Geog 210 Midterm

We know it when we see it: immigration, warfare, maps, colonialism, poetry and literature, everyday life, sexuality, refrigerators, homes

Began in a simple way as a response to the masculine nature of geography
4 questions driving it:
Women in space- where are they?
What are the spaces of women’ activities or experiences?
How are different activities and spaces gendered and with what effects
How does gender intersect with other forms of difference such as race and class to justify discrimination and injustice?

Earth as ‘natural world’ leads to questions about the environment and human relations with the environment
Earth as ‘social world’ relates to questions about society and the relation of people with each other

the stories, or habits of thought, that structure the lives we live in (ideas)
Movement of ideas

how economies and especially capitalist economies are structured by social and political relations (in/equality)
Where is the poverty, where is the wealth?
How can we understand who has more and who has less

the creative, meaningful even emotional patterns of everyday life (the everyday)

mathematical space described through points, lines, areas, planes and configurations whose relationships can be fixed precisely through mathematical reasoning

cultural and socioeconomic aspects
expressed as ‘space X’
Public spaces, religious spaces
Spaces are transformed by the use people attribute to it

Map of trajectory in your mind- cognitive maps

Radical openness to different idea (the critical part)
Reflecting on how the social world is written
Using discursive, political economic and humanistic approaches
Attending t the spatiality of things- even and especially things that are supposedly beyond space; eg the internet, globalization, film

the idea of communication technology is getting better and bringing the world together
“...since the inception of the telegraph and radio, the globe has contracted, spatially, into a single large village”

History has turned a corner, and globalization is qualitatively than before:
No more nation states needed
No more far-flung corners of the world
Global markets are the answer that will connect the world
Positive view of globalisation as economic development
Global citizens
capitalism= prosperity to every part of the world

He divides history into 2: industrial and post-industrial periods
Industrial period is one in which nation states hinder economic movement
Post-industrial period (from late 1960s) is one in which “arteries” of the economy are “cleansed” of “scierotic” nations states, and capital flows freely and unconstrained
Everyone becomes more or less the same

Globalisation is creating a single playing field- more competition for a better outcome with more diverse players
recognizes diversity, but they are still basically ‘plays the same game’
“Globalisation 3.0 is…shrinking the world from a size small to a size tiny and flattening the playing field at the same time”
Because it is flattening and shrinking the world, globalization 3.0 is going to be driven not only by individuals but by a much more diverse group of individuals. Individuals from every corner of the flat world are being empowered. Globalization 3.0 makes it possible for so many more people to plug and play, and you are going to see every color of the human eye.”

The idea that globalization is bringing prosperity and freedom to all corners of the globe through the power of free markets
Markets are the secret to distribute and allocate resources in the best ways
This idea of markets understands the state and its regulations as the enemy of development and progress. Let the market work!
“Liberal” in the economic sense because markets are being liberalized (trade barriers removed) in the name of globalization
Liberal in the personal sense that with regulation removed and markets functioning well, individuals will have freedom to do as they wish (assuming you have the money to do so)
Once markets are working well, you will not be dominated by the state or anyone
This (discursive) formulation is powerful because it can always be said that development is failing because there are not enough markets!

there have been no fundamental changes within international capitalism since capitalism began

Glyn and Sutcliffe (1992): “the widespread view that the present degree of globalization is in some way new and unprecedented is… false”
Hirst and Tompson (1999): “the present highly internationalized economy is not unprecedented: it is one of a number of distinct conjunctures or states of the international economy that have existed since… modern industry began”
Political economic approach

Ratio of trade to GDP gives a number to understand how globalized a county is and connected to other parts of the world
Globalization is a bit overstated

Romans were trading along rivers and land line for spices, food etc
Explorers who travelled vast distances for economic purposes
Monument of Zheng He (chinese origin) located in Malaysia
How everything you own is created elsewhere from materials from other places

globalization is an on-going set of complex geographical processes with eber changing and unpredictable forms

We agree with hyperglobalist in that of course there is a change, but we can agree with the skeptic that there is a legacy with what has happened before

While the financial sector and commodity trade have been globalized in some ways for hundreds of years, the volume is much greater today.
You also have the labor and production sectors being economically integrated since WWII.
Example of labor integration: Canadian temporary worker program

Most general word for human motion- does not need to be a long distance

long distance and long duration movement

line on a map

is a space

A set of actors and institutions of government that exert power over a territorially defined political entity including seeking to control what enters and leaves that territory.

This is a special form of state which is said to represent a group of persons who claim to represent a “people” (a nation) based on shared culture, history, ideology, etc.

refers to the “deliberate physical occupation of land as a method of asserting ownership over land and resources.” (Vowel, 16). These demands are of course contested!! This is not a one-time thing (event) but an ongoing process of dispossession that takes place in settler colonial states. Settler colonial states also tells stories about themselves called national mythologies that seek to erase the violence of their origins. Canada is a settler colonial state.

The taking of land is a key part

The rule of a nation-state or other power over another group of people and place through occupation, e.g. India under British rule.
Can be undone and over unlike settler colonialism

the extension of the power of a nation-state(s) through direct or indirect control of the economic and political life of other territories

indigenous peoples: people who are native to the land
settlers: non-indigenous people who form part of the European-descended socio-political majority
non-Black people of color
--Black people- not settlers because they were often brought against their will and could not take advantage of their position like non-black settlers

Existing racial dynamics are kept and emphasized throughout the country by borders

Temporary migrant workers who when they cross have the right to work for one employer only and receive low wages compared to citizens…
Folks who come from other countries to study or to take care of family members but do not have legal right to work (but maybe have to work to survive)
Refugees who are waiting to receive work permits or other documents (but need to work…)
Children of people who do not have documents (whether born in Canada or who traveled with parents across the border)
There are many other inequitable situations that are produced by the border…

Article 1 of the Convention, as amended by the 1967 Protocol, defines a refugee as this: A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country…

“people fleeing a conflict or persecution/. They are defined and protected in international law, and must not be expelled or returned to situations where their life and freedom are at risk”

A refugee is someone who has been granted asylum and who is arriving in the country as a permanent resident or who can obtain this status while in the territory, after having requested and received asylum’

The Canadian government clarifies: being a refugee is about politics NOT economics.

“an asylum seeker is someone who upon entering a country or during a temporary stay, requests protection in Canada”

Gov has more power to do with these people as they wish- can be sent back

Re-opened in November 2022 by Canada after being closed since start of pandemic
There is police but it is not an official border crossing
A police will tell you that ‘it is illegal’, ‘if you want to cross legally go ___’, ‘if you do cross, you will be arrested’ and then you are
After they are arrested they are released and can then take a bus into canada- if they want asylum they need to go to immigration center right away—> this is legitimate way to cross

Have to apply for asylum in the 1st safe country you land in
Only at official borders→ like if you flew to the US or over land at official border crossing

Can not ‘asylum shop’

The right to seek refuge from danger and persecution is a fundamental right protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Under Article 31 of the 1951 Refugee Convention, Canada has a duty to allow people to enter to seek protection and cannot prosecute them for the way they arrive.
- reaffirmed by section 133 of Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

irreguarly does not equal illegally

New US policy which seeks to reduce numbers of immigrants including refugees from Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela

Protections of a refugee but only or a little time

End of TPS status in the US for people from four countries: Haiti, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Sudan.
The end of TPS creates a challenging situation for Haitians without papers in the United States

rejection of immigrants and refugees at the border without processing, justified by public health (covid)- US title 42

Number of people injured, left homeless etc was incredible
To answer this question, we need to reflect on the history of Haiti and the position of Haiti in what is known as the Capitalist World System
a. Colonialism: European imposed slavery
b. Imperialism: Slave revolution and French blackmail
c. Anti-communism: Western countries support dictatorship
d. Imposing a (neoliberal) economic order: sweatshops and a coup

Global levels of core and periphery
Core benefit the most from production→ periphery sell cheap materials to core who then sell them back the final products
Core: high tech, high education, more production, wealthy
Links countries that are trading through capitalist system

Plantation economy established by European colonial powers (Spanish and mostly the French)
There were huge numbers of slaves– some 40,000 per year arriving in SD by the late 1780s from Africa brought by European slave traders.
During 18th century, ~800,000 brought to SD, but by end of century 500,000 left, or possibly even less because of huge death rates.
Because of high death rate, majority of enslaved people in SD were African born.
Widespread sexual violence committed against enslaved people by white plantation owners and workers (Slavery in Quebec

Made them pay reparations (money they lost because of freedom) to their former masters
Cause of why haiti could not grow
Double debt- to france and to banks for loans to pay france

Concern that too much of haiti’s wealth was floating to europe
Took advantage of asasination of president
Built infrastructure, but with forced labour
Re-wrote constitution, so foreigner could own land, moved financial reserves to US

US would claim they were democratic
But dictatorships were easier to deal with

François Duvalier, 1957-1971 (father)
At first liked but became powerful dictator with help of us and canada

Jean-Claude Duvalier, 1971-1986 (son)
In exchange to say there would not be communism, wages kept low they received a lot of aid by US but it was pocketed

Duvaliers were brutal dictators so many started to leave the country- lot of professional class
Many came to quebec

Thesis: us economic and political domination over latin america led to conditions where huge numbers of latin americans to leave their countries and come to the us

Also has implications for haiti/ quebec (canada)

During the Cold War, the US and its allies supported anti-communist dictatorships throughout the world including in Haiti
•Duvalier dictatorship kept wages low and terrorized anyone who questioned their rule
•They did not invest government funds in effective government institutions or infrastructure (rather they lined their pockets)
•The rule of the Duvalier’s was so violent that first the professional class and then the working class left the country to live in Canada and elsewhere

Democratically elected
Double minimum wage, land reforms, food distribution network, low-cost housing
Got ousted, went to south africa- 2004
Some of his progress was reversed

Haitian parliament in 2009 set minimum wage at 5$day US intervened to ensure that it did not rise across the board Compromise solution approved by parliament 5$ /day for workers
Except textile workers– 3$/day Where a lot of multinational companies were invested Beneficiaries: owners and stock-holders of multinational companies