2012 found that some “special zones of social interest” (ZEIS) areas in São Paulo are being used for private development while others are being used to offset the displacement from development.

  Challenges to Rights-Based Frameworks

  What are some possible issues to relying on the concept of “rights” (legal, natural, or human) to ensure our wellbeing, including what our cities look like?

  Challenges to Rights-Based Frameworks

  What are some possible issues to relying on the concept of “rights” (legal, natural, or human) to ensure our wellbeing, including what our cities look like?

  • Rights, even if we believe they are inherent to human beings or human society, need to be guaranteed by someone or something.

    • Often, the institutions that we have created to protect our rights are weak or fail.

  • It is difficult to translate some natural/human rights into defensible policies or laws.

    • What concretely is “the pursuit of happiness?” What is “liberty?”

  Thinking Beyond Rights

  Throughout this class we have looked at multiple ways that communities have tried to make the spaces they inhabit more equal, more just, and in line with social needs rather than profit.

  • MST land occupations in Brazil.

  • Zapatista uprising in southern Mexico.

  • Wages for housework movement in the US and Europe.

  These movements may engage with human rights treaties and advocate for their enforcement or expansion. But, they are fundamentally about attempting to occupy space/land in a new way that centers individual and community wellbeing.

  Thinking Beyond Rights

  One final concept can help us think about how communities have and still do create thriving spaces in the face of capitalism, colonialism, and other forms of violence and exploitation.

  Marronage

  According to Oxford Bibliographies, marronage is defined as:

  “The term ‘maroons’ refers to people who escaped slavery to create independent groups and communities on the outskirts of slave societies. Scholars generally distinguish two kinds of marronage, though there is overlap between them. ‘Petit marronage,’ or running away, refers to a strategy of resistance in which individuals or small groups, for a variety of reasons, escaped their plantations for a short period of days or weeks and then returned. ‘Grand marronage,’ much less prevalent, … refers to people who removed themselves from their plantations permanently.”

  Marronage

  Marronage encompasses:

  • A historical practice by enslaved individuals, particularly Afro-descendants in the Americas, to remove themselves from the society in which they are enslaved.

  • The creation of new societies by the formerly enslaved.

    • In the Americas, maroon communities sometimes included Indigenous people alongside the formerly enslaved.

  • Maroon communities often formed in places considered “uninhabitable,” “dangerous,” or “toxic” by the dominant social group.

  • A present day practice within Black communities that are descended from maroon communities or seeking to establish space and social practices outside of racist and violent societies.

  Marronage

  The Blackecologies reading helps us understand what marronage can look like in practice.

  Marronage

  Kathryn Benjamin-Golden (pp. 40-45) writes about the Great Dismal Swamp in North Carolina:

  • The swamp was a place where enslaved people were forced to gather timber for sale in the 18th and 19th century (“a lucrative extractive economy”).

    • Depicted as: “closely intermixed with a matted body of strong fibrous roots, vines, and vegetative productions everywhere,” it’s “dark and dreary shade altogether impervious to the rays of the sun.”

  • But, it was also a place of escape from slavery.

    • Those who worked in the swamp knew its geography and ecology so well that they knew where to hide if necessary, where to gather food, and where to meet.

    • “Subsistence and self-sustenance was dependent upon the swamp’s rich wildlife, teeming as it was with raccoon, deer, possum, duck, partridges, pheasant, fish, muskrats, frogs, turtles and snakes. Maroons raised rice, grain, and other vegetation natural to the swamp, and grew corn and potatoes on the drier patches not perpetually flooded and under water.”

    • “The waterways and forested swamps were opportunities to construct alternative lives of perpetual evasion and sociality against captivity, exclusion, and premature death.” (p. 44)

  The Great Dismal Swamp, North Carolina
  Images: Encyclopedia Virginia
  Moses Gandy’s book is one of the main primary sources that details life and marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp.
  Harper’s Monthly published a story in 1856 about Osman, a formerly enslaved man living in the Swamp.

  Marronage

  Hilda Lloréns & Carlos G. García-Quijano (p. 35) observe similar practices among Black/Afro-descended residents of coastal and rural Puerto Rico.

  • They chart how Black communities have found a way to survive despite the prevalence of toxic sugar cane plantations and refineries and the growth of other extractive industries (oil refineries, pharmaceutical production) which have polluted the natural environment.

    • “The region’s wetlands, mangroves, and dense-rural steep mountainsides, considered ‘uninhabitable’ by European settlers at the time, became Black communities where residents lived unencumbered by whites. Historically these undesirable “Black places” became home to fugitive and freed Black people.” (p. 31)

  • They note that these historical practices have persisted into the present.

    • “These include the cultivation of subsistence agricultural plots, fishing and foraging, using plant and herbs for medicinal purposes, maintaining familial and community networks of sharing, exchange, reciprocity and mutual aid as defense strategy and as alternative livelihoods from wage-labor peonage and debt, the stewardship of non-human animals as well as the local environment, while still eating and drinking from it, and rejection of metropolitan ways of life, politics and values all systems which were built and passed down intergenerationally. These ‘maroon’ cultural values are not a relic of the past but are still practiced.” (p. 34)

  Marronage

  • Marronage helps us understand how enslaved people found a way to create communities of freedom despite a hostile social system.

  • It shows us how important ecology/the natural environment are to these freedom practices.

    • Dangerous or toxic places become sites to build new communities.

  • It provides a possible model for building communities in the present that resist or are outside of the violence inherent in our world today.

  A group of people who escaped slavery photographed in Virginia. May 14, 1862. Source: Library of Congress.

  Discussion Question

  HHarvey says that by changing the city, we change ourselves.

  1. What is one change we could make to cities and how would it change us?

  Lockdown Browser Test

  For this quiz, which counts as your final attendance quiz for this class, you will be downloading the Canvas lockdown browser and answering one question. Like all attendance quizzes, this quiz is worth two points. We are doing this to avoid the issue we ran into during the midterm exam where many students were unable to successfully download the browser and access the exam. If you are unsuccessful in downloading the browser, you will still get credit for this quiz. Attempt to access the quiz a few times -- try different browsers, closing out of all windows, clearing your cookie cache and browsing history, shutting down your computer, etc. If you are still unsuccessful, you may go to the front of the room and sign a piece of paper to get credit for the attendance quiz. Canvas will log who was able to take the quiz. If you are not able to successfully take the Lockdown Browser quiz, please come write your name on the sign in sheet at the podium after class. This will ensure that you get credit.

  Professor Katz: Tuesday Lecture
  Professor Gagliano: Thursday Lecture

  Geography 103 Week 14: April 29 and May 1 Final Class Housekeeping

  If you have not filled out the SIRS evaluations, please take some time to do so.

  • We cannot read these until after grades are due, but they will help us in improving the course moving forward.

  Check your grades on Canvas! If you have any questions about grades, email Professor Katz and Professor Gagliano now! Or come talk to us after class today.

  Professor Katz: Tuesday Lecture
  Professor Gagliano: Thursday Lecture

  Respondus Lockdown Browser Test (again)

  Summer Session I GEOG 205: World Cultural Regions

  Instructor: Jamie Gagliano

  This class will undertake questions in cultural geography like:

  • How and why does culture shift across time and space?

  • What social, environmental, and economic forces shape culture?

  • What is the relationship between culture and power?

  • What influence does music, food, memory and the internet have on our collective cultures?
    Course satisfies SCL and HST requirements for SAS Core
    Course satisfies Global Culture,Economics & Society Track in GEO

  FINAL REVIEW!!!

  Exam Logistics

  May 14, 4pm-7pm, in person, Academic Building West 2125 (our usual classroom)

  • Format update!

    • 40 multiple choice questions (0.5 points each)

    • 10 ID questions where you will match a term to its definition (1 point each)

  • Study guide is posted to Canvas

  • Exam is cumulative but more weighted toward second half

  • Bring a fully charged laptop

  • Exam will require Respondus Lockdown Browser
    tip – uninstall the browser from your computer if you are having issues accessing the exam

  Final Review
  Subdisciplines we have discussed since the midterm
  Environment/Society Geographies
  Activist Geographies
  Which are subdisciplines that build from theories of development, colonialism, Black geographies, Feminist/Queer geographies, and labor geographies

  Environment/Society Geographies: Extractivism

  1. How are geographies of extractivism linked to histories of colonialism and uneven development?

  2. What is an example of a commodity chain? What are its different component parts?

  3. Why is it important to understand commodity chains? What is the relationship between commodity chains and our contemporary era of globalization? How has technology changed extractive industries?

  Environment/Society Geographies: Extractivism

  1. What are some of the human impacts of extractive industries?

  2. How is extractivism linked to environmental racism?

  3. What is environmental justice? How does it try to redress the issues brought about by extractive industries and environmental racism?

  Environment/Society Geographies: Land & Food

  1. What is the difference between land having a use value and having an exchange value? Why is it important to think about both?

  2. How did land become transformed into property? What does property entail? How is property different from a commons relationship to land?

  3. How did the Green Revolution transform agriculture systems? What are some of the impacts of Green Revolution agriculture?

  4. How does food sovereignty and agroecology challenge Green Revolution agriculture?

  Environment/Society Geography: Climate Change

  1. How is weather different from climate? What do we mean when we say the climate is changing? What scientific methods are used to measure climate change?

  2. What are some of the human impacts from climate change? How are communities and institutions trying to respond to conditions of climate change?

  3. What does it mean to talk about climate change and its impacts being uneven? How does this relate to the concept of climate justice?

  Activist Geographies: Right to the City

  1. What is a city?

  2. How are cities related to capital surplus according to David Harvey?

  3. What is urban renewal? What are some examples of urban renewal and how have they changed cities?

  4. Why do we discuss the process of urbanization as planetary? How are cities changing as a growing share of the global population live in urban areas? How does this change how “the urban” is experience by people?

  Activist Geographies: Black Futurisms

  1. What is a right? How are legal rights and natural rights distinct? What are the limitations of taking a rights-based approach to issues of access, equity and survival?

  2. What is marronage? What different types of marronage have we defined in this class? How is marronage distinct from a rights-based approach to survival and access?

  3. If marronage is something that historically and currently exists, why is it also important to frame it as a future oriented project?