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People and Places
Test 3 P&P
22
Geography
Undergraduate 2
03/29/2009

Additional Geography Flashcards

 


 

Cards

Term
Defining Culture
Definition

Old Definition: "Learned Behaviour" acquired by people as members of a society

Old definition of society: a group of human beings distinguished by shared institutions and a common culture

 

Newer Definition: A shared set of meanings that are lived through the material and symbolic practices of everyday life.

 

Parsing the Definition of Culture

 

"A shared set of meanings..."

-shared by whom? .... society... often living in a bounded territory.

 

"Meanings"

-not intrinsic but learned.

 

"That are lived through the material and symbolic practices"

-ie. knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs, technology

 

"Of everyday life"

-taken for granted

-the nitty gritty of what we humans really do and believe.

 

Term
Defining Cultural Landscape
Definition

-characteristic and tangible outcome of the complex interactions between a human group and a natural environment.

 

Parsing

 

"Characteristic"

-distinct, identifiable

 

"tangible"

-visible and concrete

 

"complex interactions b/w a human group and a natural environment"

-extraction of resources

-production

-consumption (using technology, which changes over time)

 

"every day life": we take our cultural landscape for granted

-ie. grain elevator, feed lots, paved highway shoulders, concrete driveways and back alleys, casinos, portable signs.

Term
Carl O. Sauer (1889 - 1975)
Definition

University of California, Berkeley Professor

-rejected environmental determinism

-uniqueness of landscape (cultural and physical processes)

 

-expressed belief that natural landscape moulded culture ... ie. population density, mobility, housing, plan structure, production, communication

-created a cultural landscape

Term
Building a Culture Complex
Definition

culture trait

-single aspect of the complex of routine practice that constitute a cultural group

-married men grow beards without moustaches (Hutterites)

 

culture complex

-combination of traits characteristic of a particular group

-distinctive beards plus communal organization of family life and agricultural lifestyle

-speaking archaic german plus anabaptist christian belief

 

culture system

-collection of interacting elements that, taken together, shape a group's collective identity

-including trait, territorial affiliation, and shared history

-internal variation but with broad similarities

-christianity unites all protestant religions

 

cultural region

-area within which a cultural system prevails

Term

Geography and Religion

 

Definition

Religion:

 -belief system and a set of practices that recognize the existence of a higher power than humans

-can be ethnic or universalizing

 

Religious change

-conversion through missionizing

-diaspora: a spatial diffusion of a previously homogeneous group

 

Sacred Places

-power of place

-importance of spirituality in travel..... intrinsically sacred-worship..... sites of historic interest or beauty become associated in some way with spirituality

-ie. salt lake temple

Term
Geography and Language
Definition

Language: a means of communicating ideas or feelings by means of a conventionalized system of signs, genstures, marks, or articulate vocal sounds.

 

dialect: regional variations from a standard language in terms of accent, volcabulary and grammar.

 

-language families are prehistoric, language branches are common origin, and language groups have similar syntax and vocabulary

 

official language: languages in which the government has a legal obligation to conduct its affairs and in which the public has the right to receive federal services

-some states are multilingual

 

isolate: language that has no known relationship with any other and cannot be assigned to a language family (ie. Basque)

 

mother tongue: language first learned and still understoon

allophone:  a person whose mother tongue is neither English nor French

 

home language: the language most often spoken at home by an individual

 

language shift: an indicator of the number of people who adopt a new language, usually measured by the difference b/w mother tongue and home language populations (ie. in Can, 68% report English as home language and 59% report it as mother tongue)

Term
Language hybrids - nonstandard
Definition

Pidgen

-is a contact language

-any language created out of two or more languages

-simplified grammar and vocabulary

-specialized purpose (ie. trade)

-simplified version of English/French in colonial setting

 

Creole

-'first language' that develops from a Pidgin- creolization

-Jamaican Creole.. Patois: English-African

-Papiamento: Spanish/Dutch

-Antillean Creole: French-African

-Swahili: a lingua franca in east Africa

-Afrikaans

Term
Cultural Nationalism
Definition

-an effort to protect regional and national cultures from the homogenizing impacts of globalization, especially from teh penetrating influence of US culture

 

Islam

-a religion with about 1 billion adherents

-Islamism is a cultural counterforce to globalization

-anti-colonial, anti-impoerial and anti-core movement within islamic countries to resist globalization, notably in the form of modernization and secularization

-creation of a universal islamic state.... protecting the purity and centrality of islamic percepts

Term
ethnicity/ethnic
Definition

ethnicity: a socialy created system of rules about who belongs and who does not belong to a particular group based on actual or perceived commonality

 

ethnic: any group that has a common cultural tradition, that identifies itself as a group, and that constitutes a minority in the society where it lives

-minority or visible minority

Term
Race and Place
Definition

Race: a problematic classification of human beings based on skin colour and other physical characteristics

 

-no such thing as a human race from biological perspective

-how can you say race does not exist?

-no consisten/coherent races based on genes

 

Race is a social Construct!!

-chaotic construct... yet powerful belief (Barack Obama)

-Jewish religion (not jewish race)

-aryan language (not aryan race)

 

-ghettos, trailer parks, reserves, etc.

Term
Gender and Space
Definition
Gender: category reflecting the social differences b/w men and women rather than the anatomical differences that are related to sex
Term
Global Culture
Definition

Global Culture and Consumption: Homogenization

-Disapearance of local cultures

-westernization of culture driven by media 

-destruction of the local and authentic 

-single commodity/single identity world

 

Global Culture?

-no such thing

-identity has intense emotional ties

-cultural attachment is bound in tradition

-mass marketing and pop culture is no threat!!

-no common pool of memories

-no common global way of thinking

Term
Aswan Dam: Energy Use Case Study
Definition

-Egypt

-construction begins 1899

-to provide irrigation water and energy

-industrialization and urbanization make it necessary

 

Benefits

 -increased irrigable land

-flood control

-energy

-no atmospheric pollution

 

Detriments

-flooding

-evaporation

-disease (mosquitoes)

-aquatic ecosystem changes

Term
Rachel Carson
Definition

1907-1964

-marine scientist

-mother of the modern environmental movement

-wrote "Silent Spring"

 

 

Nature as a Concept

Nature: a social creation as well as a physical universe that includes human beings

Environment: Total of the external conditions that surround an organism, community or object

 

-meaning of environment is historically and culturally contingent!!

Term
Society and Technology Defined
Definition

Society: Sum of the inventions, institutions, and relationships created and reproduced by human beings across particular places and times

 

Technology: Physical objects or artifacts, activities, or processes and knowledge or know-how

 

literal definition: the study of skill or craft

narrow definition: application of science to economic objectives

 

*technological change usually related to the broad definition!

 

 

-the relationsip between society and nature is mediated by technology

-harvesting of resources

-emission of wastes in manufacturing of goods and services

-emission of wastes in consumption of goods and services

-is technology a problem or solution?

Term

Human Impact on Environment

Definition

I=PAT

impact = population*affluence*technology

 

Ecological Footprint

-A measure of the biologically productive last area needed to support a country by providing for its needs and absorbing its wastes

-Canada's is 8.56 per capita

-average global is 2.8

-only 0.75 available on planet

Term
Perspectives on Nature
Definition

RELIGIOUS

 

Tao

-nature has intrinsic value

 

Buddhist

-everything is bound up in the totality of existence... any harm hurts me

 

Islamic

-heavens and Earth were made for human purposes

-human authority and contrtol over nature is a test of responsability

 

Judeo-Christian

-nature created by god and subject to god; men also created by god but in god's image

-humans must dominate nature

-man has dominion over nature yet responsible (environmental stewardship)

 

Animist

-nature has conscious, spiritual existence

-aboriginal beliefs

 

Philosophies

 

Romanticism

-interdependence of humans and nature

-reaction to industrialism?

 

Conservation

-view that natural resources should be used wisely in a spirit of stewardship not exploitation

-Henry David Thoreau (1800s)... alternate view to man over nature

-is passive, accepts political status quo

 

Preservation

-Approach to nature advocating that certain habitats, species, and resources should remain off-limits to human use, regardless of whether the use maintains or depletes the resource

-radical and aggressive; critical ofgovernment and many NGOs

 

Ecofeminism

-feminist approach to environmental ethics

-patriarchal oppression takes many forms... domination of nature is linked with masculine culture of oppression

-spiritual

 

Term
Stages in the extension or moral standing
Definition
  • Egocentrism: the tendency to perceive understand and interpret
    the world in terms of the self


• Ethnocentrism: the tendency to look at the world primarily from
the perspective of one's own culture


• Anthropocentrism: humans must be the central concern, and that
humanity must judge all things accordingly


• Biocentrism: the belief that all forms of life are equally valuable
and humanity is not the center of existence


• Ecocentrism: a philosophy that recognizes that the ecosphere, rather than any individual organism, is the source and support of all life and as such advises a holistic and eco-centric approach to
government, industry, and individual.

Term
Neolithic period ~10K BP
Definition

-first agricultural revolution

-cultivation and domestication and global warming

-this was the end of the last ice age

-social surplus

-permanent settlements, village life

 

Impact

-artificical selection, monoculture, simplification of ecosystems, loss of diversity, vulnerability

 

Technological change

-irrigation

-hydraulic civilization

-draft animals, stirrup, plow, yoke, and wheel

 

Term
European Expansion and Globalization
Definition

Factors in Population Growth

-domestication of plants and animals

-expansion of land under cultivation

-capitalist globalization

-demographic transition

 

Factors in Population Decline

-epidemic disease

-warfare

 

Virgin Soil Epidemics

-conditions in which the population at risk has no natural immunity or previous exposure to the disease within the lifetime of the oldest member of the group

-ie. smallpox, typhus, measles, chicken pox, cholera, scarlet fever

 

 Columbian Exchange

-interaction b/w the Old World, originating with the voyages of Columbus, and teh New World

"Greatest loss of human life in history"

Term
Human Action and Recent Environmental Change
Definition

Industrialization and Urbanization

-revolutionized our relationships with the environment

-environmental impact beyond the regional/local scale

-three areas: energy use, land use, natural resources

 

ENERGY USE

Industrial Revolution

-discovery and utilization of coal, oil, natural gas

-as energy demands increased, so does the extraction and production

-exist renewable and non-renewable

 

-every step in the energy conversion process has an impact on the physical landscape

-discovery/extraction/processing/utilization

 

acid rain- the wet deposition of acids on earth created by the natural cleansing properties of the atmosphere

 

CORE/PERIPHERY

-energy production and consumption are greater in the core

-the periphery has 4 times the population but uses only 1/3 the energy

-energy demands in the periphery are rising

CORE:

-capital intensive energy sources

-much higher demands

-industrialized

PERIPHERY:

-labour intensive energy sources (ie. firewood)

-lower energy demands

-urbanization: a major force

 

Kyoto Protocol: Reducing green house gases to a level that is 5% lower than that in 1990 in all core countries

 

LAND USE

-two types: conversion (wholesale transformation of land from on use to another ... urbanization) and modification (alteration of existing cover.... forest thinning vs clear cut)

 

Deforestation

-the permanent clearing and destruction of forests

-renewable resource being destroyed faster than it can be replenished

-forests cleared for resources and to accommodate humans..... ~half of the world's forests have been harvested

-destruction of natural habitat

-destabilization of exygen and carbon dioxide cycles

-increased erosion

-is worse in periphery

 

Agriculture

-Core: reduced land ... better efficiency. In periphery less efficient

desertification: the degradation of land cover and damage to the soil and water in grasslands and arid and semi-arid lands

-overgrazing of grasslands is a major culprit

-is a big problem in costa rica

 

NATURAL RESOURCES

carrying capacity- the maximum number of users that can be sustained over the long term by a given set of natural resources

 

Fish

MSY- maximum sustainable yield is the equilibrium b/w a fish population's biological productivity and the level of fishing effort; theoretically the MSY for a fish stock is the largest number that can be caught while ensuring that enough remain for a productive fishery the next year.

 

Fishing Capacity- the ability of a fleet to catch fish, most easily measured by counting the number of boats in a fishing fleet

 

-fishing exceeds MSY!!.... overcapacity!!

Term
Global Environmental Change, Disasters, and Hazards
Definition

global change- combination of political, economic, social, historical and environmental problems at the world scale

environmental justics- movement reflecting a growing political consciousness, largely among the world's poor, that their immediate environs are far more toxic that wealthier neighbourhoods.

 

DISASTERS

-indonesian Tsunami 2004

-new orleans hurricane 2005

-pakistan earthquake 2005

 

Hazard

-source of potential harm or damage

-can be natural or anthropogenic

-magnitude, timing, and spacing are important

 

Conclusion

-environment has been globalized along with the economy

-people and environment are linked in complex and essential ways

-environments are resources as well as disasters

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