GEOG 1200: Human Geography Exam 1 (Chapters 1-4)

Elitist space

- a term coined by geographer Daniel Gade to describe the distinctive cultural landscape that can be formed from people's elitist space. OR Landscapes that are created over fairly large areas, because of peoples' wealth, and desire to be around similar people, and affluent life-styles. Example: French Riviera

Contagious Diffusion

- a type of expansion diffusion in which cultural innovation spreads by person-to-person contact, moving wavelike through an area and population without regard to social status Example: HIV/AIDS diffused first to urban areas from there spread outward. The outward spread is an example of contagious diffusion.

Hierarchical Diffusion

- a type of expansion diffusion in which innovations spread from one important person to another or from one urban center to another, temporarily bypassing other persons or rural areas Example: HIV/AIDS diffused first to urban areas.

Indigenous Ecology

- indigenous people possess a very close relationship with their physical environment; they have developed sustainable land-use practices over generations. Example: Aboriginal people survived in the Australian landscape relying on their intricate knowledge of the land and its plants and animals

Symbolic Landscapes

- landscapes that express the values, beliefs, and meanings of a particular culture. Example: In medieval Europe, cathedrals and churches rose high above other buildings, symbolizing the centrality and dominance of Catholicism in this culture.

Environmental Determinism

- the belief that the physical environment is the dominant force shaping cultures and that humankind is essentially a passive product of its physical surroundings. Example: : Environmental determinists believed that people of the mountains were predestined by the rugged terrain to be simple, backward, conservative, unimaginative, and freedom loving.

Expansion Diffusion

- the spread of innovations within an area in a snowballing process, so the total number of knowers or users becomes greater and the area of occurrence grows. Example: Hierarchical Diffusion, Contagious Diffusion, and Stimulus Diffusion

Geography

A Greek word meaning literally "to describe the Earth;" the study of spatial patterns and of similarities and differences from one place to another in environment and culture. Example: One may study the physical aspects, such as soils, vegetation, and climate, or the human presence on the Earth.

Permeable Barriers

A barrier that permits some aspects of an innovation to diffuse through it, but weakens and retards continued spread; an innovation can be modified in passing through a permeable barrier. Example: When a school board objects to students with tattoos or body piercings, the principal of a high school may set limits by mandating that these markings be covered by clothing. The principal is the permeable barrier.

Burqas

Burqas are full face veils. Example: worn by women in some Islamic traditions to cover their bodies when in public.

Pidgin

A composite language consisting of a small vocabulary borrowed from the linguistic groups involved in international commerce. Example: Tok Pisin, meaning business talk. Tok Pisin is a largely English derived pidgin spoken in Papua New Guinea.

Core Periphery

A concept based on the tendency of both formal and functional culture regions to consist of a core or node, in which defining traits are purest or functions are headquartered, and a periphery that is tributary and displays fewer of the defining traits. Example: A region can be divided into two sections, one near the center where the particular attributes that define the region are strong, and other portions of the region further away from the core, where those attributes are weaker.

Agroforestry

A cultivation system that features the interplanting of trees with field crops. Example: Planting fruit trees with soy beans or alfalfa.

Independent Invention

A cultural innovation that is developed in two or more locations by individuals or groups working independently. Example: the invention of the telephone or the pyramids of Egypt and those in Middle America.

Depopulation

A decrease in population that sometimes occurs as the result of sudden catastrophic events, such as natural disasters, disease epidemics, and warfare. Example: In 2010, an Earthquake in Haiti, killed more than 160,000 and displaced close to 1.5 million.

Ethnolect

A dialect spoken by a particular ethnic group. Example: Southern dialect displaying considerable African-American influence.

Popular Culture

A dynamic culture based in large, heterogeneous societies permitting considerable individualism, innovation, and change; having a money-based economy, division of labor into professions, secular institutions of control, and weak interpersonal ties; producing and consuming machine-made goods. Example: Authors who are on the best seller list at a specific time

Michael Levison

A geolinguist who developed a s computer model incorporating data on winds, ocean currents, vessel traits and capabilities, island visibility, and duration of voyage which answered the question, how and by what means, could traditional Polynesion people achieved language diffusion.

Population Pyramid

A graph used to show the age and sex composition of a population. Example: In Botswana in 2020, the projected male population between the age of 20-24 will be near 100,000 while women whom are in that ages bracket projected population will be near 90,000.

Placelessness

A spatial standardization that diminishes regional variety; may result from the spread of popular culture, which can diminish or destroy the uniqueness of place through cultural standardization on a national or even worldwide scale. Example: The spread of McDonald's, Levi's, CNN and shopping malls

Convergence Hypothesis

A hypothesis holding that cultural differences among places are being reduced by improved transportation and communications systems, leading to a homogenization of popular culture. Example: Wilbur Zelinsky compared the given names of people in various parts of the United States for the years 1790 and 1968 and found that a more pronounced regionalization existed in the eighteen century than in the mid-twentieth century.

Creole Language

A language derived from a pidgin language that has acquired a fuller vocabulary and become the native language of its speakers. Example: When New Guinea pidgin acquired fuller vocabulary, and became the native language of their speakers it evolved into a creole.

Polygot

A mixture of different languages. Example: Before the creation of Israel in 1948, the state was a polyglot state who spoke Semitic tongues like Amharic and Hamitic

Ecofeminism

A new doctrine proposing that women are inherently better environmental preservationists than men because the tradition roles of women involved creating and nurturing life, whereas the traditional roles of men too often necessitated death and destruction. Example: Women are the child bearers, gardeners, and nurturers. Therefore, women are more nurturing to the environment.

Toponyms

A place-name, usually consisting of two parts, the generic and the specific. Example: Huntsville, Harrisburg, Ohio River, Newfound Gap, and Cape Hatteras, the specific segments are Hunts-, Harris-, Ohio, Newfound, and Hatteras. The generic parts tell what kind of place is being described, are -ville, -burg, River, Gape, and Cape.

Formal Cultural Region

A region inhabited by people who have one or more cultural traits in common. Example: An Arabic-language formal region can be drawn on a map of languages and would include the areas where Arabic is spoken, rather than, another language.

Vernacular Region

A region perceived to exist by its inhabitants; based in the collective spatial perception of the population at large; bearing a generally accepted tourists name or nickname. Example: There are many regions simply called the "the valley."

Possibilism

A school of thought based on the belief that humans, rather than the physical environment, are the primary active force; that the choices number of different possible ways for a culture to develop; and that the choices among these possibilities are guided by cultural heritage. Example: Figure 1.13: The cities of San Francisco and Chongqing both were built on similar terrains that dictate an overall form, but differing cultures lead to very different street patterns. Local traits of culture and economy are the products of culturally based decision made within the limits of possibilities offered by the environments.

Demographic Transition

A term used to describe the movement from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates. Example: a change in population growth that occurs when a nation moves from a rural, agricultural society with a high birth and death rate to an urban, more industrialized society in which death rates decline first and birthrates decline later

Stimulus Diffusion

A type of expansion diffusion in which a specific trait fails to spread, but the underlying idea or concept is accepted. Example: Early Siberian peoples domesticated reindeer only after exposure to the domesticated cattle raised by cultures to their south. The Siberians had no use for cattle, but the idea of domesticated heards appealed to them, and they began domesticating reindeer, which is an animal they had long hunted.

Culture

A way of life held in common by a group of people; learned, collective human behavior, as opposed to innate, or inborn, behavior; includes such learned features as speech, ideology, behavior, livelihood, technology, and government; an ever-changing process in which a group is actively engaged Example: Example: Seeking to learn about how religious cultures differ, or are similar, from one place to another.

GMTA

An acronym for "Great Minds Think Alike" This is an example of an acronym, which is short cut to using whole words to convey common phrases.

Shantytowns

Are settlements inhabited by internally displaced persons who contracted housing using found materials like cardboard, tin panels, and old tires. Example: A place called Los Altos de Cazuca is an example of a shantytown on the outskirts of Colombia's capital city Bogota.

Pictogram

Are symbols or word pictures that convey entire words, ideas, and emotions in a compact and often humorous form. Example: ♥☺☺♥

Gullah Culture

Descendants of African slaves; have distinctive African-influenced culture and language. Example: Gullah culture and language is an example of the relationship between nature and culture. Gullah culture is threatened by its habitat due to the development of housing, tourism and out-migration of Gullah youth to seek better economic opportunities.

Amenity Landscapes

Landscapes that are prized for their natural and cultural aesthetic qualities by the tourism and real estate industries and their customers. Example: Jamestown, Virginia is an example of amenity landscape.

Human Poverty Index (HPI)

Measures social and economic deprivation by examining the prevalence of factors such as low life expectancy, illiteracy, poverty, and unemployment. Pg.39 Example: The United States has a very low standing HPI. When compared to the world the U.S. ranks near the bottom with only Italy and Ireland having larger numbers of deprived people.

Austronesian Diffusion

One of the most impressive examples of language diffusion; spread from the interior of Southeast Asia because of the diffusion of the Polynesian peoples. Example: The Austronesian languages from 5000 years ago, in a presumed hearth in the interior of Southeast Asia, diffused southward to Malay Peninsula. Then over thousands of years diffused to the islands of Indonesia, New Zealand, Easter Island, Hawaii, and Madagascar.

Place Images

Place, portrayer, and medium interact to produce an image, which in turn, colors our perception of and beliefs about places and regions we have never visited. Example: One example is Hawaii, through the media, Hawaii has become in the American mind a sort of earthly happy, invariably good-looking natives who live in a setting of unparalleled natural beauty and idyllic climate.

Rodear

Spanish word meaning 'to round up' Example: Today, the word rodeo comes from the Spanish verb rodear. However, it began being used in northern Mexico and the southwest U.S. to describe the process of rounding up cattle. Example: ranchers rounding up livestock.

Personal Space

The amount of space the individuals feel "belongs" to them as they move about their everyday business. Example: Some Arabs, consider it appropriate and even polite to be close enough for another to smell his or her breath during a conversation.

Environmental Perception

The belief that culture depends more on what people perceive the environment to be than on the actual character of the environment; perception, in turn, is colored by the teachings of culture. Example: A persons mental image of a physical environment, shaped by the knowledge, ignorance, experience, values, and emotions.

Globalization

The binding together of all the lands and peoples of the world into an integrated system driven by capitalistic free markets, in which cultural diffusion is rapid, independent states are weakened, and cultural homogenization is encouraged. Example: In early medieval times overland trade routes connected China with other parts of Asia, the British East India Company maintained maritime trading routes between England and large portions of South Asia as early as the seventeenth century, and religious and political wars in Europe and the Middle East brought different peoples into direct contact with each other.

Isoglosses

The border of usage of an individual word or pronunciation. Example: The dialect boundaries between Latin American Spanish speakers using tu and those using vos for the second-person singular.

Time Distance Decay

The decrease in acceptance of a cultural innovation with increasing time and distance from its origin. Example: A student moves away from their farm in a rural area to a big city to go to school, and notices a cultural change. The further she moves away from a rural area, fewer people embrace the country styles and embrace an urban culture.

Generic Toponyms

The descriptive part of many place-names, often repeated throughout a culture area. Example: The Ohio River, the generic or descriptive part being described is "River."

Transnational Migration

The movements of groups of people maintain ties to their homelands after they have migrated. Example: College students who live away from home during the school year, but during breaks from school move back home to live. These people have maintained ties to their homeland even after they have migrated.

Infant Mortality

The number of infants per 1000 live births who die before reaching one year of age. Example: The worlds infant mortality rate is 44, meaning there is only 44 children per 1000 born who die before reaching the one year of age.

Population Explosion

The rapid, accelerating increase in world population since about 1650 and especially since about 1900. Example: High increases of birth rates.

Relocation Diffusion

The spread of an innovation or other element of culture that occurs with the bodily relocation of the individual or group responsible for the innovation. Example: The migration of Christianity with European settlers who came to America.

Cultural Geography

The study of how the physical world affects the culture of its inhabitants. Example: The myriad cultural processes interacting with humans and the Earth's surface.

Proxemics

The study of the size and shape of people's envelopes of personal space. Example: In the United States people have different personal space requirements in different environments such as intimate space, personal space, social distance, and public distance.

Population Geography

The study of the spatial and ecological aspects of population, including distribution, density per unit of land area, fertility, gender, health, age, mortality, and migration. Example: Migration of refugees, death rates, gender ratios, and age distributions.

Nonmaterial culture

The wide range of tales, songs, lore, beliefs, superstitions, and customs that passes from generation to generation as part of an oral or written tradition. Example: In my family, recipes are passed down from generation to generation.

Refugee Migration

Those fleeing from persecution in their country of nationality. The persecution can be religious, political, racial, or ethnic. Example: The exportation of Africans to the Americans as slaves.

Language Hotspots

Those places on Earth that are home to the most unique, misunderstood, or endangered languages. Example: Top five places on Earth that are home to nearly extinct languages, The Americas (Native American Languages), Africa, the Pacific, Europe, Asia.

Cornucopians

Those who believe that science and technology can solve resource shortages; in this view, human beings are our greatest resource rather than a burden to be limited. Example: Farmers believe they can solve food shortages with genetically modified crops and better farming equipment.

Slang

Words and phrases that are not part of a standard, recognized vocabulary for a given language but that are nonetheless used and understood by some of its speakers. Example: The words cool and groovy were used to refer to desirable, attractive, or fashionable things.

Absorbing Barriers

a barrier that completely halts diffusion of innovations and blocks the spread of cultural elements Example: In 1998 the fundamentalist Islamic Taliban government of Afghanistan decided to abolish television, videocassette recorders, and videotapes, viewing them as "causes of corruption in society." As a result, the cultural diffusion of television was reversed, and the important role of television as a communication device to facilitate the spread of ideas was eliminated.

Indigenous culture

a culture group that constitutes the original inhabitants of a territory, distinct from the dominant national culture, which is often derived from colonial occupation. The term means native or of native origin. Example: The distinct Mayan culture region that encompasses parts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras.

Dialects

a distinctive local or regional variant of a language that remains mutually intelligible to speakers of other dialects of that language; a sub-type language. Example: Speaking the English language with an Australian dialect.

Dogtrot House

a house plan that consists of two log rooms, with either a double fireplace between, forming the saddlebag house, or an open roofed breezeway separating the two rooms.

Linguistic Islands

a language community that is completely surrounded by a typically larger language community. Example: Khoisan, found in the Kalahari Desert of southwestern Africa and characterized by distinctive clicking sounds was surrounded by the Niger-Congo family language.

Human Development Index (HDI)

a measure of quality of life that combines measures of literacy, life expectancy, education and wealth. Example: The United States as of 2009 ranks 13th in the world on the HDI, while Barbados ranks much higher at 37th out of 1,000. It was concluded that the government of Barbados places a relative priority on spending for education and health care, whereas the government of the United States does not.

Language

a mutually agreed-on system of symbolic communication that has a spoken and usually a written expression. Example: Spanish, English, Chinese, and German.

Population Control

a policy of attempting to limit the growth in numbers of a population, especially in poor or densely populated parts of the world, by programmes of contraception or sterilization. Example: China utilizes this policy, due to its dense population.

Folk Culture

a small, cohesive, stable, isolated, nearly self-sufficient group that is homogeneous in custom and race; characterized by a strong family or clan structure, order maintained through sanctions based in the religion or family, frequent and strong interpersonal relationships, and a material culture consisting mainly of handmade goods. Example: Types of folk culture are upland southern, Pennsylvanian, Mormon, and plains ranch.

Zero Population Growth

a stabilized population created when an average of only two children per couple survive to adulthood, so that, eventually, the number of deaths equals the number of births. Example: A TFR of 2.1 is needed to produce a stabilized population over time, if this number does not increase of decrease only then is zero population growth achieved.

Topophilia

a term coined by Yi-Fu Tuan that literally translates to "love of place;" this term means describes people who exhibit a strong sense of place and geographers that are attracted to the study of such places and people. Example: Many geographers are interested in understanding how and why certain places continue to evoke strong emotions in people, even though those people may have little direct connection with those places.

Anatolian Hypothesis

a theory of language diffusion that holds that the movement of Indo-European languages from the area in contemporary Turkey known as Anatolia followed the spread of plant domestication technologies. Example: As sedentary farming became adopted throughout Europe, a gradual and peaceful expansion diffusion of Indo-European languages occurred as well.

Kurgan Hypothesis

a theory of language diffusion, which holds that the spread Indo-European languages originated with animal domestication; original in the Central Asian steppes; and was later, more violent, and swifter than proponents of the Anatolian hypothesis maintain Example: A different theory that believes that Indo-European languages were spread more violently, like through wars and military conflict.

The Rule of 72

a tool for calculation the doubling time of a population; in order to calculate it, you take a country's rate of annual increase, expressed as a percent, and divide it into the number 72 resulting in a number that represents the number of years it will take a population to double. Example: The natural annual growth rate of the United States in 2007 was 0.6 percent. Divide 72 by 0.6 yields 120, which means that the population will double every 120 years.

Material Culture

all physical, tangible objects made and used by member of a cultural group; the visible aspect of culture. Example: Christians use churches as a place of worship

Linguistic Refugee Areas

an area protected by isolation or inhospitable environmental condition in which a language or dialect has survived. Example: Rocky Mountains of northern New Mexico, an archaic form of Spanish survives because of many years of isolation, due to the rugged hills and mountainous landscape.

Functional Cultural Region

an area that functions as a unit politically, socially, or economically. Example: A city, an independent state, a farm, and a Federal Reserve Bank district are all examples of functional regions.

Lingua Franca

an existing, well-established language of communication and commerce used widely where it is not a mother tongue. Example: The Swahili language is in much of East Africa, however the inhabitants speak other regional dialects.

Reverse Hierarchical Diffusion

an idea involving businesses or ideas that start off small in rural centers and then spread to big areas. Example: Walmart's strategy to initially locate its stores in smaller towns and markets, only later to spared into cities.

Thomas Malthus

best known for his publication of An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798. He was an English economist and cleric.

Local consumption cultures

distinct consumption practices and preferences in food, clothing, music, and so forth formed in specific places and historical moments. Example: According to the text, the introduction of Cadbury's chocolate into China is an example of how local consumption culture shapes globalization.

Subsistence Economies

economies where people seek to consume only what they produce and to produce only for local consumption rather than for exchange or export. Example: Miskito communities had developed a subsistence economy founded on land-based gardening and the harvesting of marine resources, including green turtles. They were able to regulate and control their own exploitation of marine resources, while reducing pressures from outsiders.

Landscapes of Consumption

few aspects of the popular landscape are more visually striking than the ubiquitous commercial malls and strips on urban arterial streets. Example: Geographer Yi-Fu Tuan suggests that a commercial strip of stores, fast-food restaurants, filling stations, and used car lots may appear as visual blight to an outsider, but the owner or operators of the business are very proud of them and of their role in the community. Hard work and high hopes color their perceptions of the popular landscape.

2. Stephen Jett

geographer who discovered which societies used blowguns. He also was able to map the distribution of blowguns in those societies.

Indigenous Technical Knowledge

highly localized knowledge about environmental conditions and sustainable land-use practices. Example: Quichua people from the Ecuadorian Andes posses extensive knowledge about the local farming and resource management

AAVE

is an acronym for African-American Vernacular English. This distinctive form of English shares some characteristics with the Southern dialect and also displays considerable African influence in pitch, rhythm, and tone. Understood as being a creole language that grew out of a pidgin that developed on the early slave plantations. pg. 127 Example: This is an example of an Ethnolect.

Yi-Fu Tuan

is known for coining the term topophilia.

3. Thomas Graff and Dub Ashton

known for coining the term "reverse hierarchical diffusion" They both worked on studying Wal-Mart. They noticed that Wal-Mart started out in small, rural communities and then began to move into bigger markets in cities.

Torsten Hagerstrand

known specifically for his work regarding cultural diffusion, time geography as well as migration.

Leisure Landscapes

landscapes that are planned and designed primarily for entertainment purposes, such as beach resorts. Example: Ski resorts and Disney World Resorts

Gendered Nature

men and women often have different roles in preserving their environment. Example: Women are usually considered responsible for harvesting, gathering and weeding. Men, on the other hand, are usually thought of as hunters.

Humans as Modifiers

opposite of environmental determinism; belief that humans mold nature Example: Human deliberately modify the Earth through activities such as mining, logging, and irrigation. AND soil erosion around Athens more than 2,400 years ago.

Kraal

rural family homesteads in East Africa and Southern Africa that consist of a compound of buildings. It includes a main house, a detached building in the rear of cooking, and small enclosures for livestock.

Linguistic Landscapes

send messages, both friendly and hostile; messages typically have political content and deal with power, domination, subjugation, or freedom; help shape the character of places, as well as senses of belonging and exclusion or those who inhabit them Example: English-speaking people would view the linguistic landscape of Korea as illegible because it is so different.

Treaty of Tordesillas 1492

signed by Spain and Portugal in 1494, established the political basis for the present linguistic pattern continent and Spain, the rest. This is an example of how globalization and imperial expansion affects language.

Folk Architecture

structures built by members of a folk society or culture in a traditional manner and style, without the assistance of professional architects or blueprints, using local available raw materials. Example: Yankee houses: "upright and wing" and "Cape Code."

Bilingualism

the ability to speak two languages fluently. Example: Rachel could speak both English and Spanish, therefore she was bilingual.

Birth rate

the annual number of births per thousand people in the population. Example: The United States as a birth rate of 22-31 births per year per 1,000 population.

Death Rate

the annual number of deaths per thousand people in the population Example: In 2010 Russia had a death rate of 16 per 1000 due to a collapsing public health care system.

Folk Ecology

the idea that folk cultures have the abilities to sustainably manage the environment. The attention to conservation varies from culture to culture, folk cultures' close ties to the land and local environment enhance the environmental perception of folk groups. Example: migrations of Upland Southern hill folk from the mountains of Appalachia to western Washington between 1830 and 1930

Carrying Capacity

the maximum number of people that can be supported in a given area. Example: The United States uses 26% of the worlds petroleum and if not annexed then it would become depleted.

Total Fertility Rate

the number of children the average women will bear during her reproductive life (15-44 year old). A TFR of less than 2.1, if maintained, will cause a natural decline of population. Example: Bulgaria has a TFR of 1.2 and is expected to lose 38 percent of its population by 2050.

Population Density

the number of people in an area of land, usually expressed as people per square mile of per square kilometer Example: Measuring the Earth's population per square mile.

Vernacular Cultural Region

the product of the spatial perception of the population at large; a composite of the mental maps of the people. Example: Regions of North America, e.g. Midwest and Southwest.

Settlement Forms

the spatial arrangements of buildings, roads, towns, and other features that people construct while inhabiting an area. Example: The spatial arrangement of buildings and roads in Athens

Land-division Patterns

the spatial patterns of different land uses. Example: In a city some areas are devoted to economic uses, other to residential, political, social, and cultural uses. Studying patterns of these areas tells something about the people who designed it.

Spatial Models

these models set up artificial situations to focus on one or more potential factors; these models use space (an abstract location on a map) to compare potential factors. Example: Example: Torsten Hagerstrand's diagram of different ways in which ideas and people mover from one place to another is an example of spatial models.

Push and Pull Factors

unfavorable, repelling conditions and favorable, attractive conditions that interact to affect migration and other elements of diffusion. Example: pg 96

Denis Cosgrove

was known as one of the most prominent cultural geographers in the world who studied the links between the landscape and culture in several places. thought that landscape itself is ideological.

1. Fred Kniffen

was known as the founding father of American folk geography. He authored over 100 books on rural culture, especially in Louisiana.

Consumer Nationalism

when local consumers favor nationally produced goods over imported goods as part of a nationalist political agenda. Example: China's favors a Ronhua Fried Chicken Company over Kentucky Fried Chicken.