Geography 10 Ucb Midterm (Slums, Crosby, Territories, Nations, Space, And Maps)

Front 1

Delaney and territory

Back 1

Territory
Territoriality
Meaning and Power
Mobility
Modernity
Verticality
Textuality and interpretability
Sovereignty and Poverty

Front 2

Crosby

Back 2

Overkill Hypothesis
Domestication
Portmanteau Biota
Weeds
Grasses
Winds
Sailing
Fortunate Isles

Front 3

Territory and Territoriality

Back 3

The basic or territory…are fairly straightforward: a space, a line, some meaning, some state of affairs.” (p.14)
o -“A territory is a bounded meaningful space….Territoriality refers more to the relationship between territories and some other social phenomena.” (p.15)
o -Territories “are fundamentally constitutive of the social orders whose features they express.” (p. 10)
o -Territorially is “a social (and political, economic, cultural) process that unfolds not only in place but through time.” (p.2)

Front 4

Domestication

Back 4

the process of getting plants and animals to rely on people for reproduction. The increased control and ability to breed for specific traits provided by domestication helped generate massive food surpluses which supported larger populations, complex division of labor, and the beginning of political organization. A key point in Crosby’s argument is that the lack of domesticated animals possessed by New World populations put them at a major disadvantage when they encountered Europeans. These animals are considered a renewable source.

Front 5

Verticality

Back 5

o “Every physical location…is positioned within a dense matrix of multiple, overlapping territories and territorial configurations. The ‘meanings’ of each of these territories (and the power relations that these meanings imply) are established in relation to the other territories across the heterogenous ‘levels.’” (p.31)

Front 6

Textuality and interpretability

Back 6

o Reliance on laws, codes, and bureaucracies to enforce territorial claims, including claims to own/control/use private property
o “If territories convey meanings, these meanings have to be ‘read.’” (p.30)
o “Nearly any modern territory, therefore, is interpretable, and, potentially, open to a range of divergent interpretations.” (p. 30)

Front 7

Sovereignty and poverty

Back 7

o The state is sovereign over its (political) territory
o The individual possesses:
 His/her body
 His/Her property
 The individual grants the state legitimacy while the state guarantees the individual’s private property. Individual relies on government to protect private property laws.
Mobility

Front 8

Meaning and Power

Back 8

o -“The point is that when we look through territory what we will always see are constellations of social relational power.” (p. 16)
o -“Territory always involves the communication of some sort of meaning and is essentially classificatory.” (p.19)

Front 9

Mobility

Back 9

• Modernity is a reference to the dominant “westernized” culture that emerged in Western Europe.
o This in turn is associated with the appearance/global saturation of the international system of states w/ liberal political philosophies (and naturally contending philosophies/ideologies in response to liberalism).
o Characteristic of territories dominated by this modernized culture, are “continuous technological transformations, transportation, economic production, consumption, and warfare”
o Connections between sovereignty of the nation-state and property of the individual
 Individual must have no affiliations with “communal or tribal” aspects.
• For a territory to be modern it must become like the West; a territory must follow the above criteria in order to be a “modern” territory.
• Examples of Modern Territory: “high-tech prison cell, the refugee camp, the factory, the airport-gate waiting area, the trailer park, and countless others.”
• Modern Territoriality: Refers to the territorial actions that arise as a result of modernized thinking.
o Ex: We see the world as divided up into multiple sovereign states.
• In essence, Modern territory is defined as having “westernized” thought, facets of industrialization, sovereignty of the nation-state, and the “westernized” individual. Modern Territoriality is the way we see territory using the “modern” world as a template.
• Important to the class because it defines how territories are not merely a construct of meaningful divisions in space. Modernity allows us to view territory in a new way; territory can (and usually is) defined by dominant westernized thought- we see the world as modern if its western.

Front 10

Overkill Hypothesis

Back 10

One theory explaining the sudden elimination of large mammal species in the Americas and Australia when people first arrived is that animals were unaccustomed to the presence of the new, relatively small, tool-wielding predator in their midst. In Eurasia and Africa, where early humans had been present for much longer, there were not similar die-offs, leaving a larger variety, which may have helped Eurasians domesticate far more animals during the Neolithic Revolution than did the early inhabitants of the Neo-Europes. The overkill is also part of the reason Crosby describes them as “shock troops” for the European invaders. (from lecture, “Pleistocene Overkill” is Paul Martin’s term)