Session 1: Intro to course & introductory concepts in the geography of culture and environment 1) Detailed Review of syllabus & handout of Assignment 1 2) Participatory reflective learning exercise 1) What is globalization and what are the major debates around globalization? (Chapter 2: 2.1) Jeju, South Korea January 7, 2015 Fouberg, E. H., Murphy, A. B., De Blij, H. J. and C. J. Nash (2012). Human Geography: People, Place, and Culture. John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd., Mississauga. Langa Township, South Africa
Transcript
Session 1: Intro to course & introductory concepts in the geography of culture and environment
1) Detailed Review of syllabus & handout of Assignment 1
2) Participatory reflective learning exercise
1) What is globalization and what are the major debates around globalization? (Chapter 2: 2.1)
Jeju, South Korea
January 7, 2015
Fouberg, E. H., Murphy, A. B., De Blij, H. J. and C. J. Nash (2012). Human Geography: People, Place, and Culture. John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd., Mississauga.
Langa Township,South Africa
Participatory Reflective Learning Exercise
1. What learning tools that were/could be used last semester were useful for you developing an understanding of the geographic concepts (e.g. videos, guest lecturers, examples provided by the instructor, etc.)?
2. What was/is important for you (e.g. appointments with the instructor, more detailed descriptions of assignments, etc.) in completing your assignments in a fashion that you feel personally satisfied with (i.e. on time and of good quality)?
3. What was/would be important for you for gaining confidence with the concepts and preparing for exams (e.g. study groups, in-class reviews, additional resources, etc.)?
Beginning to think about globalization...with a partner...
• Look at some of the possessions (not more than 3) that you have on you today in class;
• Are there labels on these items saying where they were made? Write down where the items were made.
• Do you think that the materials that went into making the items were from the place that it was made? Write down the contents of the items or speculate what they are made of.
For next class:
• Look up where those materials are mainly produced. Web-based search is sufficient.
• Consider all of the materials and transport required for those materials to create the item(s).
Commodity chain: Series of links connecting the many places of production and distribution and resulting in a commodity that is then exchanged on the world market.
Section 2.1 - What is globalization and what are the major debates around globalization?
Example of a Commodity Chain
Video: Starbuck’s Coffee: Commodity Chain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osW9dfueb_4
While watching the video pay attention to all of thefactors that influence the availability and price of a commercial coffee brand.
Globalization: The expansion of economic, political, and cultural processes to the point that they become global in scale and impact. The processes of globalization transcend state boundaries and have outcomes that vary across places and scales.
hotly contested term
George Ritzer (2007): “an accelerated set of processesinvolving flows that encompass ever-greater numbers of the world spaces and that lead to increasing integration and interconnectivity among those spaces”
Processes can be economic, social, cultural, political, technological...
Global Shipping Lanes
Major Trade Routes, 1400 - 1800
What geographic term does this relate to from last semester?
Merchantalism! – global promotion of trade and commercialization, as well as a driving force behind European colonization
Significant debate over whether globalization is a positive or negative force in the world
Peter McMichael: globalization is more properly understood as an “agenda” or a “project” in which the dominant Western countries work to actively create opportunities for themselves to accumulate capital and profit.
The Beginning of Globalization
Disagreement about when processes of globalization began
• 1400s: first wave of sailing explorers (e.g. Columbus)
• by the end of the 1800s most of the world’s territories had been drawn into capitalist economy
Wallerstein system
• core (distribution of resources moves in this direction)
• periphery (drawn into global economy via different processes, such as trade, colonization, etc.)
• semi-periphery (can use resources of peripheral areas)
peripherals and semi-peripherals can shift positions...
Canada and Globalization
Influenced by processes of exploration and colonization
Staples thesis [proposed by Innes]: The theory that Canada’s economy developed through the export of raw resources to Europe and that, as a result, Canada did not develop a strong manufacturing base, preferring to import finished goods.
Norcliffe argues that that Canada developed a manufacturing and service base through the staples economy, but that “the staples economy still looms larger in Canada’s hinterland” (2001, p. 18)
Can you think of examples?
In general, Canada has had a slower development of the technology sector.
member of the core, and a secondary (peripheral to some) economic player
World city: Dominant city in terms of its role in the global political economy. Not the world’s biggest city in terms of population or industrial output, but rather centers of strategic control of the world economy.
• function as service centres
• connected to other cities as the global level
• based on different ranking systems
Examples:
• New York• London • Tokyo• Toronto and Vancouver (but further down the list)
Free Trade Zone (FTZ): Areas set aside within countries to make foreign investment and trade easier by reducing or eliminating trade barriers, and providing inexpensive labour and raw materials.
• increasingly important for the movement of good and capital on a global scale
• labour-intensive manufacturing centres where inexpensive labour and raw materials are brought together
• Earliest FTZs established in the early 1920s in S. America
• 1999: 40 million people employed through 3,000 FTZs
A Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA)
“A Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) is a bilateral agreement aimed at protecting and promoting foreign investment through legally-binding rights and obligations. FIPAs accomplish their objectives by setting out the respective rights and obligations of the countries that are signatories to the treaty with respect to the treatment of foreign investment.” (Government of Canada, 2014)
Why was the FIPA with China (October, 2014) so controversial?
Marshall McLuhan – coined the term “global village” to describe the new world order after the 1950s
- based on reflections about the influence of tech and communications on culture and society...also coined “the media is the message”
Thomas Friedman agued the “flattening” of the world as nations drop barriers to trade and migration argued that “friction distance had been overcome by tech improvements and free trade agreements...
Friction of distance: The increase in time and cost that usually comes with increasing distance.
Neo-liberalism: An ideologically driven set of practices that seek to open and expand capitalist markets, reduce or eliminate government regulation and constraint of the free market, and the development of frameworks that enhance global market processes.
David Harvey: “liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills” through “private property rights, free markets, and free trade” (2005, p.2)
Keith Markus: “Free trade raises the well-being of all countries by inducing them to specialize their resources in those goods they produces relatively most efficiently” (2004, p. 98-116)
There is another side to the debate!
• Neoliberalism has resulted in unchecked free market capitalism
What is the problem with this?
• continued economic, social and cultural domination of some
groups (i.e. countries) over others
• generation of inequitable incomes
• widening of gaps between rich and poor
• limiting of access to health and education
• global environmental justice issues
Scholars largely agree about these effects, but do not agree about the extent
Globalization however is not likely not going to cease
Its shape can only be controlled through different forms of policy influenced by different governments, NGOs, corporations, etc.
An alternative for production:
TED Ed Video: Re-thinking progress: The circular economy
