Women's Education and Health in Sub-Saharan Africa

Theories of Human Environmental Interaction

• Originated from the ancient Greeks
• Grew prominence between the 19th and 20th centuries

Determinism

• Natural factors solely control the development of human qualities.
• Cultures are superior based on their climate.
• A simple, cause-and-effect relationship of environment and culture.
• Similar climate settings do not universally produce the same cultures.
• Criticized for its oversimplification.

Possibilism

• People adapt and overcome environmental conditions.
• Use creativity to develop resources and adapt to their environment.
• Human innovation and technology shape human life, rather than the environmental conditions.
• Agriculture revolution: People adapted and produced their own food, allowing growth of population size.

Cultural Landscapes

• Cultural landscapes are landscapes influenced by humans.
• Examples include methods of agriculture, types of clothing, and religion.
• Analyzing cultural landscapes includes looking at settlement patterns, land use, and architecture.
• It is used to uncover cultural and lifestyle traits in an area.
• Includes religions practiced, agricultural practices, forms of government, social structures, and daily routines.
• Carl Sauer argued against environmental determinism.
• The earth is a system of diverse components interacting in complex ways.
• The earth is constantly changing due to natural and human-induced events.

Regionalization: Culture Regions

Formal Region

• Unifying physical or cultural characteristics define formal regions;
• Examples include the dairy belt (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan) and India (defined borders).

Functional Region

• A political, social, or economic characteristic defines functional regions.
• An organizing center (like offices, transportation services) is key!
• Examples include a transportation service spanning many areas or a police department covering its region.

Perceptual Region (Vernacular Region)

• Identity and attraction towards an area define perceptual regions (vernacular).
• Boundaries are not clearly defined.
• Examples include the American South, the Bible Belt (high prevalence of fundamentalist Christians.)

The Spread of Ideas: Cultural Diffusion

• Diffusion: the spread of an idea, innovation, or epidemic through space and time.
• Absorbing barriers: completely stop the spread of an idea
• Permeable barriers: slow down the spread
• Independent invention: an idea developed without previous diffusion

Relocation Diffusion

• The spread of phenomena through space,
• Ex. Migration (movement of an entire population)

Expansion Diffusion

• Includes all diffusion except relocation.
• Diffusion results in change of numbers (increasing)
• Hierarchical Diffusion
• Spreads in a rank-order (from highest to lowest rank, ex. social, size of population)
• Includes pop culture, fashion
• Reverse Hierarchical Diffusion
• Spreads from lowest rank to highest ranks
• Includes pop culture, fashion.
• Contagious Diffusion
• Spreads randomly based on proximity (ex. infectious epidemics)

Interactions Between Places

Accessibility

• Ease of access to a specific place, often based on time or cost.
• High accessibility means low travel time and low cost.
• Ex. public libraries - located near centers of town/city and typically free to use.

Distance Decay

• When a process, pattern or event has less impact as distance increases.
• Advances in technology and communication have changed this effect.

Tobler's First Law of Geography

• Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.
• Idea created by Waldo Tobler.
• Important understanding for spatial interaction.

Time-Space Convergence

• Technological advancements reduced the effect of distance, making places seem closer for communication, and travel.

Scales of Analysis

• Different ways to represent or display something of interest,
• Ex: Global (shows the whole world), National (shows a specific country) etc.

Types of Thematic Maps

• Reference Maps: display boundaries, names and unique identifiers, and physical/cultural features;
• Thematic Maps: emphasize one specific theme
• Cartograms: distort land area to represent total population, larger value = larger area.
• Choropleth Map: uses different shades to represent different values of density or other values.
• Dot Map: uses dots to show different values, more dots = greater values
• Graduated Symbol: uses a symbol to represent a value, larger symbol = higher value, smaller = lower value.
• Isoline Maps: uses lines drawing to connect places that share common values

Map Projections:

• Transformation of latitudes and longitudes into flat surfaces (maps)
• Mercator Projection: Preserves 90° angles and straight lines; Shows true direction, but distorts area in higher latitudes and land masses
• Robinson Projection compromise that shows true shapes and sizes of land masses.
• Peters Projection: Preserves correct size of continents; Distorts shapes and areas
• Polar Projection: Distances from the center (poles) are preserved.

Geographical Tools

• Remote Sensing: gathering information from a distance.
• EX. Satellites tracking disasters.
• Global Positioning System (GPS): determine the absolute location of people, places, and geographic things using satellites.
• Geographic Information System (GIS): collects, stores, and analyzes georeferenced data (data tied to locations -ex. maps).

Geographic Data: Qualitative vs Quantitative

Qualitative data: is subjective (opinion-based) and relies on the five senses (descriptions, physical characteristics, observations, color texture, ethnicity).

Quantitative data: is objective (fact-based and measurable); relies on numbers and units of measurement (distance, height, percentages).

Key Population Statistics

• Crude Birth Rate (CBR): number of births per 1,000 people per year

• Rate of Natural Increase (RNI): percentage of growth in area excluding migration (CDR-CBR)/10

• Total Fertility Rate (TFR): average amount of children a woman has in her life (used to gauge family size)

• Doubling Time: time it takes for a population to double in size

• Life Expectancy: average age someone is expected to live.

• Infant Mortality Rate (IMR): number of infant deaths under 1 year old per 1,000 births

Population Density

• Arithmetic density- number of people per unit of land. Does not account for unusable lands, ex. Australia has a low arithmetic density compared to Japan, although Japan has less land area.
• Physiological density- number of people per unit of arable land. Takes into account usable land for agriculture, e.g., US has a low physiological population density and Egypt has a high one.

Population Distribution

• Population distribution: the spatial pattern of where people live.
• Factors that influence population distribution

Population Policies

• Pro-Natalist: Encourages higher birth rates
• EX: financial incentives (child subsidies)
• Anti-Natalist: Encourage lower birthrates.
• EX: offering contraceptives, or higher prices on baby products
• Types: pro and anti natalist have an impact on distinctive groups or religions. Some religious groups have particular views of pro and anti natalist policies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u-Q5J_X68E&ab_channel=Mr.G-Geography

Population Pyramids

• Bar charts displaying a population's age and gender composition.
• Helps determine population change.
• LDC population pyramids: rapid population growth.
• MDC population pyramids: slow growth.

Demographic Transition Model (DTM)

• Explains the shift in birth and death rates for countries over time
• 5 stages(or 4 or 3): describes a shift from having high birth and death rates to lower birth and death rates over time.
• 1- Preindustrial Stage: Both Birth Rate and Death Rate are high, population growth is very slow or stagnant
• 2- Early Industrial Stage: Birth rates remain high, but deaths decrease as sanitation and healthcare improve population increase is rapid
• 3- Late Industrial Stage: Both Birth rate and death rate are beginning to decrease, population growth slows
• 4- Post Industrial Stage: Birth rate and death rate are both low; population growth is very slow or stagnant Limitations: Doesn't take migration into account

The Epidemiological Transition

• Explains how the leading causes of death shift over time for an area
• Stages:
• Stage 1: High percentage of deaths are related to infectious diseases (periphery countries).
• Stage 2: Shift to chronic diseases (core countries).
• Stage 3 and 4: Many factors affect health in each stage.
• The main cause of death in LDCs are due to infectious diseases (like malaria). The main cause of death in MDCs are due to chronic diseases.

Population Theories

• Malthus: Population grows geometrically, while food production grows arithmetically.
• Neo-Malthusians: Concerned about limits to resources.
• Boserup: Food production can increase as population grows
• Cornucopians: Technology will solve future food shortages.

Women and Population

• Women have less access to education, and are under represented in certain careers and political roles.
• Women have unequal pay in many workplaces
• Women participate in political roles at uneven rates than men across the globe.
• Increased education of women is related to lower fertility rates, and women's roles in the economy tend to affect their roles in politics.
• Women's prenatal health impacts fertility rates.

Aging Population

• Death rates decrease overall
• Birth rates also decrease overall
• Impact/effects on the workforce, resources, government policies

Internal Boundaries

• Reapportionment: allocating seats in legislative bodies. Gerrymandering (manipulation of district boundaries)
• Packing: concentrating opposition supporters in a few districts
• Cracking: diluting opposition supporters across many districts to minimize their political influence.

Agricultural Revolutions

• 1st Agricultural Revolution (Neolithic Revolution):
• Domestication of plants and animals, humans began to settle in one place.
• Caused an increase in the population and led to the development of cities.
• 2nd Agricultural Revolution (Middle Ages):
• Advancements in machines and methods of farming like the cotton gin, seed drill, or the moldboard plow which led to efficient increases in production.
• 3rd Agricultural Revolution (Green Revolution):
• Use of technology in agriculture in particular high yield seeds improved production
• Increased fertilizer use (increased nutrients in soil.
• Effects
• Increased food production, but there are negative environmental effects as well

Agricultural Regions

• Mediterranean: commercial agriculture; integration of livestock, grains and fruit trees
• Shifting cultivation: slash-and-burn; used often in tropical areas, often leads to deforestation
• Pastoral Nomadism: animal herding in arid and semi-arid climates, a type of extensive agriculture. Usually uses a short fallow period or transhumance to gain nutrients.
• Wet Rice Farming: intensive; frequently uses irrigation in tropical climate regions

Modern Commercial Agriculture

• Agribusiness: all businesses involved, ex. growing, harvesting and processing crops or animals, etc
• Global supply chains: commodity chains on a global scale, ex. multiple companies involved in selling/producing a product, such as orange juice.
• Monoculture: planting one crop in a large scale, to give a higher profit
• GMOs: genetically modified organisms; used to increase crop yields

Environmental Effects of Industrialization and Development

• Natural resource depletion: using resources faster than they can replenish, ex. water, fossil fuels
• Mass consumption: large reliance on goods and services which impacts industrialization
• Climate change: caused by large reliance on burning fossil fuels which contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and the warming of the planet.
• Pollution: harmful materials introduced into the environment, impacting on human health
• Land use changes: land is cleared for agriculture, deforestation

Rural-Urban Migration

• Movement of people from rural areas to urban areas
• Reasons: seeking jobs, economic opportunities, better living conditions, more opportunities
• Has effects on both urban and rural places/ communities or zones

Urban Sustainability

• Achieving current needs without limiting future generations.
• Ex. sustainable development goals and smart growth

Urban Models/ Models of Urban Areas

• Burgess Concentric-Zone Model: a model describing concentric circles of different usages and social classes around the central business district (CBD)
• Hoyt Sector Model: A model showing sectors within a city radiating from the CBD - different socio-economic groups live in sectors
• Galactic City (Urban Realms Model): model that shows the decentralization of cities with nodes of activity, ex. edge cities
• Latin American Cities Model: Model describing the location of different groups based on the spine of the city.
• Southeast Asian Cities Model(McGee Model): describes a dispersed CBD, as there is not one main central node, because it is split into industrial and business areas.

Urban Issues in LDCs

• Infrastructure problems: inadequate roads, insufficient electricity and water supplies, in slums, etc.
• Traffic problems: due to rapid population growth from rural areas and lack of public transportation
• Pollution: air and water pollution and waste disposal problems are very common
• Safety concerns: violent crimes, etc.
• Squatter settlements: housing areas where there is no legal right to the property, or resources

Causes and Effects of Suburbanization in North America

• Causes: GI Bill, interstate highway system, racial tensions; Bid Rent Theory- land cost increases closer to the CBD.
• Effects: Decline of central inner cities, decentralization, sprawl, residential segregation, infrastructure strain, and lack of affordable housing.

Urban Renewal

• Gentrification: when old buildings in poor neighborhoods are purchased and modernized, often leading to increased property values and an increase in costs for people
• Tear Downs: when old run-down buildings are torn down for new ones, often by governments
• Conventions: events brought to the city in an attempt to increase tourism
• Impact: can displace residents and leads to issues of affordability

World Systems Theory and International Trade

• Core states: powerful, industrialized countries with advanced technology.
• Semi-periphery states: transitional countries with mixed industrial and agricultural economies.
• Periphery states: less developed, largely agricultural economies.
• Global economic inequalities result in trade and other relations between these states
• ex. certain countries often being depended on for certain goods