GEOG121 Week 2a – The World
Globalisation: one of the processes that shapes the relationships between places around the
world
Premodern World (9000-7000BC):
- Experimentation by hunter-gathers – new ways of engaging with the environment
o Domesticating animals
o New farming techniques
o Cooking with fire
o Grindstones to mill grain
o Tools to store and prepare food
o The idea of being located in the one place becomes more feasible – leading to
greater population densities as settlement is encouraged, land rights more
important, new specialisations developed, barter begun – allowing trade
between minisystems (Agricultural-based minisystems)
- The first agricultural revolution
o Most mini-systems were destroyed/incorporated
o Hill tribes of PNG
o Bushmen of the Kalahari
o Some minisystems absorbed into ‘world-empire’
- ‘World Empire’: a group of minisystems that share a common political system – pay
taxation/tribute to an elite group, often under military or religious pressure
o starts by colonising its neighbours – were in complete control of the colonised
lands which were subordinate under their rule
o Colonisation: ‘The physical settlement in a new territory of people from a
colonising state’ (:33) Associated with subordinate and dominant roles –
coloniser almost always the dominant
o Urbanisation: Towns and cities as administrative, religious and military centers
- Relationships between world empires: (China, India, Middle east, Central America,
South America)
o Sharing of knowledge, culture, beliefs, science, arts, literature, technology as
well as trade
- Early Capitalism: (Italy, Southern England, The Baltic Sea Region, The Nile Valley,
Malabar and Coromandel (India) and Southeast Coastal China) – Profit based economic
structure
o Capitalism: a mode of social and economic organisation, profit is central, private
ownership of production, distribution and exchange of good – state is not
present to provide for the population if the private sector can afford it
o This system is starting to emerge in the world empires but only the specific areas
listed above
o Minisystems still exist outside of the main world empires
Modern World-Systems: ‘An independent system of countries linked by political and
economic competition’ (Knox and Marston, 2016:37)
- Two Phases (1450-1750 and 1750-1950)
- Phase 1 (1450-1750): Exploration:
o Portuguese, Spanish and English Explorers discovering new lands and confirming
their previous knowledge
o Portugal designed a cannon-armed ship – first of its kind
o Quadrant and the Astrolabe are invented as navigational tools
o Europeans exploring tropical regions to discover new materials and products to
trade e.g. cotton
o Slavery: trade of humans – used for mass labour on plantations
o Exploitation and disempowerment of Indigenous People
o World systems were limited by technologies
- Phase 2 (1750-1950): Industrial Revolut ion:
o 1790-1850: Steam engines, ironworking and cotton textile manufacturing (UK)
o 1850-1870: Steel, machine tools, railroads, steamships (UK, France, Belgium,
Germany)
o British Empire dominated in the industrialisation period: controlled interior of
colonies, grasslands exploited for grain & livestock, enabled barbed wire,
railroads and refrigeration, core nations controlled the production and trade of
sugar/coffee/cotton/rubber
o Stronger economic ties between countries
o Three Systems in world systems (Immanuel Wallerstein):
Core: regions that dominate trade, control all advanced technology, lead
productivity, diversified economic activities and opportunity
Periphery: dependent, disadvantaged trading, older technologies,
underdeveloped economies
Semi-periphery: exploit periphery and exploited by the core
These systems are not permanent – changes in who is the most
dominant and changes from periphery to core and vice versa
o International division of labour: colonies provided food and raw materials to the
core – maintained supply through military and economic power, concentrated
on products where they had a comparative advantage, dependent on core
countries, little diversification. E.g. sub-Saharan Africa – 50% of export earnings
of tea, coffee and sugar. Steamships (cumulative innovations and telegraph
communications
- Post-WWII many former colonies sought independence
- Neocolonialism: core economies indirectly maintain influence through financial
regulations, commercial relationships – countries become independent but are still held
in similar systems they were when they were part of a colony
- Transnational Corporations: imperialist in nature? Using power to disadvantage of
peripheral states or benefit them?
A Globalising World:
- Globalisation: ‘the expansion and intensification of linkages and flows of capital, people,
goods, ideas and cultures across national borders’ (Knox and Marston 2009:69), ‘The
increasing interconnectedness of different parts of the world through common
processed of economic, environmental, political and cultural change’ (Knox and
Marston 2016:50)
- Global connections differ from previous ones
o Function at greater speed
o Operated on much larger scale – greater influence even in remote areas
o Has multiple dimensions – scope of global connections is broader – economic,
technological, political, legal, social and cultural
o Added level of complexity in interrelationships between places and regions–
interactions and interdependencies among numerous global actors – more
diversity of relationships
- Features of a Globalising World
1. New International Division of Labour: Shifting of manufacturing from core
to peripheral and semi-peripheral regions to reduce labour costs – in 2006
US based companies employed 31 million workers overseas
2. Internationalisation of Finance: private capital flows comprise 25% of
worlds GDP (5% in 1970s), sources of direct foreign investment globally have
diversified, transnational corporations operating out of semi-peripheral
nations, trading is faster at a larger scale
3. New Technological Systems: Robotics, microelectronics, biotech, digital
communication, cargo jets, satellites, email, fibre-optic networks: underpin
rapid transport and complex commodity chains around the globe,
telecommunications and transport bring places ‘closer together’
4. Homogenisation of international consumer markets: rise of affordable
luxuries and ‘must-have’ products, reinforced through internationalisation of
tv and syndicated tv – commodity chain – look at chapter 2.1 or Knox and
Marston Textbook
Part B:
- Globalisation is an uneven process
o Benefits of long distance travel and instant communication are not available
Space-time compression (way to get from A to B more quickly) – lower
income groups in core nations, poor people in peripheral nations,
‘infrastructural ghettos’, large scale investment in peripheral nations that
benefits new industry and exclude locals, new restrictions to mobility in
various wealthy states
o Globalisation benefits some and disadvantages others
De-industrialisation of Baltimore – period of restructuring
o New social justice problems (neocolonialism)
Madagascar – South Korea renting land
o Resistance to Globalisation: shutting borders
Brexit in Britain
Reactionary sense of place – movements against multiculturalism and
anti-refugee movements
Popularisation of survivalist culture
Transitional towns
o Places engage with globalisation unevenly
Nashville shapes global trends in country music
o Can we cultivate a progressive sense of place?
Remaining open to global influences
