Download Human Geography: the study of the spatial organization of human

GEOGRAPHY 210 – CHAPTERS 1, 4, 5, 6 VOCABULARY
Human Geography: the study of the spatial organization of human activity and people’s
relationships with their environments
Cartography: the body of practical and theoretical knowledge about making distinctive
visual representations of Earth’s surface in the form of maps
Map projection: a systematic rendering on a flat surface of the geographic coordinates of
the features found on Earth’s surface
Ethnocentrism: the attitude that a person’s own race and culture are superior to those of
others
Imperialism: the extension of power of a nation through direct or indirect control of the
economic and political life of the other territories
Masculinism: the assumption that the world is and should be shaped mainly by men for
men
Environmental determinism: a doctrine holding that human activities are controlled by
the environment
Globalization: the increasing interconnectedness of different parts of he world through
common processesof economic, encironmental,political, and cultural change
Ecumene: the total habitable area of a country. Since it depends on the prevailing
technology, the available ecumene varies over time. Its an important concept in Canada’s
case, since the ecumene is so much less than the country’s total area
Geodemographic research: investigation using census data and commercial data (such as
sales data and property records) about the populations of small districts to create profiles
of those populations of small districts to create profiles of those populations for market
research
Geographic information system (GIS): an organized collection of computer hardware,
software, and geographical data that is designed to capture, store, update, manipulate, and
display spatially referenced information.
Regional geography: the study of the ways in which unique combinations of
environmental and human factors produce territories with distinctive landscapes and
cultural attributes
Region: a larger-sized territory that encompasses many places, all or most of which share
similar attributes in comparison with the attributes of places elsewhere
Remote sensing: the collection of info about parts of earth’s surface by means of aerial
photography or satellite imagery designed to record data on visible, infrared, and
microwave sensor systems
Latitude: the angular distance of a point on Earth’s surface, measured north or south from
the equator, which is 0 degrees
Longitude: the angular distance of a point on Earth’s surface measured east or west from
the prime meridian (the line that passes through both poles)
Global Positioning System (GPS): a system of satellites that orbit Earth on precisely
predictable paths, broadcasting highly accurate time and locational information
Site: the physical attributes of a location—its terrain, soil, vegetation, and water sources,
for example
Situation: the location of a place relative to other places and human activities
Cognitive images (mental maps): psychological representations of locations that are
created from people’s individual ideas and impressions of these locations
Cognitive distance; the distance that people perceive to exist in a given situation
Friction of distance: the deterrent or inhibiting effect of distance on human activity
Distance-decay function: the rate at which a particular activity or process diminishes with
increasing
Utility: the usefulness of specific place or location to a particular person group
Cognitive space: space defined and measured in terms of the nature and degree of
people’s values, feelings, beliefs, and perceptions about locations, districts, and regions
Place: a concept with two levels of meaning: (1) an objective location that has both
uniqueness and interdependence with other place (2) a subjective social and cultural
construct – somewhere that has a personal meaning for individuals or groups
Place making: any activity, deliberate or unintentional, that enables space to acquire
meaning
Accessibility: the opportunity for contact or interaction from a given point or location in
relation to other locations
Economies of scale: cost advantages to manufacturers that accrue from high-volume
production, since the average cost of production falls with increasing output
Spatial diffusion: the way that things spread through space and over time
Scale: the general concept that there are various scales of analysis (local, regional,
national, global), that they are linked, and that processes operating at one scale can have
significance at other scale
Nature: a social creation as well as the physical universe that includes human beings
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
Ecological footprint: a measure of the biologically productive land area needed to support
a country by providing for its needs and absorbing its wastes
Taoist perspective on nature: the view that nature should be valued for its own sake, not
for how it might be exploited
Buddhist perspective on nature: the view that nothing exists in and of itself and
everything is a part of natural, complex, and dynamic totality of mutuality and
interdependence
Islamic perspective on nature: the view that the heavens and earth were made for human
purposes
Judeo-Christian perspective on nature: the view that nature was created by God and its
subject to God in the same way that a child is subject to parents
Animistic perspective on nature: the view that natural phenomena – both animate and
inanimate – possess an indwelling spirit or consciousness
Romanticism: the philosophy that emphasizes interdependence and relatedness between
humans and nature
Conservation: the view that natural resources should be used wisely and that society’s
effects on the natural world should represent stewardship, not exploitation
Preservation: an 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 in question
Environmental ethics: a philosophical perspective on nature that prescribes moral
principles as guidance for our treatment of it
Ecofeminism: the view that patriarchal ideology is at the centre of our present
environmental malaise
Deep ecology: an approach to nature revolving around two key components: selfrealization and biospherical egalitarianism
Paleolithic period: the period when chipped=stone tools first began to be used
Ecosystem: a community of different species interacting with one another and with the
larger physical environment that surround them
Siltation: the buildup of sand and clay in a natural or artificial waterway
Deforestation: the removal of trees from a forested area without adequate replanting
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 he group
Columbian Exchange: interaction between the Old World, originating with the voyages
of Columbus, and the New World
Demographic collapse: phenomenon of near genocide of indigenous populations
Ecological imperialism: introduction of exotic plants and animals into new ecosystems
Acid rain: the wet deposition of acids on Earth created by the natural cleansing properties
of the atmosphere
Desertification: the degradation of land over and damage to the soil and water is
grasslands and arid and semi-arid lands
Maximum sustainable yield (MSY): the equilibrium between a fish population’s
biological productivity and the level of fishing stock in the largest number that can be
caught while ensuring that enough remain for a productive fishery next year
Fishing capacity: the ability of a fleet to catch fish, most easily measure by counting the
number of boats in a fishing fleet
Global Change: combination of political, economic, social, historical, and environmental
problems at the world scale
Environmental justice: movement reflecting a growing political consciousness, largely
among the world’s poor, that their immediate environs are far more toxic than those in
wealthier neighbourhoods
Culture: a shared set of meanings that are lived through the material and symbolic
practices of everyday life
Cultural geography: study of the ways in which space, place, and landscape shape culture
at the same time that culture shapes space, place, and landscape
Cultural landscape: a characteristic and tangible outcome of the complex interaction
between a human group and a natural environment
Historical geography: the geography of the past
Genre de vie: a functionally organized way of life that is seen to be characteristic of a
particular cultural group
Cultural trait: a single aspect of the complex of routine practices that constitute a
particular cultural group
Cultural region: the area within which a particular cultural system prevails
Cultural system: a collection of interacting elements that, taken together, shape a group’s
collective identity
Religion: belief system and a set of practices that recognize the existence of a power
higher than humans
Diaspora: a spatial dispersion of a previously homogenous group
Sacred space: an area recognized by individuals or groups as worthy of special attention
as a site of special religious experience or events
Language: a means of communicating ideas or feelings by means of a conventionalized
system of signs, gestures, marks, or articulate voice sounds
Dialects: regional variations from standard language in terms of accent, vocab, and
grammar
Language family: a collection of individual languages believed to be related in their
prehistoric origin
Language branch: a collection of languages that possess a definite common origin but
have split into individual languages
Language group: a collection several individual languages that are part of a language
branch, share a common origin, and have similar grammar and vocabulary
Cultural hearth: the geographical origin or source of innovations, ideas, or ideologies
(term coined by geographer Carl Sauer)
Isolate: a language that has no known relationship with any other and cannot be assigned
to a language family
Mother tongue: the first language learned at home in childhood and still understood by
the individual at the time of the census
Official languages: 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
Anglophone: a person whose mother tongue is English
Francophone: a person whose mother tongue is French
Allophone: a person whose mother tongue is neither English nor French
Home language: the language most often spoke at home by an individual
Language shift: an indicator of the number of people who adopt a new language, usually
measures by the difference between mother tongue and home language populations
Cultural nationalism: an effort to protect regional and national cultures from the
homogenizing impacts of globalization
Ethnicity: a socially created system of rules about who belongs and who does not belong
to a particular group based on actual or perceived commonality
Race: a problematic classification of human beings based on skin colour and other
physical characteristics
Gender; category reflecting the social differences between men and women rather than
the anatomical differences that are related to sex
Cultural ecology: the study of the relationship between a cultural group and its natural
environment
Cultural adaptation: the use of complex strategies by human groups to live successfully
as part of a natural system
Political ecology: an approach to cultural geography that studies human – environment
relationships through the relationships of patterns of resource use to political and
economic forces
Ordinary landscapes (vernacular landscapes): the everyday landscapes the people create
in the course of their lives
Symbolic landscapes: representations of particular values or aspirations that the builders
and financiers of those landscapes want to impart to a larger public
Derelict landscapes: landscapes that have experienced abandonment, misuse,
disinvestment, or vandalism
Humanistic approach: places the individual – especially individual values, meaning
systems, intentions, and conscious acts – at the centre of analysis. The emergence of the
study of environmental perception, which pointed out that different people comprehend
the landscape differently.
Landscape as text: the idea that landscapes can be read and written by groups and
individuals
Aesthetic: culturally determined standard of beauty and good taste
Picturesque: a landscape design inspired by 18th century landscape painters in the
romantic tradition
Sublime: a landscape so impressive that it inspires awe or wonder
Territoriality: the persistent attachment of individuals or people to a specific location or
territory
Ethology: the scientific study of the formation and evolution of human customs and
beliefs
Proxemics: the study of the social and cultural meanings that people give to personal
space
Sense of place: feelings evoked among people as a result of the experiences and
memories that they associate with a place and the symbolism they attach to it
Topophilia: the emotions and meanings associated with particular places that have
become significant to individuals
Semiotics: the practice of writing and reading signs
Modernism: a forward looking view of the world that emphasizes reason, scientific
rationality, creativity, novelty and progress
Postmodernism: a view of the world that emphasizes an openness to a range of
perspectives in social inquiry, artistic expression, and political empowerment
Cosmopolitanism: an intellectual and aesthetic openness toward divergent experiences,
images, and products from different cultures
Chapter 12 – Future Geographies
Human Security: a concept that includes environmental sustainability and populationcarrying capacity in the measure of a country’s ability to promote and defend it citizens’
interests
Sustainable development: a vision of development that seeks a balance among economic
growth, environmental impacts, and social equity
Carrying capacity: the maximum number of users that can be sustained over the long
term by a given set of natural resources
Main Points Revisited:
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In some ways, the future is already here, embedded in the world’s institutional
structures and in the dynamics of its populations (we know for example, a good
deal about the trends of the next-quarter century, given present populations and
birth and death rates. We also know a good deal about the distribution of
environmental resources and constraints, the characteristics of local and regional
economics, and the legal and political frameworks within which geographical
change will probably take place.
New and emerging technologies that are likely to have the most impact in
reshaping human geographies include advanced transportation technologies,
biotechnology, materials technologies, and information technologies (The
evolution of the world’s geographies has always been shaped by the opportunities
and constraints presented to different places and regions by successive technology
systems. Many aspects of future geographies will depend on trends in demand for
particular resources and on the exploitation of these new technologies.
We must not underestimate the scope and impact of future environmental
change in shaping future geographies (Future environmental changes are very
hard to predict. However, it is becoming clear that we should, at the very least,
consider the possibility of such changes when discussing future geographies and
expect some of these changes (such as climate change) to be extremely
unpredictable in terms of their local impacts.
The changes involved in shaping future geographies will inevitably bring some
critical issues, conflicts, and threats, including important geographical issues
that centre on scale, boundaries, and territories; on cultural dissonance; and on
the sustainability of development. (Many of these issues stem from the
globalization of the economy, which is undermining the status of territorial
nation-state as the chief regulating mechanism of both global and local
dimensions of the world system. The implications for peripheral places and
regions are dismal: no matter how strong governments may be in their apparatus
of domestic power, they will be next to helpless in the face of acute
environmental stress, increased cultural friction, escalating poverty and disease,
and growing migrations of refugees.
Scenarios:
1. The world becomes populated by consumers rather than citizens. Technology
breeds unlimited, customized choices. Computers do increasing amounts of
white-collar work. Real leisure increases. Governments become virtual
corporations and come to rely on electronic voting. Southeast Asia and the coast
of China manufacture most of the world’s goods and consume almost half
themselves. Latin America is their branch office. Japan gets richer and unhappier.
Russia exports trouble in the form of neo-religious cultists and Mafioso. The US
and Europe become large theme parks.
2. The world becomes dominated by a new international division of labour, based on
an intensive use of network communications. Technology dominates global
culture, which turns inward toward personal spaces. Old public spaces crumble,
and ethnic subcultures give way to a patchwork of unbridled individual variety.
Europe is wracked by civil strife as its collectively oriented civilization unravels.
Russia rebounds, while Japan lags. China and the developing countries become
huge flea markets where anything goes.
3. Economic development is slowed in reaction to earlier decades of high crimes and
chaos. Europe experiences a second renaissance, becoming a moral beacon.
Communitarian values become stronger, and governments undertake large-scale
public works directed at environmental improvement. Dirty technologies are
tightly regulated and this increases the income gap between the core and the
periphery. Asia and latin America become refuges for the young and restless of
the core regions who find environmentalism and communitarianism too dogmatic;
they settle in “free economic zones” where their education and their energy help
stimulate economic growth
4. the world is divided into three rigid and distinct trading blocs, but political
boundaries are more fragmented than ever. The EU including most of Europe and
Russia has a common currency and tight border controls. The Asia-Pacific region
evolves into a trading bloc in response to the European Union, but it is weakened
by internal political and economic differences. Mexico collapses undet civil war.
Canada breaks up after Quebec’s withdrawal. The third trading bloc is centred on
the Indian Ocean, with India, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Iran as the key
members. Throughout the world, political conflicts and weaknesses allow
widespread terrorism, organized crime, and environmental degradation.
5. the world settles into small powerful city-states. Civic pride blossoms, and
governments use advanced technologies to create public works of an
unprecedented scale and scope. Rural areas of the world are second class but have
widespread virtual hookups. Europe fractionalizes into more than 50 countries;
China, Russia, Brazil, and India devolve into black-market ethnic states. Gangs
and militia in peripheral countries and old inner-city areas transform into political
law-and-order machines.