Human Geography – University of Utah – Spring 2013
Vocabulary
Aristocrat – Aristotle’s term for ‘well educated’ Associated with wealthy, relatively more sophisticated and/or elegant, of generally higher quality or position.
Authority – power that operates within de jure or recognized state, civil or sovereign territory, or within an organization wherein the members explicitly accept the right, title, jurisdiction or appropriateness of that operation. More associated with government, officialdom and accepted by the governed as having the right to legislate, interpret and compel individual action.
Autocorrelation – an association between phenomena based on distance and/or time separation. A tool for finding patterns and associations. In geographic analysis, autocorrelation relates to ‘Tobler’s Rule’ wherein phenomena is positively related by distance. In other words, objects, behavior or other characteristics or a set of phenomena vary with distance or separation from each other: objects closer together tend to be more like each other. Objects that are more separated by time or space tend to vary more than objects that are closer. See distance decay
Balkanization–to break up a region, with sub-units based on disparities, differences and often hostilities.
Bio-fuels – most fuel is from fossil rocks or earth minerals. In contrast, organic materials are not yet fossilized, typically are high in moisture content and are based on current or recent growth of plant and/or animal matter. Fossil fuels tend to be higher in energy per unit weight or volume and are considered non-renewable.
Capitalism – economic practices based on profit motive based on controlling the means and resources for production and inherently associated with private or personal control over property and resources. Capitalism is often associated with investment, monetization, materialism, debt and hegemony.
Cash crop – moving to food for trade, specialization, exploitation rather than subsistence.
Centrist – a tendency toward balancing opposing forces, choosing common ground, roughly the opposite of polarizing and/or partisan. Compare to left wing/right wing
Central Place – the complement of ‘periphery’ and ‘hinterland’ – associated with urban, not rural. A key location, crossroads, port or other locational focus. See Node.
Chauvanism – female and male, ethno, cultural, intellectual
Choropleth, or ‘thematic’ maps – displays of Earth surface where-in areas are symbolized to show a unified set of values, typically ordinal, but often nominal. Theme maps tend to obscure variations within geographic areas in order to illustrate differences between discrete, bounded areas or regions, such as states or nations.
Church and state – religious association compared to association with a de jure, or recognized governmental authority. Often used for comparison between nations, states and cultures across territories with regular to secularity, or separation betweem religious and governmental authority.
Climate change – a collection of theories that concludes that overall earth climates around changing. Climate change has always been occurring; at present, climate change is commonly believed to be anthropogenic, or human-influenced.
Cognition – conscious recognition – attention, memory, language, reasoning, problem-solving.
Cohort–a group, set, collection of people or objects associated by age, type or other association, such as age group, classmates, etc.
Colonialism – political and legal domination over an alien society. See ‘Neo-colonialism’ and ‘Imperialism.’
Complementarity –the concept that one region has resources, including technology, that resolves gaps or deficiencies in the resources available in a different region. Complementarity is more than simple trade; it represents human capital and/or natural resource that is particularly advantageous across regions.
Conservatism – political, economic or social policy or philosophy that tends away from publicly sponsored market interventions, and focuses relatively more on preservation of ‘traditional’ or long-standing social practices and policies. Conservatism is relatively more associated with formal religious standards and less activism in social reform and populist movements. Tends toward greater restraints in social expression and favors private control over resources rather than public or collectivist controls. See Liberalism.
Convention(al) – by convent or agreement, adhering to accepted standards, see orthodoxy
Convergent (thinking) – a tendency to see common ground, to seek union, agreement. Less likely to analysis outside established bounds, and more likely to join or unite, subsume to a common or majority position, a willingness to accept rather than contest or dispute, less suspicious, and possibly less analytical, less prone to contrast or diametric.
Core states or regionsversus periphery. Associated with ‘developed’ versus ‘undeveloped’, colonial, or relatively primitive, lower in technological development. Core is generally defined as: US, Canada, western Europe, Australia, Japan. Core = industrialized and capitalistic. Core countries are increasingly consumerist and technologically advanced, relative to peripheral or developing places. Further, industrialization is increasingly associated with developing or peripheral regions, rather than relatively more prosperous and/or “advanced” or “western” nations. See “Periphery.”
Cosmopolitan - associated with the ‘world citizen’ concept, multi-cultural, often rootless or mobile, and/or less oriented to national or regional allegiance. Often associated with liberality, free association, and appearing to be relatively more sophisticated, aware and encompassing. Not provincial, not colloquial.Emphasizes openness to divergent experiences and different cultures, a willingness to take risks on new things <like “Lonely Planet”?>
Country– a generally recognized geographic region or territory that typically shares language, culture or other social habits. Typically associated with a single, unifying government.
Culture – unified, consistent set of social practices, expressions, habits or tastes. Culture is social organization that includes generally inherited attitudes, behaviors and operational rules that often include music, language, dress, and technology. See Technology. Culture also refers to the means by which people interpret their place in the world and their obligations and opportunities, the rules by which we live.
De Facto. Something that exists ‘as is’ regardless of approval, authority, or official recognition. De Facto is more about how things actually are, while De Jure is more about how things are supposed to be. De Jure is legal, but not necessarily effective, while De Facto is really real, but not necessarily authorized, official or approved.
De Jure. Something having legal standing, officially recognized and accepted, based on formal standard, group concurrence or other authority. Compare to De Facto.
Demography - the study of human populations.
Determinism – the assignment of fundamental or underlying causation. Relates to prediction of outcomes and over-arching paradigms or factors that control or direct outcomes. Can relate to fatalism or pre-determinism and religious conception of predestination, fate, karma, defeatism.
Diametric – look for the back side of every issue – what is the counter position, such as: laissez faire vs command & control
Digital divide – wired versus non-wired. More popularly, the digital divide separates those who are Internet-reliant from those who are not.
Distance decay – the effect of distance on the quality or quantity of phenomena. A quality or state tends to erode, change or diminish with distance. See Tobler’s Rule.
Divergent (thinking) – a tendency to see contraries, opposites, or different perspectives. Often associated with a tendency to skepticism, avoidance, suspicion, over-analysis and general tendency away from easy agreement. See Convergent.
Diversity – term loosely applied to efforts by core nations to be more inclusive of women and minorities in hiring and other associations. More globally, diversity relates to efforts to ensure varieties of plants, animals, human belief systems and social practices.
Dominant culture – a subjective or pejorative term that refers to the perceived set of cultural or social norms that prevails within a territory or within a unified group of people or organizations. In the United States, the ‘dominant culture’ has been a label generally applied by minority groups to describe the habits and standards and/or controls imposed by the anglo culture.
East (communist) v West (capitalist) See also ‘northern hemisphere v southern hemisphere’)
Egalitarianism – removal of inequities among people, and even among all living things. Has been associated with socialism, libertarianism, progressivism (!)
Elitism–distinctions leading to belief in one group being superior in capability, natural instinct, inherited status, education, sophistication or wealth
Energy – 1.0 Btu (British thermal unit) – energy required to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Fahrenheit. Fossil fuels compromise more than 95% of world’s mechanized source of fuel: crude oil, coal and natural gas, respectively. Energy suppliers v energy consumers. The United States, for all energy types, and China (for coal only) are the primary examples of significant users who are also significant consumers. For most of the world, there is a severe mis-match between those who consume and those who supply.
Environmental determinism - is the idea that nature greatly influences or controls the shape of society.
Ethnic – pertaining to a particular cultural group, a minority in racial, religious or linguistic tradition
Ethnocentrism – see parochialism, see jingoism. A tendency to see one’s own culture, nation or ethnicity as having some relatively greater legitimacy or inherent strength, value or other superiority compared to that of others
Faction– pertaining to discord, strife, opposition or diametric. Often associated with political organization. A clique or sub-group based upon substantial differences in outlook, desire or social aim on a specific topic. A faction often exists to seek power or change in authority or social policy
Failed state – a recognized governmental authority that is judged to have succeeded at defined role or purpose as a sovereign authority
Fanatic – a pejorative term generally referring to behavior that is considered unfavorably intense, dogmatic, obsessive; extremism, unrealistic attachment, adherence or commitment.
Fast world – general term associated with technologically advanced nations. Roughly associated with capitalistic and economically laissez faire nations, cultures and populations. A generally tendency for individual and collective living to be fast-paced, quick to adapt and adopt.
Fervent – connotation indicating deep sincerity and commitment. See fanatic.
First world – industrial democracies (post-industrial might better apply) and mixed republic might apply better than genuinely democratic. A simple majority of citizens seldom applies to anything significant. Second World, communist states; third world = non-aligned (typically non-industrial, or ‘emerging’ or generally poor, exploited for resources, former colonies, etc.). By common practice, these rankings are applied to scales of economic development, wealth, social sophistication and various forms of power and quality of life.
Geography – the study of the Earth’s surface and associated aspects.
GIS – geographic information systems – software for mapping and spatial analysis, strongly associated with management of databases intended to illustrate, record or analyze phenomena with a spatial element or aspect. Software for describing or organizing information about where things are, and their relationships to each other (as in topology)
Globalization – integration of world economies into interdependencies: speed, scale, scope, complexity. Globalization includes worldwide integration of markets and financial, including multi-national companies (transnational) and the growing tendency for secondary and external effects to become regional and global as well (environmental pollution, social distress and unplanned change, economic disparities, resource depletion and so on).
Globalization includes not only new opportunities, but new problems: proliferation of environmental hazards (nuclear, atmospheric gases, infectious agents, CFCs, mercury, acidic precipitation), ethnic and national tensions and recognition of economic disparities)
GM – “General Motors Corporation” or ‘genetically modified’ organisms
Government – de jure authority and power to create and impose rules of behavior and social operation for a class of people, typically with a defined geographic boundary or territory that is recognized by neighbor territories, governments, countries or nations.
GPS – global positioning system, based on orbiting satellites that transmit regular, high-frequency signal for use in triangulation for positioning or tracking movement. The European Union and Russia have similar systems.
Graft – a form of political corruption by which a person or organization seeks unfair advantage by offering inducements outside officially accepted bounds or practices. Generally, amounts to illicit or illegal behavior. Graft tends to be more acceptable in emerging nations where informal means of influence have been less replaced by universal law and rational, typically democratic administrative rule and practice.
Great Society movement – 1960s programs to eliminate poverty and racial injustice, urban problems, resembling elements of the New Deal agenda that spawned social security, Medicare, Medicaid, education funding, revenue sharing, and diverse Federal programs such as the CDBG program and its affiliates that intend to radically alter urban landscapes, economic development and social opportunity.
Greening – related to sustainability – industrial and consumer practices intended to reduce effects on the environment and consumption of natural resources.
Greenhouse gases–atmospheric gases that tend to capture or absorb relatively long wave radiant energy before it can leave the atmosphere. Water vapor is the most important greenhouse “gas” while carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, and oxides or nitrogen and sulfur are the most important genuine greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gas is vital to preventing the Earth’s surface from freezing to an average of about 5 degrees F, with daily variations of hundreds of degrees. The Earth’s temperature has been averaging about 59 degrees F for much of the era of human development. Evidence of global warming is associated with elevated levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, particularly gases associated with combustion of fossil fuels.
Hegemony – domination of the world economy by one nation, through a combination of economic, military, finance and culture means. Classical, the world holds only one ‘hegemonist’ at a time.
Hinterland – a tributary area from which a town or city collects resources and through which regional relationships develop.
Holy Land – Balfour Declaration 1917 envisioned Israeli homeland with option for same for Palestinians. Technology played a role: Jewish chemist had alternative to German smokeless powder.
Homogenization – blending or mixing different substances into a solution or set that is no longer distinguished by previous uniqueness.
Hyperglobalism–perspective that world-wide markets and communications lead to decline in relative value of nation/states, a unified, ‘one-world’ Associated with ‘transformationists’ having views that world markets erode local distinctions and with increasing interdependence. Environmental awareness and regional health and environmental issues add to influences that approach problems in economics and social issues in terms of world-wide phenomena, policy and effects.
Hubris – over-confident pride or arrogance in reference to a person’s position or belief, often associated with behavior, speech or action that is judged by others to be inaccurate or not factually grounded.
Humanism – centrism on humans and their inherent values, outside a religiously dominated context. Deliberations and moral constructs regarding human rights, responsibilities and dignity outside a context of deity. A humanistic approach places humans at the center of attention and/or value.
Imperialism – a social system designed to maintain inequality and control by a few over many, empire, often royalty with claimed association with diety (divine right of kings, divine emperor). Imperialism may also be defined as the extension of power or authority from one region or territory to/over another. Imperialism is often associated with a belief system that Diety justifies or mandates such extension. Imperialism has been associated with the terms hegemony, colonialism, nationalism, evangelism, chauvinism and manifest destiny.
Intervening Opportunity – in the transit of goods and people, the location of a competing or alternate item at a location in time or space that intersects and is less than a comparable option.
ISO – international organization for standards. Also derives from the general term “iso” representing a line, point or boundary for a measured value. ISO standards are intended to improve international trade by promulgating unified, explicit standards for manufacturing and delivery. ISO is a network of national standards institutes, such as NIST in USA, for evaluating and promoting quality control.
Jingoism – associated with strong nationalist spirit, strong ethnocentrism, often based on perception of inherent superiority and at rights to dominate, influence or control within or without. Often associated with willingness to hegemony, imperialism, exploitation and/or colonial activity.
Kafir – un-believer vs non-believer, “to cover” or to hide – apostate, hides reality, refuses dominion of Allah, stubborn disbelief, Muslim scholars often prefer neutral term “non_Muslim”
Laissez-faire – vs ‘command and control’ – is it possible that ‘free’ states will always be turbulent, in transition and conflictual, compared to ‘command and control’ where stability is more the norm? Social conflict over such things as ‘gay rights’ is something that seems to happen in free societies.
Latitude – Ninety degrees of angle running north and south from the Equator to the poles. See Longitude.
Law–recognized rules established by recognized nation, state, government or territory, based on authority or power granted by, or obtained from a group of people to whom law applies. Stronger than policy, practice or social norm, law is typically accompanied by sanctions that can be applied with support of those governed by such
Left wing (or right wing) – a set of positions, policies or philosophical views generally associated with political organizations. Left wing is associated with ‘liberal’ rather than ‘conservative’ social and political views. Contrasts with right wing or centrist views
Liberalism – a political or social philosophy focused relatively more on civil rights for common citizens and associated relatively more with social welfare. Historical roots are somewhat founded in social reform, such as the “New Deal” era of the Great Depression. Conservatism is the general polar opposite. Both conservatism and liberalism refer frequently to ‘freedom’. Liberalism is more associated with market intervention than is conservatism. Liberalism tends to place greater emphasis or value on public initiative, rather than private aims, intervention in markets, and a relatively greater sense that human happiness, rights and civil protections are obligations of government. See ‘conservatism’ and ‘left wing’ and “neo-liberalism.”