Session 19: Power, identity and global landscapes – Part 5: Geographic disparities

November 7, 2013

Langa Township,South Africa

Norton, W. (2005). Cultural Geography: Environments, Landscapes, Identities, and Inequalities. Oxford University Press, Don Mills.

Readings: Chapter 7 of Norton – A Cultural Geography of our Unequal World

1) Lecture: Geographic disparities;

2) Time for photo-elicitation group assignment: Share photo elicitation results with your group, chart and make outline for poster, and time to get supplies (40 mins)

Unequal worlds –

• Total population

• Crude birth rate

• Crude death rate

• Infant mortality

• Life expectancy

• Per capita income

• Health stats (e.g., HIV/AIDS; diabetes)

Geographic disparities

Geographic disparities

Theorization of global inequalities

European Miracle (the story goes...)

Europe - mild summers permitted physical activity- cold winters reduced the dangers of the

disease- rainfall permitted agriculture

Agriculture diffused from hearths to other suitable areas

“guns, germs, and steel” used to conquer

culture, money, knowledge “development”

Geographic disparities

Of course is value laden

What is meant by “development”?

How do we measure “development”?

Of course is value laden

Indicators

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC1KE66sldA#t=67

Canadian Index of Wellbeing

Geographic disparities

Competitive ideology: inherent in Protestantism, the dominant religion on Western Europe

European Miracle vs. European Myth

European Myth:

Processes of European expansion as the cause of disparities (poverty and other types of inequalities) elsewhere in the world:

- colonization- exploitation of resources- institution of slavery- Eurocentric forms of scholarship

Geographic disparities

In cultural geography (based on postmodernist and related ideas): it is not acceptable to assess the “weaknesses” of cultures

European Miracle vs. European Myth coloured by the preferred ideology

raises contentious issues around the legitimacy of European scholarship

Progressive vs. Backwards

(European) (the rest of the world)

Geographic disparities

Box 7.7

Capitalist economy

“the core needs to maintain the underdevelopment of the periphery”

Dependency theory (illustrates the consequences of the Marxist idea of ceaseless capital

accumulation)

Geographic disparities

5 mechanisms involved in the deepening of the capitalist system:

1. commodification, a shift from use values to exchange values in both social and economic life;

2. proletarianization, the transformation of subsistence labour into paid labor;

3. mechanization, the application of ever-increasing technologies to produce activities;

4. contractualization, a formalization of human relationships

5. polarization, the increasing disparity between different parts of the world system

Geographic disparities

Demise of the state ‘the state as a dysfunctional unit for organizing human activity and economic endeavour’

3 main reasons:

1. The rise of multinational organizations (replacement of the state; diminished power)

2. Claims are being laid to subnational territory based on ethnic distinctiveness (fragmentation)

3. State is challenged by current attitudes towards the environment (ecological perspective)

Guest: Paul Cormier – Indigenous and decolonizing approaches to theory and research

Session 20: Power, identity and global landscapes – Part 4: Indigenous peoples and decolonization

November 12, 2013

Readings: Supplementary reading