CHAPTER
31. GEOGRAPHIES OF INEQUALITY: RACE AND ETHNICITY
In the last two decades,
geographers have become extremely interested in the issue of ethnicity. Ethnic
groups are found in essentially all societies. Ethnic groups are populations
that feel a common bond and have a sense of common origin that distinguishes
them from other groups. Religion, language, national origin, and skin color are
all used to various degrees by ethnic groups to distinguish themselves from
others. It is estimated that the 200 or so independent countries recognized by
the United Nations are made up of about 5000 ethnic groups. Increased migration
of people in the last 200 years has produced a complex pattern of ethnic groups.
Essentially, ethnicity is a spatial
concept. Ethnic groups are associated with clearly recognized territories,
either some large homeland district or some smaller urban or rural enclaves in
which they are the primary or exclusive occupant. In addition, they have somehow
marked these places with certain distinguished cultural signs.
Students should be made aware of
the fluidity of the concept of the term ethnicity. For example, the various
language groups that occupied North America before the arrival of the Europeans
(e.g., Iroquois, Apache, etc.) are generally not described as ethnic groups,
while individual populations migrating from patterns of similar complexity in
Europe are always called ethnic groups (e.g, Germans, Bohemians, etc.).
The term "ethnic" comes
from the Greek word ethnos,
which means people
or nation,
but it is used in the contemporary world to label groups that share some
prominent trait. While there must be some physical and social identification,
which sets them apart from other nations, there is no single trait that denotes
ethnicity. Ethnic groups are frequently distinguished from racial groups, but
the concept of race is so poorly defined that many people use the word race and
ethnicity interchangeably. Most readings on ethnicity link it directly to
immigration, and most major textbooks in geography focus on ethnicity in the
Human geographers give varying
amounts of importance to ethnicity in the
Textbooks also focus on the
landscapes produced by ethnic groups, although it is very difficult to find
clear-cut examples of such areas. Agricultural landscapes created by North
American immigrants have been subsumed in the mass culture produced by the
industrial era. In contrast, European landscapes are not threatened by mass
culture to the same degree, because unique field and crop patterns or house
types make them more distinct.
American textbooks also describe
ethnicity as it relates to urban patterns and to historic processes by which
groups that are confined to certain parts of industrial cities become minority
populations in the
In recent times, the American
public has been shocked by the conflict among ethnic groups in
The distinction between ethnicity
— as discussed in the chapter on cultural geography — and nationalism —
which is discussed in the political geography section of the course —
is, in many respects, a question of scale. Nationalities are ethnic groups that
have control of a territory or a country which may or may not be completely
independent. When members of a nation move into another nation-state, they
become an ethnic group in the new country. So the distinction between these two
concepts is one of time and place. Ethnic groups can become nations through a
process of nation building and wars of independence and liberation. Members of
nations can also become ethnic groups by moving from their country of origin
into another country.
One feature that characterizes
ethnic and nationalist warfare is what is now called ethnic
cleansing. This is an ancient practice in which the victors relocate
the vanquished by moving them. For example, the Native Americans were moved from
almost the entire area they occupied in the eastern section in the
We use the term racism widely to refer to patterns of
behavior, which demonstrate that members of one race feel that another race is
inferior. This attitude also seems to apply to ethnic groups as well, but we
don't have a word like "ethnicism" which would mean one ethnic group
feels superior to another because of the innate quality of the group. In this
case, it would be a cultural rather than a strictly biological quality. This
whole field of inquiry into racism, prejudice, and ethnic feelings and attitudes
is in a major state of flux at present because of the rise of strong nationalism
and feelings of ethnic group solidarity. The renewed importance of ethnicity
seems to have taken American scholars by surprise. Scientists are
struggling to come up with some kind of understanding of this apparently very
ancient attitude.
CHAPTER
OUTLINE
I. The
human race
A. All humans
belong to the same species
1. The term race focuses on differences
rather than on similarities
2. Many anthropologists believe the whole
concept of human "races" should be abandoned
II. A
geography of race
A. Genetic makeup
is the key
1. Within a species, chromosomes of reproducing
organisms are identical in number and size
2. Focus
on: Genetics
3. Regional differences in physical appearance
a) Does not
result from differences in fundamental genetic makeup of each group
b) Does
result from differences in gene frequencies among populations
4. Blood type differences
a) Type O
dominates in Native American populations
b) Type A
dominates in
5. Differences occur within the human race, not
between races
a) Differences
probably result from a long history of adaptation to different
environments
b) Use of
the term "race" is in error
B. Culture
and race
1. After thousands of years populations with
distinct physical attributes are still clustered
2. Example of
3. Examples of
4. Culture often fires conflict
C. Human
biological variation
1. Some anthropologists argue there are four
basic human stocks
a) The
Negroid Stock
b) The
Australoid Stock
c) The
Mongoloid Stock
d) The
Caucasoid Stock
e) Not all
groups fit into the above four categories
2. Skin color (Figure 30-1)
a) Most
pervasive biological-physical traits
b) Melanin
pigment
(1) Protects
against the sun's radiation in tropical populations
(2) Higher
latitude people have less melanin and lighter skins
(3) Protects
inner layers of skin from ultraviolet rays
c) Often
first thing people notice about another person is their color
d) Populations
in
3. Physique and size
a) Bergmann's
Rule – the closer you get to the tropics the slimmer the people tend to be.
b) Stress
and diet can be determining factors
c) People in
d) No
totally satisfactory explanations for variations in humanity's physical
appearance
4. Other physical traits
a) Head
shape: cephalic index
b) Facial
features: nose shape and length
c) Hair
types: straight, curly, woolly
d) Epicanthic
fold: overlapping skin over the eye
III.
Race as a social category
A. Racism
1. Part of the human condition, has both
geographic expression and geographic consequences
2. Turkish guestworkers in
3. In
4. Example of the
5. Perception of segregated neighborhoods in the
B. Race and
environment
1. Early civilizations
a)
b) Example
of
2. The "racial" stereotype remains a
huge obstacle to social harmony
IV. Ethnic
patterns and processes
A. Introduction
B. Ethnic
mosaics
1. In
a) Have
names such as "Little Italy, "
b) Place
names can refer to ethnic background
2. Term ethnic comes from the Greek word ethnos,
meaning "people" or "nation"
3. Racial identity is largely a matter of
self-perception
a) Previously
discussed
b)
c)
d) The Maori
community in
4. Ethnicity exists at many spatial dimensions,
large and small
5. Advantages of ethnic community
a) Group
identity and cohesiveness yield advantages for the individual
b) Constitutes
a social network
c) For the
new arrival it eases transition
d) A
familiar language and common church
e) Preserves
and protects customs and traditions to mutual advantage
C. Acculturation
and ethnicity
1. Diffusion of popular American culture traits
affects ethnic neighborhoods
2.
a) Now a
generation old
b) The older
Spanish-speaking residents represent a dwindling minority
c) Old
values still prevail, but acculturation is eroding them
d) Young
Cubans born in
e) These
neighborhoods are in transition that will stabilize
3.
4. Focus
on: Ethnicity and Environment
5. Cultural revival
a) People of
similar ethnic background first clustered in particular areas
b) Later
they diffused outward relocating from the cluster that served as a stepping
stone (Figure 30-3A)
c) These
dispersed immigrants intermarry and form loose networks
d) They are
still conscious of their shared ethnicity (Figure 30-3B)
e) Prosperity
generates funds used to revive old ties to the common cultural source–renewed
awareness of cultural linkage (Figure 30-3C)
f) Renewed
cultural linkage tends to counter assimilation
g) In recent
years former immigrant groups have even demonstrated in support of their former
homelands
6. Focus
on: Ethnicity, Folk Culture, and Popular Culture
V. Ethnic
conflict
A. Introduction
B. The case
of
1. Large environmentally diverse country with a
plural society
2.
3. Has a specially designated
4. Because of a vast regional geography,
5. Provinces are accustomed to a degree of
autonomy
6. Today the biggest problem in
C. French
1. Historical geography of
a) French
entered part of what is now
b) French
created laws, a land tenure system, and the Roman Catholic church prevailed
c) A series
of wars with the English ended with French defeat
d) French
kept a certain amount of territory, their land tenure system, and church
e) The
British parliament changed
f) When
Charles de Gaulle visited
D. Ethnic revival
1. Ethnic feeling in
2.
3. In 1988
4. Feelings of ethnicity rose among
a) They want
their rights protected by the Canadian federal government
b)
E. Territorial
adjustments
1. Ethnic assertion by
2. The Crees' historic domain extends over more
than half of
3.
4. The
5.
6. The forces of ethnicity can disrupt even the
most stable governmental system
CHAPTER
32. GENDER AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF INEQUALITY
Just as there is a geography of
ethnicity, language, and religion, there is a geography of gender. Gender refers
to the inequality of the sexes, and is a term that is related to social
situation, not just biology. We can see the differences between modern geography
and tradition geography most clearly in the treatment of the geography of
gender. In the past, scientists and writers viewed humans not as sexual beings,
but just as people. The way a man viewed the environment was thought to be
shared by women and children of all ages. Beginning in the 1980s, a new
interpretation of cultural geography took hold. Sometimes called the new
cultural geography, it breaks down the old monolithic view of culture.
There are five general contexts in
which the geography of gender is the most important: demography and health;
family and social conditions; education and opportunity; economic and productive
activity; and politics/public life. Students of the geography of gender are
plagued by the lack of accurate statistics and comparable data from different
places around the world. Therefore, this field of geography is attracting
researchers.
Looking first at demography
and health, we see the longevity gap (the fact that women tend
to live longer than men). Since 1950, the longevity gap in the world expanded
from five to seven years. In
Education
is also disproportionately available for girls and boys. In
If we look at economic
productivity, we see a problem in the collection of statistics.
Women's work is primarily focused inside the home and is not given any dollar
value. This makes any discussion of productivity flawed. The female labor force
is growing, and in advanced economies, more and more women are working as
skilled labor.
Politics
and public life is a sad story. In major
democracies worldwide, women only recently began to vote, and in only a few,
such as
One of the growing subfields of
geography is the study of geography of the home. Many feel this topic is the
last unexplored area on the surface of the earth. Landscapes like the home that
are created and dominated by women are usually unreported in the core literature
of geography.
CHAPTER
OUTLINE
I. Introduction
A. Women's
inequality in poorer countries
1. Countries with high population growth rates
a) Women
who bear the children are confined to their village
b) Men
and women born and raised in the same village live in different worlds
2. Migration
a) In
African refugee camps, women and female children always are the worst off
b) In
voluntary migrations, males tend to dominate the decision-making process
c) In
new destinations, males quickly widen their activity spaces
d) Male
dominance remains the rule rather than the exception
B. Women in
the modern developed countries
1. Reduction of inequality between men and women
2. Women not always paid the same wage for the
same work as men
3. In corporate, political, and many other
settings inequality can still be seen
4. Women take jobs closer to home
a) Families
to take care of
b) Work
hours so they can be home when necessary
c) They
lose opportunity for advancement
5. Example of
a) Women
are not allowed to drive automobiles
b) Women
who drove during the Gulf War were arrested
II. Demography
and health
A. The longevity
gap
1. On the average women today tend to live about
4 years longer than men
2. In the developed countries, between 1950 and
1990, the gap widened from
3. Men and women have equal life expectancy in
just three of the world's countries
(Figure 31-1)
4. In virtually all cultures, men tend to marry
younger women
5. Hundreds of millions of women who spent
lifetimes sustaining families die alone in poverty
B. Quality
of life
1. Women in the poorer countries of the world
a) Pregnancy
and childbirth confront women with high health risks
b) Pregnancy
risk is 80 to 600 times higher than that in developed countries
c) Asian
women face the highest maternal mortality rate
d) Inadequate
medical services
e) Excessive
number of pregnancies and malnutrition (Figure 31-2)
2. Gender differences in nutrition in the poorer
countries
a) Women
are less well nourished than men
b) Female
children are even worse off
c) Reports
from WHO indicate that anemia affects the majority of women
C. Female
infanticide
1.
a) Many
are aborted after gender-detection tests
b)
c) Female
infants are killed by oleander berries, smothering, by depriving them of food
d) Laws
prohibiting prenatal tests solely to determine sex of a fetus are being violated
e) Fathers
want male children to see the lineage preserved
f) Tradition
of dowry makes males valuable even if it is now illegal
2.
a) One-child
policy has brought an imbalance in male-to-female ratio
b) Number
of males unable to find wives during the first decade of the twenty-first
century will double or even triple
3. Government incentives may be necessary to
stop the imbalance in male-to-female ratios
4. Millions of babies die from food deprivation,
denial of medical care, abandonment, and murder
5. Female infanticide more common in urban areas
6. The impact on women can be devastating
without legal constraints and balanced incentives
III.
Family and social conditions
A. Mortality rates
in poorer countries (Table 31-1)
1. Higher for girls than boys
2. Reflects the lower status of girls and women
in many societies
3. Much of what happens to women is unknown
because so many live in rural areas
4. The cultural landscape is essentially
male-created and male-dominated
5. The woman's indoor home is her female space
6. Women are overwhelmingly the victims of
domestic violence worldwide
B. Women in
1. Girls are still forced into arranged
marriages
2. Dowry
deaths are on the rise
3. Federal and
state governments created legal aid offices to help women
4. Family courts to hear domestic cases have
been created
a) Tend
to be run by older male judges
b) Try
to force the battered or threatened woman back into the family fold
c) Hindu
culture attaches great importance to the family structure
5. Resurgence of Muslim fundamentalism created a
controversy over rights of divorced Muslim women
C. Women in
Islamic countries
1. Many women live a medieval existence of
isolation and servitude
2. Many Muslim political and social leaders
deplore this situation
3. Some women have succeeded in becoming
doctors, lawyers, and other professionals
a) Islamic
laws and rules restrict even their lives
b) They
must still appear cloaked and veiled in public
4. Resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism and
severe Sharia laws have had an especially strong
impact on women
IV. Education
and opportunity
A. Education gives
the chance to improve one's circumstances
1. Where education levels are higher, women's
circumstances are better
2. In much of the less-developed world girls are
left home when boys start school
3. Progress is being made
a) More
girls now go to school, at least at the elementary level
b) A
growing number of women reach levels of higher education
c) Sharp
contrast between urban and rural areas
4. Women are still being denied access to
training in such practical fields as forestry, fishing,
and agriculture
5. Women in our literate society still face
special job-related difficulties (Figure 17-3)
6. Recent reports from
7. In
8. Factors that impede progress
a) Rapid
population growth
b) Limited
budgets
c) Cultural
and political barriers
V. Economy
and productivity
A. Women's
productivity
1. Their work is not included in the world's GNP
2. A woman's unpaid labor in the periphery
a) Produce
more than half of all the food
b) Build
homes, dig wells, and make clothes
c) Plant
and harvest crops
3. The realm
of
a) Women
probably have the hardest life
b) Produce
an estimated 70 percent of the food by hand labor
c) Gather
firewood from ever-increasing distances
d) Left
many times without a husband who has moved to the city
e) Cannot
get bank loans or title to the land she works
f) A
young girl will start working 12 hours a day as soon as she is able
g) Cash
crops such as tea are called "men's crops" because the men trade in
what the
women produce
B. Women in
the labor force
1. In the core realms from 35 to 39 percent of
the labor force
2. In Sub-Saharan,
3. In
4. The comparatively small number working in
manufacturing is rising
5. Many women engage in home-based economic
activities
a) Tailoring,
beer brewing, food preparation, and soap making, etc.
b) These
informal activities are often the mainstay of the community
6. All over the world, women still face job
discrimination
VI. Politics
and public life
A. The dominance
of males
1. In the
2. Male domination of political institutions was
well established by 1920
3. Not all countries have given women the right
to vote
4. Many countries gave the right for women to
vote only recently (Figure 31-4)
5. The right to vote does not give women
political power (Table 31-2)
6. In recent years there has been an increase of
women in politics
1.
A few national leaders have been
women
2.
When women have been in power their
policies tend to emphasize equality, development, and peace
CHAPTER
29. IDENTITY
Popular
and Folk Culture
Within the broad context of
cultural geography, writers have struggled to deal with the difference between
modern urban culture, which is highly changeable and influenced by technological
developments, and the traditional, long standing customs of populations which
are only minimally affected by urbanization. As a result, human geography in the
1990s began to focus in on the new subfield of cultural geography, which
explores the contrasts between "folk" culture and "popular"
culture. These terms are somewhat problematic because they ignore the issue of
mass culture (or the culture of the masses) and what is sometimes called high or
elite culture. In some writings, popular culture is thought to be a protest
against the mass culture which is produced by the elite for the middle-class.
These politicized views of the distinctions between popular, folk, mass, and
elite culture engage scholars from a wide range of disciplines. Geographers have
played a role in these discussions, but most human geography books ignore the
issues of class related to the development of cultures and focus instead on the
differences between folk and popular culture.
Folk culture is defined as
traditional practices held by small homogenous groups typically living in
isolated areas. Popular culture, on the other hand, is found in large
heterogeneous societies that share certain habits and customs.
Geographers typically ask two basic
questions for both folk and popular cultures: What is the origin and what is the
diffusion of folk and popular culture? Folk cultures generally have anonymous
locations. Their practices are so deeply embedded in the culture that it is hard
to know when and where things developed. In contrast, popular culture is
generally well documented because it is so new. Its origins are often in wealthy
countries such as
The cultural trait of music shows
interesting variations. We can think of folk music, popular music, and artistic
or academic/classical music. Classical music is not discussed in geography
textbooks, but there are many discussions of popular and folk music.
The boundaries between folk and
popular music are vague. In the
Folk cultures are promoted by
isolation. The physical can provide barriers to movement and themes for stories
and songs. It also dictates some food preferences and dress patterns. Folk
housing is also an important part of the cultural landscape, and it has
attracted the attention of many geographers over the years. It is difficult to
study folk housing in the
Popular culture is also important
when discussing housing, food, and clothing styles, although it is difficult to
gather comprehensive data on these practices. Folk culture is threatened by
popular culture. Popular culture is spreading around the world. Carried by
television and other forms of media, it has penetrated formerly isolated
locations in the world. In the
KEY
POINTS
1.
Cultures have affected one another
throughout history, but the extent and scale of interaction has greatly increased
over the past century.
2.
The globalization of culture has
eroded the distinction between folk culture and popular culture while fostering
the development of new identity communities that cut across traditional cultural
lines.
3.
Cultural products produced in a
small number of places exert an influence greatly disproportionate to their
size, but the geographic pattern of this influence is highly uneven.
4.
Economic and cultural globalization
are closely linked, and that link has increasingly led cultural products to be
seen as commodities to be bought and sold (commodificaion).
5.
The twin impacts of economic and
cultural globalization make it increasingly important to see individual places
not in isolation but in relationship to other places and to processes unfolding
at extra-local scales.
6. The globalization of culture has threatened distinctiveness of individual places, leading to efforts to protect endogenous cultural products.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. Introduction
II. The changing scope of cultural interaction
A. All cultures have been affected
1. No culture exists in isolation
2. Examples of cultural interaction
3. Folk cultures—largely self-sufficient, somewhat isolated groups with long-standing traditions that change comparatively slowly through time
4. Popular culture—the rapidly changeable, nontraditional heterogeneous ideas and practices of urban industrial societies
5. Discussion of the disappearing folk cultures
6. All cultures are dynamic
7. Discussion of today’s fast pace of diffusion
III. Impacts of the globalization of culture
A. The influence of television
1. American and to a lesser extent British products are now seen and heard around the world
2. The French cinema has carved out a special niche in the film world
3. Cultural forms produced in a few places exert an influence disproportionate to their size—and with clear cultural impacts
4. The threat of cultural homogenization
a) Much evidence individual cultural productions are interpreted and understood in different ways
b) Example of American war movies
B. The link between economic and cultural globalization
1. Example: McDonald’s hamburger outlets are now spread over six continents
a) Success not based primarily on tourists
b) Local consumers largely sustain them
c) Introduced a fairly standardized fare with some local variations reflecting local tastes
d) Alter character of the cultural landscape
2. Commodification defined
3. Example of different kinds of commodification are given
C. The evolving cultural landscape
1. Architectural forms and planning ideas have diffused around the world
2. Individual businesses and products have become so widespread they leave a distinctive landscape stamp
3. Borrowing of idealized landscape images promote a blurring of place distinctiveness
4. The skyscraper (Figure 29-1)
5. Discussed: the growing tendency to transpose landscape ideals from one place to another
D. The changing meaning of “local”
1. We cannot speak of cultural convergence in any meaningful sense
2. The same cultural form or process will not have the same impact in different places
3. We are not moving toward a mono-cultural world
4. Global-local continuum—what happens at one scale is not independent of what happens at other scales
IV. Reactions to cultural globalization
A. Discussion of events tied to the link between globalization and culture
B. Concerns over the loss of local distinctiveness
1. Appeal of external cultural forms promotes concerns about their implications for local distinctiveness and identity
a) Can represent a challenge to cultural forms and behaviors with a high degree of symbolic importance
b) Accelerate human alteration of the environment
2. Minorities in the global core sometimes see change as an effort to promote an influx of dominant cultural norms on them
3. Seen as efforts to promote a national ideology
C. Impacts of resistance
1. Resistance is widespread and often vehement
2. Impacts of resistance is limited
3. Some degree of hybridity has characterized most cultures and landscapes
4. How Michael Jordan became the most recognized person on Earth is discussed