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Chapter 3
South America
Term | Definition |
---|---|
Unity of place | Alexander Humboldt’s notion that in a particular locale or region intricate connections exist among climate, geology, biology, and human cultures. This laid the foundation for modern geography as an integrative discipline marked by a spatial perspective |
Indigenous peoples | Aboriginal or native; an example would be the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas. |
Altiplano | High-elevation plateau, basin, or valley between even higher mountain ranges, especially in the Andes of South America. |
Land alienation | High-elevation plateau, basin, or valley between even higher mountain ranges, especially in the Andes of South America. |
Liberal theology | religious movement during the 1950s, and gained followers from the global periphery. based on a blend of Christian faith and socialist thinking, that interprets the teachings of Christ as a quest to liberate the impoverished masses from oppression |
Cultural pluralism | A society in which two or more population groups, each practicing its own culture, live adjacent to one another without mixing inside a single state. |
Commercial Agriculture | For-profit agriculture |
Subsistence agriculture | Farmers who eke out a living on a small plot of land on which they are only able to grow enough food to support their families or at best a small community |
Remote sensing | The indirect capture of images by specially equipped, Earth-orbiting satellites |
Uneven development | The notion that economic development varies spatially, a central tenet of core-periphery relationships in realms, regions, and lesser geographic entities |
Supranationalism | A venture involving three or more states—political, economic, and/or cultural cooperation to promote shared objectives |
Rural-to-urban migration | The dominant migration flow from countryside to city that continues to transform the world’s population, most notably in the less advantaged geographic realms |
Informal sector | Dominated by unlicensed sellers of homemade goods and services, the primitive form of capitalism found in many developing countries that takes place beyond the control of government. The complement to a country’s formal sector |
Barrio | Term meaning “neighborhood” in Spanish. Usually refers to an urban community in a Middle or South American city |
Favela | Shantytown on the outskirts or even well within an urban area in Brazil |
Megacity | Informal term referring to the world’s most heavily populated cities; in this book, the term refers to a metropolis containing a population of greater than 10 million |
Central business district | The downtown heart of a central city; marked by high land values, a concentration of business and commerce, and the clustering of the tallest buildings |
Gini index | A measure of inequality within a given area, ranging from 0 to 100. A value of 0 indicates that income is equally distributed across an area’s population; a value of 100 indicates that all income is concentrated in the hands of a single recipient |
Dependencia theory | theory Originating in South America during the 1960s, a new way of thinking about economic development and underdevelopment that explained the persistent poverty of certain countries in terms of their unequal relations with other (i.e., rich) countries |
Insurgent state | Territorial embodiment of a successful guerrilla movement. The establishment by antigovernment insurgents of a territorial base in which they exercise full control; thus a state within a state |
Failed state | A country whose institutions have collapsed and in which anarchy prevails |
Neoliberal policies | Policies adhering to an ideology or development strategy that advocates the privatization of state-run companies, lowering of international trade tariffs, reduction of government subsidies, cutting corporate taxes, and deregulation of business activity |
Landlocked countries | interior state surrounded by land. a country is disadvantaged in terms of accessibility to international trade routes, and in the scramble for possession of areas of the continental shelf and control of the exclusive economic zone beyond |
Human Development Index | A UN index that is a composite measure of life expectancy, education, and income per capita. It is used to rank countries within a four-level classification under this name |
Triple frontier | chaotic area that surrounds the Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. Lawlessness pervades this for criminal elements, which is notorious for money laundering, arms, smuggling, drug trafficking, and links to terrorist organization flows to the Middle East. |
Primate city | A country’s largest city—ranking atop its urban hierarchy—most expressive of the national culture and usually (but not in every case) the capital city as well |
Viticulture | The growing of grapes for the production of wine |
Elongation | In political geography, refers to the territorial configuration of a state that is at least six times longer than its average width. Chile is the most prominent example of this shape on the world map |
Buffer state | A state separating ideological or political adversaries. In southern Asia, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Bhutan were parts of a buffer zone set up between British and Russian-Chinese imperial spheres. |
Entrepôt | A place, usually a port city, where goods are imported, stored, and transshipped; a break-of-bulk point |
Forward capital | Capital city positioned in actually or potentially contested territory, usually near an international border; it confirms the state’s determination to maintain its presence in the area of contention |
Cerrado | fertile savannas of Brazil’s interior Central-West that make it one of the world’s most promising agricultural frontiers. Soybeans are the leading crop, and other grains and cotton are expanding. Inadequate transport links to outside world are a problem |
Negative externalities | Undesirable side-effects and/or byproducts of an action. In our case, the downside consequences of dam construction in Brazil’s Amazon Basin in form of further deforestation, other environmental degradation, and the displacement of existing communities |
Growth-pole concept | An urban center with a number of attributes that, if augmented by investment support, will stimulate regional economic development in its hinterland |