1. Session19: Power, identity and global landscapes –
Part 5: Geographic disparities
November 7, 2013
1) Lecture: Geographic disparities;
1) Time for photo-elicitation group assignment:
Share photo elicitation results with your
group, chart and make outline for poster, and
time to get supplies (40 mins)
Readings: Chapter 7 of Norton – A Cultural Geography of our
Unequal World
Norton, W. (2005). Cultural Geography: Environments, Landscapes, Identities, and
Inequalities. Oxford University Press, Don Mills.
Langa Township,
South Africa

2. Geographic disparities
Unequal worlds –
•
Total population
•
Crude birth rate
•
Crude death rate
•
Infant mortality
•
Life expectancy
•
Per capita income
•
Health stats (e.g., HIV/AIDS; diabetes)

3. Geographic disparities
Theorization of global inequalities
European Miracle (the story goes...)
Europe
- mild summers permitted physical activity
- cold winters reduced the dangers of the disease
- rainfall permitted agriculture
Agriculture diffused from hearths to other suitable
areas
“guns, germs, and steel”  used to conquer
culture, money, knowledge  “development”

4. Geographic disparities
Of course is value laden
What is meant by “development”?
How do we measure “development”?
Indicators

5. Canadian Index of Wellbeing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC1KE66sldA#t=67

6. Geographic disparities
Competitive ideology: inherent in Protestantism, the dominant
religion on Western Europe
 European Miracle vs. European Myth
European Myth:
Processes of European expansion as the cause of disparities
(poverty and other types of inequalities) elsewhere in the world:
- colonization
- exploitation of resources
- institution of slavery
- Eurocentric forms of scholarship

7. Geographic disparities
In cultural geography (based on postmodernist and related
ideas): it is not acceptable to assess the “weaknesses” of
cultures
European Miracle vs. European Myth coloured by the
preferred ideology
raises contentious issues around the legitimacy of European
scholarship
Progressive
(European)
vs.
Backwards
(the rest of the world)

8. Geographic disparities
Box 7.7
Capitalist economy
“the core needs to maintain the underdevelopment of the
periphery”
 Dependency theory (illustrates the consequences of
the Marxist idea of ceaseless capital accumulation)

9. Geographic disparities
5 mechanisms involved in the deepening of the capitalist system:
1. commodification, a shift from use values to exchange
values in both social and economic life;
2. proletarianization, the transformation of subsistence
labour into paid labor;
3. mechanization, the application of ever-increasing
technologies to produce activities;
4. contractualization, a formalization of human relationships
5. polarization, the increasing disparity between different
parts of the world system

10. Geographic disparities
Demise of the state  ‘the state as a dysfunctional unit for
organizing human activity and economic endeavour’
3 main reasons:
1. The rise of multinational organizations (replacement of
the state; diminished power)
2. Claims are being laid to subnational territory based on
ethnic distinctiveness (fragmentation)
3. State is challenged by current attitudes towards the
environment (ecological perspective)

11. Session20: Power, identity and global landscapes –
Part 4: Indigenous peoples and decolonization
November 12, 2013
Guest: Paul Cormier – Indigenous and decolonizing
approaches to theory and research
Readings: Supplementary reading