Human Geography (GEOG 1101)
Chapter 2: The Changing Global Context
An increasingly connected (and differentiated) world
Example:
● Coffee consumption in the US compared to some countries leading in coffee produce
such as Brazil, Vietnam
● Fast food consumption like McDonald's spread out of every country in the world. But
the menu items for each country is totally different
=> all of them are connected in different countries, but still really different
Pattern globally and similarities/differences: GNI (PPP) Per Capita (gross national income
per person)
● The lowest income in the world is 1,000. But the US has the highest annual average
income of 50,000$ => big magnitude difference
● Pattern
+ Higher income (wealthy): North America, Western Europe, Australia, Japan
+ Lower income: Central Africa, South America, Asia
Other examples show the variation in significant patterns of different countries is highly
uneven: Electricity consumption, percent of population undernourished
Globalization
"the increasing interconnectedness of different parts of the world through common
processes of economic, environmental, political, and cultural change."
● The globalized patterns of economic production are unlike anything that we saw
earlier in history
● Understand our current state of globalization as a product of history
● Key event in the history of globalization still matter
Defining Human Geography
"The field of Human Geography focuses on how people make places, how we organize
space and society, how we interact with each other in places across space, and how we
make sense of ourselves and our localities, regions, and the world."
- None of this can be done without putting human geography in a historical
context to understand how places change through time, what major events
and relations have produced the world we know today, and the fundamental
social/economic/political patterns of the modern world system.
- The world is constantly changing but we can see that it's been produced by
the sets of processes
- To understand current patterns of human geography (especially
differentiation) we need to look back at key historical processes.
● Rise of Hearth Areas and settled agriculture
● Colonization and Slavery (Concepts in Action - 1619 Project)
● Settler Colonialism
● Neocolonialism (Film Assignment - Life and Debt)
, ● Industrialization (not until Chapter 11)
Early "hearth areas" were relatively self-contained
● Early societies were focused around several hearth areas (9000 - 7000 BC) -
geographic areas, human geography where new practices developed and operated
● These hearth areas were places where societies moved from nomadic hunter
gathering to settled agriculture on plots of land instead of following animals or
vegetation => sustain your family to achieve certain limitations or barriers to develop
new technologies and societal relationships
● Once agriculture stopped in a place and learn how to farm and do agriculture on a
specific piece of land was one of the earliest most important transformations of
human society => contributes to human geography today
● Societies in hearth areas are reciprocal - they made and shared things among a
societal group + the transitions to settled agriculture happened in several areas
separately
● 4 main hearth areas were identified as many systems where the settled
agriculture began to be developed and practiced
+ The Middle East (fertile crescent) around Iran and centered around the Tigris and
Euphrates River
+ South Asia around present-day India, Ganges and Indus River
+ East Asia around present-day China and Yellow River
+ Mesoamerica near present-day Mexico and the Andes
What happened in these areas? Some technologies developed
1. Splash and burn agriculture: prepare a plot of land that is primarily used for bread
and grain and they act as fertilizer by burning vegetation => replenish soil nutrients to
act as a fertilizer which allowed you to stay in one area to use a plot of land more
than one
2. Domestications of sheep and cattle: breeding them for features and temperaments
and qualities that are useful to humans provided both work and food
3. Advances in food storage and cooking: crop that can be stored inn later months
when you may not produce fresh crops + broaden the types of food through new
cooking techniques
The Transition to Food-Producing Systems
● What were the implications for?
● Population density?
+ Higher densities of people living in villages and permanent settlements because you have
better food security => more people survive and thrive in a culture
● T is Social organization?
+ New social system for organizing rights to lands and resources => social organization gets
more complicated with more patterns of land use and agreements between different social
groups
● Specialization?
Chapter 2: The Changing Global Context
An increasingly connected (and differentiated) world
Example:
● Coffee consumption in the US compared to some countries leading in coffee produce
such as Brazil, Vietnam
● Fast food consumption like McDonald's spread out of every country in the world. But
the menu items for each country is totally different
=> all of them are connected in different countries, but still really different
Pattern globally and similarities/differences: GNI (PPP) Per Capita (gross national income
per person)
● The lowest income in the world is 1,000. But the US has the highest annual average
income of 50,000$ => big magnitude difference
● Pattern
+ Higher income (wealthy): North America, Western Europe, Australia, Japan
+ Lower income: Central Africa, South America, Asia
Other examples show the variation in significant patterns of different countries is highly
uneven: Electricity consumption, percent of population undernourished
Globalization
"the increasing interconnectedness of different parts of the world through common
processes of economic, environmental, political, and cultural change."
● The globalized patterns of economic production are unlike anything that we saw
earlier in history
● Understand our current state of globalization as a product of history
● Key event in the history of globalization still matter
Defining Human Geography
"The field of Human Geography focuses on how people make places, how we organize
space and society, how we interact with each other in places across space, and how we
make sense of ourselves and our localities, regions, and the world."
- None of this can be done without putting human geography in a historical
context to understand how places change through time, what major events
and relations have produced the world we know today, and the fundamental
social/economic/political patterns of the modern world system.
- The world is constantly changing but we can see that it's been produced by
the sets of processes
- To understand current patterns of human geography (especially
differentiation) we need to look back at key historical processes.
● Rise of Hearth Areas and settled agriculture
● Colonization and Slavery (Concepts in Action - 1619 Project)
● Settler Colonialism
● Neocolonialism (Film Assignment - Life and Debt)
, ● Industrialization (not until Chapter 11)
Early "hearth areas" were relatively self-contained
● Early societies were focused around several hearth areas (9000 - 7000 BC) -
geographic areas, human geography where new practices developed and operated
● These hearth areas were places where societies moved from nomadic hunter
gathering to settled agriculture on plots of land instead of following animals or
vegetation => sustain your family to achieve certain limitations or barriers to develop
new technologies and societal relationships
● Once agriculture stopped in a place and learn how to farm and do agriculture on a
specific piece of land was one of the earliest most important transformations of
human society => contributes to human geography today
● Societies in hearth areas are reciprocal - they made and shared things among a
societal group + the transitions to settled agriculture happened in several areas
separately
● 4 main hearth areas were identified as many systems where the settled
agriculture began to be developed and practiced
+ The Middle East (fertile crescent) around Iran and centered around the Tigris and
Euphrates River
+ South Asia around present-day India, Ganges and Indus River
+ East Asia around present-day China and Yellow River
+ Mesoamerica near present-day Mexico and the Andes
What happened in these areas? Some technologies developed
1. Splash and burn agriculture: prepare a plot of land that is primarily used for bread
and grain and they act as fertilizer by burning vegetation => replenish soil nutrients to
act as a fertilizer which allowed you to stay in one area to use a plot of land more
than one
2. Domestications of sheep and cattle: breeding them for features and temperaments
and qualities that are useful to humans provided both work and food
3. Advances in food storage and cooking: crop that can be stored inn later months
when you may not produce fresh crops + broaden the types of food through new
cooking techniques
The Transition to Food-Producing Systems
● What were the implications for?
● Population density?
+ Higher densities of people living in villages and permanent settlements because you have
better food security => more people survive and thrive in a culture
● T is Social organization?
+ New social system for organizing rights to lands and resources => social organization gets
more complicated with more patterns of land use and agreements between different social
groups
● Specialization?
