This document summarizes the first session of an introductory geography course. It covered an overview of the syllabus, assignments, and introductory concepts related to the geography of culture and environment. Specifically, it discussed globalization including debates around definitions, processes, and impacts. Examples of commodity chains, trade routes, and roles in global production were provided. Challenges and perspectives on issues like free trade agreements, foreign investment, and debates between proponents and critics of neoliberal globalization were also summarized. Students were assigned preparatory tasks on researched commodity chains and supply lines for personal items as well as reading about the World Bank for the next class.

1. 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 9, 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

2. 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.)?

3. 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).

4. 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?

5. 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 the
factors that influence the availability and price of a
commercial coffee brand.

6. What were some of the factors influencing the commodity
chain seen in the video?
Other questions for consideration:
What are the various ways that people can affect the
commodity chain?
What is our role?

7. Some roles that people have in the commodity chain:
• producers (corporate; large-scale / small-scale;
subsistence)
• laborers
• consumers (consumer choice)
• politicians / decision-makers / policy influence
• social activists
• & others....

8. 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 processes
involving 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...

9. Global Shipping Lanes

10. Major Trade Routes, 1400 - 1800
What geographic term does this relate to from last semester?

11. 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.

12. 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)

13. peripherals and semi-peripherals can shift positions...

14. 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.

15. 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

16. 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)

17. 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

18. 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?
http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-
commerciaux/agr-acc/fipa-apie/index.aspx?lang=eng

19. Debating Globalization
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.

20. 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)

21. 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

22. 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
http://ed.ted.com/featured/2Yy019iv

23. Read for next class:
Inside the World Bank, The Washington Post
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=2
0050612&slug=worldbank12

24. Summary of actions for next class:
1. Web-based search of goods found in your items
2. Read handouts
3. Read: Inside the World Bank, The Washington Post
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=2
0050612&slug=worldbank12