Concepts


  1. Space 

Space in geographical terms is not just an empty area or distance between objects; it is actively constructed by social relations, power, and cultural practices. For example, the concept of “gendered spaces” discussed by Petra Doan highlights how public spaces like restrooms enforce gender norms and control the behavior of non-binary individuals, illustrating how space can regulate social interactions and identities.



  1. Culture  

Culture refers to the shared practices, values, norms, and symbols that shape a community’s way of life. In Laura Pulido’s article, the concept of culture is reflected in the use of the mythical Aztlán by Chicanx communities to reclaim their Indigenous roots and resist U.S. colonial narratives. This cultural symbol serves as a unifying identity marker, linking the community to a shared past and struggle.



  1. Political Geography 

Political geography examines how political power, state boundaries, and governance shape and are shaped by geographic space. For instance, Pulido’s discussion of Chicanx studies addresses how political geography intersects with racial and settler-colonial power dynamics, showing how borders and state sovereignty influence the political subjectivity of Chicanx communities.



  1. Physical geography

Physical geography focuses on the natural features of the Earth, such as climate, terrain, and ecosystems, and their influence on human activities. For example, in discussions on environmental racism, physical geography can explain how marginalized communities are often located in areas with poor environmental conditions, such as toxic waste sites or flood-prone regions, due to systemic inequalities.



  1. Mercator Projection 

The Mercator projection is a type of map projection that distorts the size of landmasses, making regions like Europe and North America appear disproportionately larger. This projection was historically used to emphasize European dominance and facilitate maritime navigation. It serves as an example of how cartography can reflect political and cultural biases, influencing how we perceive the world spatially.



  1. Geographic Information Science 

GIScience involves the use of technology to collect, analyze, and interpret geographic data. It supports spatial analysis and mapping, playing a crucial role in urban planning and environmental management. An example is how GIScience can be used to analyze the spatial distribution of pollution in urban areas, identifying neighborhoods that are disproportionately affected by environmental hazards.



  1. Ice Cores 

Ice cores are cylindrical samples extracted from ice sheets or glaciers, providing valuable data on past climate conditions. They contain trapped air bubbles that allow scientists to analyze historical changes in atmospheric composition and temperature. For example, studying ice cores from Antarctica has helped scientists understand long-term climate patterns and the impact of human activities on global warming.



  1. Dendrochronology 

Dendrochronology is the study of tree rings to understand historical environmental conditions. Each ring represents a year of growth, and variations in ring width can indicate changes in climate, such as droughts or wet periods. This method has been used to date archaeological sites and study past climate events that have impacted human societies.



  1. Human Geography 

Human geography focuses on the relationships between people and their environments, considering how human activities shape and are shaped by geographical spaces. For instance, Pulido’s analysis of settler colonialism involves human geography by examining how racial and ethnic dynamics are influenced by land, boundaries, and geopolitical histories in settler-colonial contexts like the U.S.

 

  1. Critical Cartography 

Critical Cartography is a discipline which demonstrates the flawed process of mapmaking and that maps are not objective, not natural, and reflect power. An example of critical cartography is our first group assignment, in which we discussed how a Boston College campus map may be misleading since it does not depict elevation or accessible routes. 



  1. Primitive Accumulation

Primitive Accumulation is the expropriation of land and resources of the colonized and its transfer to capital for the colonizer. This transfer of wealth resulted in the colonizer becoming very wealthy and the de-development of the colonized place, which may still be seen today. The British exploitation of India’s cotton production is an example of Primitive Accumulation, as the British de-developed India’s textile industry by forcing cotton India to produce and export cotton to England, and led to a massive wealth-gain for the British.



  1. Postcolonial Theory 

Postcolonial Theory is a critical academic field that explores how the world is still affected by colonialism and critiques Eurocentric thought structure. Our class discussion of the film Aladdin is an example of Postcolonial Theory, as Said’s idea of Orientalism discusses how Western thought perpetuates a view of the Middle East in opposition to that of the West. 



  1. East India Company  

An East India Company is an officially chartered joint-stock company of a European monarchy that is hired to deal with a sector of trade and generate capital for the crown. An example of an East India Company is the British East India Company, which forced Indians to produce cotton as a cash-crop, generating immense wealth for Great Britain. 



  1. Orientalism 

Orientalism is a misleading Eurocentric perspective reliant on the superiority of the West, defining “The Orient,” or the East, as “exotic” and opposite to the West. An example of Orientalism is our class discussion on the film Aladdin, in which we identified how the movie exemplifies the West’s view of the Orient as less civilized and developed than the West. 



  1. Eurocentrism 

Eurocentrism is an ideological construction of binaries between Europe and the rest of the world, perpetuating a world view that centers around Europe as the ideal way of life and a superior form of developed society.. An example of Eurocentrism is the location of the prime meridian as going through Great Britain. This aspect of cartography perpetuates a colonial view of England and Western Europe as the center of the world. 



  1. Middle East 

The Middle East is an area of the world, typically encompassing people that identify as Arab and speak Arabic, that is difficult to clearly define the borders of. The Middle East is an example of Eurocentric thought, as the name  refers to an area of the world between Europe and the East, thus, classifying it as the “Middle East.” 



  1. Overseas France 

Overseas France refers to the territories outside of Europe that are still viewed as part of France and have varying states of autonomy and territorial designations. Some of these territories have representation in the French Parliament, while others do not. This is an example of postcolonial theory because there are still many French territories, such as French Polynesia, that are not independent and display the state of today’s world in relation to the colonial past and its continued impact. 



  1. Colonial binaries 

Colonial binaries are cultural creations about the oppositions of people, often the colonies and their colonial powers, which overemphasizes and creates differences between the two groups. This dichotomy perpetuates conflict and may lead to a hierarchy of positional superiority. An example of colonial binaries is the binary of majority world women, who are often seen as helpless and victims, and developed world women, who are typically viewed as more independent and strong. 



  1. Colonial Present

Colonial present refers to the idea that the effects of colonialism are still ongoing and impacting the social, political, and economic aspects of their former colonies. An example of colonial present can be seen when examining former French colonial countries in West Africa and how they are under the CFA economic system. The CFA devalues the currency of the respective African countries and makes it so that the French get better deals when trading with these colonies.



  1. Settler colonialism 

Settler colonialism is a form of colonization that is aimed at displacing indigenous people and taking over their land. Settler colonialism is genocidal and differs from traditional colonialism because it goes beyond merely accumulating resources. An example of settler colonialism can be seen in the United States. The original colonizers not only took over the land of the Indigenous population but also displaced and committed an act of genocide against them



  1. Settler 

A settler is a person who moves into a new land with previous inhibitors with the intention of staying there. An example of a settler is the European powers who took over South Africa and fulfilled their goal of permanently staying by taking their land, controlling their finances, and uprooting their lives



  1. Indigeneity

Indigeneity relates to a person's identity that links them to a specific place originally. Indigeneity is something that can not be gained, but can only be maintained or dwindled down. An example of indigeneity can be seen in the context of the United States and the role Native Americans have played in its history. 



  1. Imperial Ecologies

Imperial colonies are an environmental transformation. The reshaping of environments to benefit imperial powers. Imperial ecologies examines how imperialism is intertwined with the transformation of the environment,

An example is The homestead act → the midwest has been completely transformed through the implementation of these policies. The homestead act changed land into agricultural communities that benefited settlers



  1. Sovereignty 

Sovereignty is the authority of a government to govern over itself or another state. An example of this is how colonialists in the United States did not recognize Indigenous peoples states as their own sovereign states.



  1. Blood Quantum

Blood quantum engulfs people into whiteness. Ethnic people disappear under blood quantum because they get classified as white. Blood quantum ties into the idea that whiteness is ever expanding depending on the benefits of having more white people at the time. An example of blood quantum is how Native Americans had to produce an ancestral paper trail in order to gain indigeneity. 



  1. UNIDRIP

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).  These are minimum standards that state that a state should follow in relations with indigenous peoples. It is advocacy for raising awareness of indigenous issues on a global stage. An example of UNIDRIP’s work can be seen when they launched initiatives to gather data on indigenous statistics. They recognized  that indigenous peoples have specific

relations to “ancestral lands [as] the source of cultural, spiritual, social and political identity and is the foundation

of traditional knowledge systems” (State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, 5th edition - UN, 2021)



  1. Race

Race is a social construct and is not something can be defined specifically



  1. Racism

Structural vs. individual liberal idea of racism. Structural racism is historic racism structures present opportunities and relations within a society. Individual liberty idea of racism is animosity and discrimination between groups of people; often white in opposition to “non-white”. According to Gilmore, racism is the state-sanctioned and/or extralegal production and exploitation of group-differentiated vulnerabilities to premature death, in distinct yet densely interconnected political geographies.



  1. Social Construction:  

Social construction is the idea that something does not have a scientific basis/definition, but that an idea was built around what people in society thought at the time. 



  1. Areal Differentiation:  

Colonial mapping of people across space (maps of different identities, because people from specific areas have different identities and are supposed to act in certain ways); ideas about people in certain spaces that are hierarchical; racialized ideas of space. According to Gilmore, “...this approach described and territorialized objects (people and places as if they were things) rather than socio-spatial princesses (how people and places came to be organized as they are.” - Gilmore, 111



  1. Environmental Determinism:  

The idea that race is constructed in relation to the environment (the idea of positional superiority); naturalized inequality and subordination in colonial systems; people are separated by their location and defined through the qualities of their environment.



  1. Gender:  

Not biological, but a social construction (like race); has a tremendous political, social, and material significance. “Woman” and “man” are cultural and social categories. Gender is intertwined with race, class, culture, econ, nation, bodily abilities, the state, etc. It is historically and geographically contingent. Often used to signify sex. 



  1. Sex:  

Defined by specific bodily characteristics such as genitals, hormones, internal reproductive organs, chromosomes, etc., but it is socially constructed. Binary categorizations: male and female (which are not biological truths, but are specific ideas about physical bodies intertwined with social constructions). 



  1. Gender Tyranny:  

A type of tyranny that transgender and gender variant people experience the gendered division of space. Arises when people dare to challenge the hegemonic expectations for appropriately gendered behavior in western society. The consequences of gender dichotomy faced by those who challenge Western expectations for gendered behavior. “The consequences of a binary system of gender norms is experienced as a kind of gender tyranny” (Doan). 



  1. Transgender:  

When someone is not performing or identifying with the gender they were assigned (meanings can shift). 



  1. Cisgender:  

When someone identifies as the (binary) gender they were assigned with at birth. 



  1. Third World Woman:  

Dogra argues that these women were painted as women who need intervention, needy, in need of saving, etc. In comparison to First World Women, they are savages instead of civilized. Additionally, they are either depicted as struggling mothers, who are failing to take care of their children properly, or pictured with “missing men” which explains why they are struggling (because they don’t have men to provide for/save them).