GEOG2400 SPRING 2003 THE GEOGRAPHY OF WORLD DEVELOPMENT

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GEOG2400 SPRING 2003 THE GEOGRAPHY OF WORLD
DEVELOPMENT

• CLASS 3
• Geography and Development

Element 3 Sophomore GE Cluster Global Wealth,
Poverty and Inequality
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Factors in Development

• Why are some nations rich and others poor?
• Why are some nations strong and others weak?
• How much of todays world reflects the influence
  of geographic phenomena - climate, location,
  spatial relationships, topography, tectonics,
  etc?
• What role has history played - political systems,
  war and conflict, colonialization, social and
  cultural heritage and traditions, technological
  sophistication, leadership?
• How do these factors affect progress of nations
  today?

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Connections

• Geographers, in their assessment of the world and
  how it has developed, look for similarities
  between different peoples and conditions in
  different places and explanations for them.
• We also look to establish connections how one
  region is integrated to another and what kinds of
  changes will occur there if a given change or
  changes occur here and vice-versa.
• This frequently requires examining how things
  work and relate at different scales relating
  the local to the global and vice-versa.

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Humans and their Environment

• Where and under what conditions does nature
  control, constrain, or disrupt human activities?
• What kinds of human activities are most
  vulnerable to environmental influences?
• Will changes caused by human actions increase
  those vulnerabilities?
• Will the distribution of global impacts be felt
  equally?

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The Environment and Humans

• How have human activities affected natural
  systems such as the worlds climate, vegetation,
  rivers, oceans, and what are the consequences of
  these actions?
• Where local effects are great, who benefits the
  most from the activities that create them?
• What choices do humans have to avoid certain
  activities and/or mitigate their effects without
  giving up the immediate benefits they receive?

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Environmental Determinism

• Natural, environmental factors clearly play
  important roles in how a given community,
  society, or nation develops - historically and
  today.
• They encourage technological development to
  overcome adversities and exploit potentials (good
  side).
• They impose costs and set back progress if
  adversities cannot easily be managed or
  controlled (bad side).
• Climate is an important factor, both historically
  and today.
• Climatic differences and temporal variations
  create obstacles and opportunities - disasters,
  droughts, tourism, export potentials.

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Climate

• Geographically heterogeneous depending on
  latitude/longitude, maritime or continental
  location, elevation above sea level, etc.
• A key factor in human development - human
  responses to climate extremes, floods/droughts,
  wet seasons/dry seasons, summer/winter, etc.
  helped determine cultural traits, development of
  agriculture, settlement patterns, social
  organization, and so forth.
• Key factors include climatic controls on the
  availability of food water, productivity of
  agriculture, distribution of forest resources,
  effects of heat/humidity, exposure to disease
  insect pests, impact of hazards, etc.

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Average temperatures vary tremendously
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Rainfall can limit agricultural potential without
storage and irrigation
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Certain areas experience extreme heat
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The tropics stay warm and sunny
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More than just climate

• The tropics, with their warmer average
  temperatures and greater intensity of sunlight
  permit greater photosynthetic activity and should
  lead to greater crop production per unit of area.
• However, agricultural production is as much
  conditioned by cultural factors as environmental
  ones and the degree to which a population employs
  technology to offset climatic limitations/constrai
  nts or maximize climatic benefits and potential.
• The temperate lands, with their colder winters
  and lower levels of solar radiation would have
  supported much less people per unit area of land
  if had not been for technology.

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Hybridization and husbandry

• Temperate Europe swelled its population and
  advanced its development through convergence and
  innovation.
• European farmers succeeded in hybridization -
  serendipity and/or trial and error with different
  crops led to hybridization into higher yielding
  varietals suited to different regional climates
  and soils esp. of grains.
• European farmers bred powerful livestock to use
  in animal husbandry - converting war horses and
  harnessing oxen - to increasingly mechanize land
  preparation and harvesting.
• Storable field crops and animal power became a
  powerful combination, and tool innovation - metal
  plow blades, wheeled plows and tillers esp. -
  resulted in enormous per acre and per farm worker
  productivity gains.

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Modern similarities

• Agricultural today is still dominated as much by
  access to technology as natural conditions.
• Fertilizer, pesticides, imported water,
  irrigation, machinery and so forth all help
  determine the productivity and hence
  profitability of agriculture.
• The Green Revolution, which led to agricultural
  intensification and adoption of high yield
  varietals, has done little to improve peasant
  agriculture and the lives of small farmers.
• Moreover, in a global market place, processing
  plants, port facilities, transportation, and
  other ancillary technologies also determine
  economic potential.
• Added to this are subsidies, trade barriers, and
  other socioeconomic factors.

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IMAGES OF TRADITIONAL FARMING
MEXICO
JORDAN
SENEGAL
INDIA
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Geology

• Along with climate, geology determines the
  availability and character of lands (topography)
  and soils, the nature and abundance of minerals
  and ores, the nature and abundance of fossil
  fuels, and so forth.
• Geology also governs risks of natural disasters
  and sensitivity to change tectonics leads to
  earthquakes, landslides, soil erosion, etc.
• Clearly, geology is a given particularly
  countries and regions must build on and cope with
  the geological character of their region.
• However, regional differences provide for
  differing potential for farming, forestry,
  economic progress, and so forth.

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Important social themes

• The effects of cultural imperialism the process
  and results of colonization - have been very
  important.
• At the regional and global levels, one ethnic or
  cultural group has often colonized the lands of
  another, creating change (note this has its
  complexities and has been bi-directional in the
  long-term Rowntree calls it cultural
  syncretism).
• Colonialism is the formal establishment of rule
  over a foreign population colonies have no
  independent standing and have mostly disappeared
  (frequently due to wars of independence).
• Many believe colonialism still exists but has
  become cultural/economic imperialism the
  usurping of one culture or economy by the
  culture/corporations of another.

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Colonies legacies are mixed

• Colonialism was frequently based on violence and
  coercion, including slavery and other ills.
• Colonialism brought positive developments to
  many nations infrastructure ports, railways,
  etc., health care systems, water and sanitation
  systems, rule of law and a judiciary, democratic
  institutions, educational systems.
• Colonialism left serious flaws in many nations
  corrupted elites, stifling beaurocracies,
  fragmented cultural groups, exacerbated ethnic or
  religious rivalries, uneven terms of trade,
  dependencies on raw material/food exports,
  expatriated wealth, brain drain of
  technocrats/the educated, puppet governments and
  dictators.

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National identity

• The world is now divided into some 200
  nation-states political entities made up of
  united communities.
• Many of these nations were made-up by colonizers
  who artificially divided up a region under their
  control or have been liberated by groups in an
  area combined politically, but not socially, in
  the past.
• Geographers like to look at different
  nations/regions and examine the centrifugal
  forces that break them apart (e.g. ethnicity and
  cultural aspirations) and centripetal forces that
  keep or draw them together (mutual
  interdependency, shared identity, economic
  advantages, etc.)

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Political instability

• Most wars today are within nations, not between
  nations and usually result in tremendous
  set-backs in economic and social development.
• Spending on the military, armaments and warfare
  detracts from social spending.
• Destruction of infrastructure, crop production
  and other physical impacts produce long-lasting
  economic and social effects.
• Countries like Costa Rica, who have no official
  armed forces and have been politically stable,
  have managed to progress economically while many
  of their regional neighbors, torn by internal
  struggles, have stagnated.