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Geography- Chapter 1

Terms in this set (22)

race
a social or political construct that is based on apparent characteristics such as skin color, hair texture, and face and body shape, but that is of no biological significance. For any supposed racial trait, there are wide variations within human groups. Over time, it has acquired enormous social and political significance as humans from different parts of the world have encountered each other in situations of unequal power.
culture
is represented by the ideas, materials, methods, and social arrangements that people have invented and passed on to subsequent generations, such as methods of producing food and shelter. It includes language, music, gender roles, belief systems, and moral codes.
ethnic group
is a group of people who share a location, set of beliefs, a way of life, a technology, and usually a common ancestry and sense of common history.
geopolitics
is the use of strategies by countries to ensure that their best interests are served, especially in regards to other countries.
capitalism
is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods, driven by the profit motive and characterized by a competitive marketplace. This is what the United States and our allies in Western Europe favored.
communism
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) favored a state-controlled economy—a socialized system of public services and a centralized government in which citizens participated indirectly through the communist party.
democratization
for geographers studying globalization, an area of increasing interest is democratization, the transition toward political systems guided by competitive elections. Geographers do not necessarily think that democracy is the "best" system of government. This is usually just in regards to foreign governments or organizations, or places where long-standing cultural traditions support other political arrangements. However, few would deny that the shift toward more democratic systems of government over the past century is extremely significant.
authoritarianism
the opposite of democratization, authoritarianism is a form of government that subordinates individual freedom to the power of the state or elite regional and local leaders.
civil society
institutions that encourage a sense of unity and informed common purpose among the general population. These are widely seen as supportive of democracy. These institutions can include the media, NGOs, political parties, academia, unions, political parties, community service organizations, and sometimes religious organizations.
living wages
minimum wages that support a minimum healthy life. In many countries, multinational corporations work with the government to prevent workers from organizing labor unions that could bargain for these.
push/pull phenomenon of urbanization
for some time, changes in food production have been pushing people out of rural areas, while the development of manufacturing and service economies and the possibility of earning cash incomes in pulling them into cities. Also, political instability and other conditions encourage these people to leave their rural areas and urban factors for better jobs.
globalization
is the growth of interregional and worldwide linkages and the changes these linkages are bringing about. Throughout the world it is transforming patterns of economic development, as local self-sufficiency is giving way to global interdependence and international trade. Attitudes and values are modified as a result of global connections; ethnic identity may be reinforced or erased; personal or collegial relationships established between people who will never actually meet.
food security
this is the ability of a state to consistently supply a sufficient amount of basic food to the entire population. As countries become more involved with the global economy, their food markets can become vulnerable to price swings beyond their control.
sustainable development
is the improvement of standards of living in ways that will not jeopardize those of future generations. It is an effort to improve present living standards. Destroying ecosystems (deforestation), or poisoning them (as in pollution of water and air), may deprive future generations of needed resources if the impacted ecosystems can't recover.
development
as people in society shift from extractive activities, such as farming and mining, to industrial activities, their material standards of living rise—as process known as development. It can be used to describe economic changes like greater productivity of agriculture and industry that lead to better standards of living or simply to increase mass consumption.
gender
indicates how a particular social group defines the differences between the sexes. In nearly every culture, in every region of the world, and for a great deal of recorded history, women have had (and still have) an inferior status. On average, females have less education, medical care, and even food. They start work at a younger age and work longer hours than males. Around the world, people of both sexes still routinely accept the idea that males are more productive and intelligent than females.

Until recent, no one really considered the question if how and why women became subordinate to men because no one really thought the question significant. In nearly all cultures families prefer boys over girls because as adults, boys will have greater earning capacity and more power in society.
sex
refers to the biological category of male or female but does not indicate how males or females may behave or identify themselves.
demographic transition
this is when a period of high birth and death rates give way to a period of much lower birth and death rates. In the middle phases, when death rates decline and birth rates have not, population numbers may increase rapidly. Eventually, populations may stabilize but at a much higher level than was the case at the beginning of the transition.
subsistence economy
in subsistence economy, a family, usually in a rural setting, produces most of its own food, clothing, and shelter, so there is little need for cash. Many children are needed to help perform the work that supports the family, so birth rates are very high. Most needed skills are learned around the home, farm and surrounding lands, so expensive educations at school and colleges are not needed. There has been a major shift from subsistence economy to cash economy and from rural to urban ways of life.
cash economy
this is an economic system in which the necessities of life are purchased with monetary currency. This tends to be urban, sometimes rural, skilled workers, well-trained specialists, and even farm lab laborers who are paid in money. Subsistence economies are disappearing as people seek cash with which to buy food and goods, like TVs and bikes. Cash economies are more likely to have better health care, which increases the likelihood that each child will survive to adulthood, so that they can have a good cash-paying job. These children also much have years of education in order to qualify for these well-paying jobs.
spatial interaction
although many geographers specialize in certain fields of study, they all generally cooperate in studying spatial interaction, which is the flow of goods, people, services, or information across space and among places. Geographers want to reduce transportation-related carbon dioxide emissions by changing patterns of human spatial interaction.
spatial distribution
geographers also generally agree on studying spatial distribution or relevant phenomena. Spatial distribution is the arrangement of a phenomenon across the Earth's surface. As global warming becomes an increasing issue for our world, climatologists, cultural geographers, and economic geographers work together to understand the spatial distribution of carbon dioxide emissions, and the cultural and economic practices that might be changed to limit such emissions.
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