Geography Matters - Chapter 1 PDF

Chapter 1 Themes : Geography Matters Geographic interdependence is a recurring theme that opens the first chapter. When one event in a part of the Page | 1 world occurs that has a direct and indirect domino effect in...

Chapter 1 Themes : Geography Matters Geographic interdependence is a recurring theme that opens the first chapter. When one event in a part of the Page | 1 world occurs that has a direct and indirect domino effect in other parts of the world. Human Geography is about finding out where things are and why they are there. This discipline recognizes and understands the importance of places and regions and the interdependence among them without forgetting the uniqueness of each specific place. Geography matters as subject of study because (1) we live in a world that is highly interconnected today with rapidly changing international relations and growing concern for the environment and they places we live, and (2) in helps us to understand where we are both literally and figuratively. Why Places Matter – The Influence of Places Human Geography (HG) is defined as the “study of the spatial organization of human activity and of people’s relationships with their environments”. I.e.: National Geographic, American lack of geographic literacy carries over to people’s perception of the US’ role in the world. 1- Places are dynamic and fluid – they provide the settings for people’s daily lives and their social relations. It’s in these settings that people learn who and what they are. 2- Places exert a strong influence on people’s wellbeing, opportunities, and lifestyle choices. 3- Places contribute to people’s collective memory and become powerful emotional and cultural symbols. (i.e.: Times Square, Hollywood Blvd., childhood neighborhood). 4- Places are socially constructed – they are subjective and have different meanings and purposes to others 5- Your identity is shaped and based on your everyday experiences and social relations – your own neighborhood is viewed differently by you and outsiders 6- Places are sites of innovation and change, of resistance and conflict, they are sometimes a site for contesting social norms ie: Tahrir Square, 2011, “nuclear free zones”, “GM-free zones” Studying HG Physical geography deals with the Earth’s natural processes and their outcomes i.e.: climate, weather patterns, soil formation etc. Human geography involves looking at natural physical environments insofar as they influence and are influenced by human activity. That’s why HG covers a wide variety of phenomena. Regional geography combines both elements of both physical and HG. What is special about HG is not the phenomena that are studied but the way they are approached. The contribution of HG is to reveal HOW and WHY geographical relationships are important, in relation to a wide spectrum of natural, social, economic, political and cultural phenomena. The Basic Tools and Methods of Geographers 1- HGers begin with observation – information is collected and data is recorded. This involves fieldwork, lab experiments, etc. Geographers use REMOTE SENSING –the collection of  information about parts of Earth’s surface by means of aerial photography or satellite imagery designed to record data on visible, infrared and microwave sensor systems. 2- Once data is collected – it has to be described through visualization or representation. This is done through maps, written descriptions, charts, diagrams, tables and mathematical formulas. 3- The goal of HGers is the analysis of data – whether quantitative or qualitative, the objective is to find patterns and establish relationships so that models can be built. 4- Maps are representations of the world – 2D and use lines and symbols to convey information or Page | 2 ideas about spatial relationships. They are all social products and express different biases. The design of maps –what they include and omit—reflects the experiences and purposes of the author. 5- Please read your textbook to understand the many types of maps: topographic maps, thematic maps, isopleth maps, dot maps, choropleth maps, etc. 6- Please know the definitions of map scale, and map projections – the systematic rendering on a flat surface of the geographic coordinates of the features found on Earth’s surface. All map projections show distortion – i.e.: cartograms- space is distorted to emphasize a particular characteristic of places or regions. 7- GIS – Geographic Information Systems: very important methods of geographic analysis today especially in the military and commercial worlds. You need the locations for the variables, and most importantly, GIS allows data from different several different sources on different topics and at different scales to be MERGED. It can render many aspects of geography unseen to the naked eye. Spatial Analysis: The study of geographic phenomena can be understood through points, lines, areas and surfaces on a map. There are five concepts that are key to understanding spatial analysis. 1- LOCATION a) Nominal – expressed in names given to a region i.e.: Cairo, Egypt b) Absolute – locations are fixed mathematically through coordinates of latitude (parallels) and longitude (meridians) c) Relative – fixed in terms of: i) Site: the physical attributes of a location i.e.: its terrain, soil, vegetation, and water sources. ii) Situation: the location of a place relative to other places and human activities ie: its accessibility to route ways, nearness to population centers etc. d) Cognitive – Cognitive images/mental maps are psychological representations of locations that come from people’s individual ideas and impressions of locations. e) GPS: 21 satellites that orbit Earth on predictable paths broadcasting time and information. Owned by US Govt. and but info is freely available to everyone. 2- DISTANCE a) Absolute – a physical measure whose units are measures in kilometers or miles b) Relative – expressed in terms of time, effort or cost. c) Cognitive distance –the distance that people perceive as existing in a given situation, based on personal judgments about the degree of spatial separation between points d) Friction of Distance – the reflection of time and cost of overcoming distance e) Distance-Decay Function – Utility – Describes the rate where a certain activity diminishes with increasing distance For example, the farther people have to travel, the less likely they are to do so. Distance-Decay function reflect people’s response to opportunities and constraints in time and space, they reflect the UTILITY (the usefulness) of particular locations. 3- SPACE a) Absolute – mathematical space described through points, lines, areas, planes and configurations b) Topological Space – mathematical conception of space that is defined as the connections between of particular points in space ie: metro systems c) Relative –Site and Situation: can take the form of socioeconomic space or cultural space (ie: places, ways, territories, domains, and worlds / site and situations in terms of routes, regions Page | 3 and distribution patterns. d) Cognitive – measured in terms of people’s values, feelings and perceptions about locations, districts and regions. Can be described in terms of behavioral space—landmarks, paths, environments, and spatial layouts. 4- ACCESSIBILIY Defined in terms of relative location: the opportunity for contact or interaction from a given point or location in relation to other locations. Implies proximity, or nearness to something. a) Connectivity: Dependent on channels of communication and transportation: streets, highways, telephone lines and wave bands, for example. Ie: commercial airline networks b) Accessibility is also a function of economic, cultural and social factors. Ie: A health care clinic is only accessible to us if we can afford the cost of getting there. A daycare center can be very near to you, but the center if not truly accessible it opens later, or the cost is too high etc. 5- SPATIAL INTERACTION a) Complementarity – a demand in one place and a supply that matches or complements the other. Based on many factors  The differences in physical environments and resources from place to place ie: Swedish going to Mediterranean resorts and oil flow from Saudi Arabia to Japan.  The international division of labor that comes from the evolution of world economic system: the more developed countries of the world (core) have overseas suppliers for their food, raw materials and exotic produce. LDCs (periphery and semi-periphery) find themselves with economic directly complementing the needs of the core countries.  Specialization and economies of scale: Places, regions and countries can get economic advantages from the efficiencies created through specialization which allows for larger scale operations. Economic specialization results in complementarities which contribute to spatial interaction. Ie: Israeli farmers specialize in high-value fruit to export to the EU which in return export grain to Israel. b) Transferability – A function of two things: the cost of moving an item and 2) the ability of the item to bear the costs. For example, if the costs of moving a product from one place to the other is too expensive to sell successfully at its destination, then that product does not have transferability between those places. i) Transferability varies between places, kinds of items, and between modes of transporation and communication ii) Also varies over time – with more infrastructure development (Canals, railways, roads etc.) new technologies alter the geography of transport costa and the transferability of certain things. The consequence? The TIME-SPACE COVERGENCE: the rate at which places move closer together in travel or communication time or costs. iii) The local scale: have the latest developments in technology or communication penetrated a local place? How “plugged in” to new technologies are places to allow transferability.  c) Intervening Opportunity – Important in determining the VOLUME and PATTERN of movements and flows in spatial interaction. They are alternative origins and/or destinations. The size and importance of alternative destinations are vital. Ie: Swedish families and Spanish resorts. d) Spatial Diffusion – The way that things spread through space and time Page | 4 i) Not random; occurs as a function of statistical probability ie: diffusion of a contagious disease ii) Expansion diffusion: aka Contagion diffusion – a phenomenon spreads because of the proximity of carriers who are fixed in their location. iii) Hierarchical diffusion: aka cascade diffusion – a phenomenon can be diffused from on location to another without necessarily spreading to people or places in between. Ie: spread of a fashion trend from large city areas to smaller cities and towns. Regional Analysis Not all geographic phenomena is understaood through spatial analysis. HGers also try to understand the relationships between people and places in terms of the SIMILARITIES and DIFFERENCES among them and the identities associated with them. Regionalization – individual places are the objects of classification. Functional regions are regions that may show some differences in some characteristics, but share an overall similarity in structure – economic, political and social organization. We looked at Donald Meinig’s CORE- DOMAN-SPHERE model. Ie: Mormon religion in the US. i) Core being  where characteristics of a certain group or place are distinctive and very clear ii) Domain being  where characteristics are dominant but not to the point of distinctiveness iii) Sphere being  where characteristics are present but not dominant People’s own ideas of place, region and identity can bring about strong feelings regionalism and sectionalism. Regionalism – used to describe situations in which different religious or ethnic groups with distinctive identities coexist within the same state boundaries in the same region and share a collective feeling of identity. If that feelings turns into extreme devotion, the condition is known as sectionalism. Ie: Serbian territories in Croatia claimed by nationalist Serbs. Kurds in Iraq. Irredentism is when a government of a country says that a minority living outside its formal borders belongs to it historically and culturally. Irredentism can lead to war. I.e.: Serbia and Croatia 1990s Landscape Landscape produce and communicate meaning – there are two different kinds. a) Ordinary – the everyday landscapes that people create in the course of their lives together. b) Symbolic –these landscapes represent particular values or aspirations that builders and financiers want to impart to a larger public. Ie: neoclassical architecture of the federal buildings in Washington D.C. (made to resemble a Greek city-state and democratic institutions).  c) Some landscapes become symbolic of national identity – they become a way of picturing a nation. Ie: Tuscany in Italy, the West of Ireland d) The messages in landscapes can be read as signs about values, beliefs, and practices. Sense of Place Everyday routines create shared meanings in our lives – this carries over to people’s attitudes and feelings about the place they live in. Page | 5 A sense of place refers to the feelings evoked among people as a result of the experiences and memories they associate with a place and to the symbolism they attach to that place. There are insiders and outsiders – insiders share similar dress codes, speech patterns, etc and outsiders recognize a landscape’s distinctive physical characteristics or its people. Intersubjectivity is shared meanings that are derived from everyday practice – it helps to create the sense of place you live in. ie: grocery shopping at the same place, taking your coffee at the same place going home etc. A sense of place also develops through familiarity with the history and symbolism of elements of the physical environment – a mountain or lake, the expression of community identity through art. Having a geographical imagination allows us to understand changing patterns, processes , and relationships among people, places and regions. One has to develop this capacity since the world around us is in constant change.  Please read page 27 for details.  Read South Beach, Miami Beach case study on pages 28-29.