Human Geography: Places and Regions in Global …Geography1.pdf · Human Geography: Places and Regions in Global Context, 5e ... • Interdependence in a Globalized World ... Such

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Human Geography: Places and Regions in Global Context, 5e

Chapter 1: Geography MattersPaul L. Knox & Sallie A. MarstonPowerPoint Author: Keith M. Bell

Chapter Objectives

• The objectives of this chapter are to illustrate:– Why places matter– How geography matters– The basic tools required for understanding

geography

OverviewThis chapter introduces the basic concepts of human geography as well as the reasons for its study. The students should immediately realize that human geography is not merely memorizing the names of state capitals or of other landscape features. After reading this chapter, the students should have a clear idea about what human geography is and what human geographers do. The key concept in Chapter 1 is globalization. We live in an increasingly interdependent world, in which events in one place can have important effects and ramifications in other places. The students should be aware of just how interconnected and interdependent their community is with other places around the world. They should also be aware of what makes each place, including their own community, unique and distinctive. Finally, they should realize that human geography is the field of study that analyzes these relationships.

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Chapter Outline

• Why Places Matter (p. 2)– Places are socially constructed– Places are interdependent– Different geographic scales of analysis– Places are dynamic

• Interdependence in a Globalized World (p. 9)– A globalized world is interdependent– Changes in the pace and nature of globalization

• Studying Human Geography (p. 21)– Basic tools used in geography– Five concepts of spatial analysis– Principles of economic location– Regions and regional analysis– Developing a geographical imagination

• Conclusion (p. 37)

Geography Matters• 1.1 Geography Matters—Making a Difference: The

Power of Geography (p. 6)• What geographers do, and jobs and careers in

geography• 1.2 Geography Matters—The Global Credit Crunch

(p. 10)• The Financial Crisis of 2008 and the effects of global

economic interdependence• 1.3 Window on the World—Worlds Apart (p. 14)• Different lives and livelihoods in Switzerland and

Ethiopia compared

Geography MattersGeography matters because it is

specific places that provide the settings for people’s daily lives.

Places and regions are highly interdependent, each playing

specialized roles in complex networks of interaction and change.

Interdependence between geographic scales are provided by the relationships

between the global and the local.

Human geography provides ways of understanding places, regions, and

spatial relationships.

“Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related

than are distant things.”

Connectivity and interaction are dependent on channels of

communications and transportation.

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Why Places Matter: Geographic LiteracyThe importance of geography (i.e., spatial science) is becoming more widely recognized. Many more schools now require courses in geography than just a decade ago. Employers are coming to realize the value of employees with expertise in geographical analysis.

The Influence and Meaning of Places

• Places are settings for social interaction that, among other things,– structure the daily routines of

people’s economic and social lives;

– provide both opportunities and constraints in terms of people’s long-term social well-being;

– provide a context in which everyday, common sense knowledge and experience are gathered;

– provide a setting for processes of socialization; and

– provide an arena for contesting social norms.

Spatial Levels• Levels or scales of spatial

organization represent a tangible partitioning of space.– World regions

• Asia, Europe, or Latin America

– Supranational organizations• NAFTA, European Union,

ASEAN, World Trade Organization

– De Jure States• Legally recognized political

entities

– Body and Self• Physical appearance and

socially acceptable norms

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Geographers at Work• International Affairs• Locations of Public Facilities• Marketing and Location of

Industry• Geography and the Law• Disease Ecology• Urban and Regional Planning• Economic Development

– The global credit crunch left the world economy facing the prospect of recession.

• Security

Interdependence as a Two-Way ProcessPeople develop patterns of living that are attuned to the opportunities and constraints of local physical environment, as shown here in thisintensively farmed region in the Chang Jiang (Yangzi) delta, China.

Interdependence in a Globalizing World• Globalization is the increasing interconnectedness of

different parts of the world through common processes of economic, environmental, political, and cultural change.

• The Hyperglobalist View– Open markets, free trade, and investment across the global markets

allow more people to share in the prosperity of the world economy.

• The Skeptical View– Contemporary economic integration is much less significant than it

was when the world was on the gold standard in the nineteenth century.

• The Transformationalist View– Globalization is a long-term historical process that is underlain by

crises and contradictions that are likely to shape it in all sorts of unpredictable ways.

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The Human “Footprint”

Notice that the “footprint” is largely absent in places that are too wet, dry, cold, or hot for wide spread human habitation (e.g., Antarctica, Sahara Desert, Amazonia, Siberia).

Window on the WorldAddis Ababa, Ethiopia Zug, Switzerland

The Sormolo Family of Ethiopia and the Rust Family of Switzerland live “worlds apart.” One family ekes out a living on $280 a year, while the other thrives on $68,000. What geographical factors played a role in this disparity?

Key Issues in a Globalizing World: SustainabilitySustainability is about the interdependence of the economy, the environment, and social well-being. It is defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

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Diffusion of HIV

Where does the medical and geographical evidence point as the origin of the HIV/AIDS pandemic?

The Geography of HIV/AIDS

What historical, geographical, and social factors contribute to Sub-Saharan Africa being so stricken with HIV/AIDS?

Key Issues in a Globalizing World: SecurityFloral tributes lie outside Edgware Road underground station in London, England, after al-Qaeda bombers killed 49 people and injured 700 during morning rush hour terrorist attacks that were targeted at London’s transport links on July 7, 2005.

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Geography in a Globalizing World• Will globalization render geography obsolete?

– Yes? (Why?)– No? (Why?)

• The new mobility of money, labor, products, and ideas actually increases the significance of place:– The more universal the diffusion of material culture and lifestyles,

the more valuable regional and ethnic identities become.– The faster the information highway takes people into cyberspace,

the more they feel the need for a subjective setting—a specific place or community—they can call their own.

– The greater the reach of transnational corporations, the more easily they are able to respond to place-to-place variations.

– The greater the integration of transnational governments and institutions, the more sensitive people have become to local cleavages of race, ethnicity, and religion.

Studying Human Geography

• Physical geography deals with Earth’s natural processes and its outcomes.

• Human geography deals with the spatial organization of human activities, and with people’s relationship with their environments.

• Regional geography combines elements of both physical and human geography.

• Applied geography: fieldwork, laboratory work, archival searches, remote sensing, and GIS (input, manipulation, analysis, etc.)

Remotely Sensed Data: Aerial PhotographsRemotely sensed images can provide new ways of seeing the world, as well as unique sources of data on all sorts of environmental conditions. Such images can help explain problems and processes that would otherwise require expensive surveys and detailed cartography.

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Studying Human Geography

• Latitude/Longitude• Site/Situation• Distance

– Cognitive– Friction– Distance-decay function

• Spatial Interaction– Complementarity– Transferability– Intervening opportunity– Spatial diffusion

The spatial diffusion of many phenomena tends to follow an S-curve of slow build-up, rapid spread, and leveling off.

Spatial Analysis

Like distance, space can be measured in absolute, relative, and cognitive terms. Topological space are the connections between, or connectivity of, particular points in space.

Regionalization• The geographer’s equivalent of

scientific classification is regionalization, with the individual places or areal units being the objects of classification.– Logical division—

“classification from above”– Grouping—“classification

from below”– Formal regions– Functional regions

• Donald Meinig’s core-domain-sphere model of the Mormon region

– Regionalism– Sectionalism– Irridentism

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Ordinary Landscapes: Community ArtCommunity art can provide an important element in the creation of a sense of place for members of local communities. It displays an “ordinary landscape” (or vernacular landscape) in the Mission district in San Francisco.

Symbolic Landscapes: TuscanySymbolic landscapes represent particular values or aspirations that the builders and financiers of those landscapes want to impart to the larger public, like the neoclassical architecture of the federal government buildings in Washington, D.C., or the Risorgimento of the classical Tuscan landscape.

The Power of PlaceIreland England

The West of Ireland came to symbolize the whole of Ireland to Irish nationalists in the early twentieth century, as opposed to the more bucolic rural landscape ideal of England (its former colonial master).

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Regional Analysis: A Sense of PlaceIntersubjectivity, or the shared meanings that are derived from the lived experience of everyday practice, is how people become familiar with one another’s vocabulary, speech patterns, dress codes, gestures, and humor.Routine encounters in Waldkirch, Germany develop the sense of place.

Developing a Geographical

ImaginationIt is useful to think of places and

regions as representing the cumulative legacy of successive

periods of change.

This photograph of Milan, Italy, is a very striking example, with

modern urban development interlayered with surviving

fragments of Medieval, Renaissance, and nineteenth-

century development.

Recognizing the General and the Unique

Some places, like Hersbruck, Germany, become distinctive

because they were almost entirely bypassed by a period of change. Notice the narrow

street and old world architecture.

Changes could have come to other towns and cities in the

form of the Industrial Revolution or the construction of a new highway or railroad. Thus, the interconnectedness

of urban systems is key to integration.

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The Global Perspective• Each place, each region, is largely

the product of forces that are both local and global in origin.

• Each is ultimately linked to many other places and regions through these same forces.

• The individual character of places and regions cannot be accounted for by general processes alone. Some local outcomes are the product of unusual circumstances or special local factors.

End of Chapter 1

Discussion Topics and Lecture Themes

• Ask the students to define the meaning of “house” and “home.” How are these terms different? Then note that human geography studies how human beings have transformed their Earthly “house” into a “home” or “homeland.”

– “House” suggests a physical structure for which we may or may not have any personal attachment, while “home” suggests a place we know, originate from, and feel some kind of personal attachment towards.

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• What is meant by the concept of “globalization”? How is this process evident in the local community? Which aspects of the local community are universal (global), and which are unique to it? Is there value to each aspect?

– “Globalization” is the increasing interconnectedness of different parts of the world through common processes of economic, environmental, political, and cultural change. Discuss the interconnectedness of the local community with the wider world and the positive and negative aspects of this interconnectedness.


• Ask the students what they ate and drank for breakfast. Then ask them to state the likely origins for these foods and beverages (Ecuadorian bananas, Brazilian coffee, Florida oranges, etc.). How do the local community and the source regions for these products depend on each other?

– The local community needs to import items that cannot be produced locally, whereas source regions depend on external communities for markets.


• Have the students describe both the site and the situation of the university campus. What is the relationship between the site and the situation?

– The site refers to the physical attributes of a place, such as its terrain, soil, and vegetation. The situation refers to the location of the place relative to other places—for example, in the case of a university campus, to other parts of the community or to given streets or parks.


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• Have the students draw maps of the local area. Then have them compare these maps with each other (or make slides out of several of them and then discuss them in class). How do different students perceive their environment? What aspects did all students identify as important? How do these maps reflect cognitive images?

– Cognitive images are made up from people’s individual ideas and impressions of a location.


• What is the main economic activity in the local area? How does the local economy interact with other non-local economies and regions? What regions does the local area depend on for its exports and imports? Discuss economic activity in the context of the concepts of complementarity, transferability, intervening opportunity, and spatial diffusion.

– Information on local economic activity can often be obtained from the local Chamber of Commerce or other business associations—also try Internet sources for information about the local community. See the textbook for information about the concepts of complementarity, transferability, intervening opportunity, and spatial diffusion.


• Show the students images depicting various map projections. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each projection? Why are all of them still in use today?

– See the appendix (p. 475) in the textbook for information about different map projections and their strengths and weaknesses.


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• Choose two American cities for which illustrations or slides are readily available. Choose places that are contrasting, yet still American, such as Los Angeles/New York City, or Williamsburg, VA/Santa Fe, NM. What makes these places distinct? What do they have in common? Why do these places look the way they do?

– A good starting point for this discussion is the five concepts of spatial analysis—location, distance, space, accessibility, and spatial interaction. See pages 22–30 in the textbook for elaboration of these concepts.


• Lake Baykal, also spelled Lake Baikal, is a global environmental flashpoint. Environmental degradation at Lake Baykal prompted the emergence of environmental activism in Russia. The environmental problems at Lake Baykal provide a good entry point for a lecture on the global challenges of environmental issues.

– For further information on Lake Baykal, consult (among others) the following websites: http://www.irkutsk.org/baikal and http://www.globalnature.org (for this link, choose English as the language, then look under Living Lakes and then Lake Members for Lake Baikal). You can use a discussion of Lake Baykal to open a discussion of environmental problems in the local area.


• Discuss how globalization is changing the nature of Mexico’s economic relationship with the United States.

– For information, consult the following works: Clint E. Smith, Inevitable Partnership: Understanding Mexico–U.S. Relations (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2000) and James W. Wilkie and Clint E. Smith, eds., Integrating Cities and Regions: North America Faces Globalization (Los Angeles: UCLA Program on Mexico, 1998).


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Human Geography: Places and Regions in Global …Geography1.pdf · Human Geography: Places and Regions in Global Context, 5e ... • Interdependence in a Globalized World ... Such