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Austin Kocher
Tuesday & Thursday, 9:35AM10:55AM
Jennings Hall 0040
Geographic Perspectives
Knowledge is power, but the question is complicated by something else: namely
that it is not enough to know a set of relations existing at a given moment as if
they were a given system, one also needs to know them genetically thats to
say the story of their formation, because every individual is not only a synthesis
of existing relations, but also the history of those relations, which means the
rsum of all of the past. ---Antonio Gramsci (Q10, 54; SPN 353)
When we look at the world around us, it often APPEARS to be natural to us.
The purpose of a geographic analysis is to understand how and why
human beings produce the world they inhabit.
Colonialism
Definition (DHG, on Carmen)
An enduring relationship of domination and mode of dispossession, usu-
ally (or at least initially) between an indigenous (or enslaved) majority and
a minority of interlopers (colonizers), who are convinced of their own
superiority, pursue their own interests, and exercise power through a
mixture of coercion, persuasion, conflict and collaboration.
Two Waves of Colonialism
1. First Wave: 1500s 1800s
a. extension of European resources extraction (raw materials, gold)
b. focused on the Americas and Asia
2. Second Wave: late 1800s 1960s
a. extension of capitalist markets and labor systems (cheap industrialized labor)
b. focused on Africa
Case Study 1: African Exploitation
pre-colonial period
one of worlds early centers of
civilization
many dynasties
cultural centers in cities and
nomadic societies
connected to Arab and Indian
economic routes across Indian
ocean
Case Study 1: African Exploitation
marked by exploration
European settlements on the coasts
just a way to get to India and East
Asia
some resource extraction
1652: Dutch East India Company
supply station founded in Cape
Town
Africa
first wave colonialism
(1650 1880)
marked by exploration
European settlements on
the coasts
just a way to get to India
and East Asia
some resource extraction
1652: Dutch East India
Company supply station
founded in Cape Town
Africa: Second wave colonialism (1880 1940)
Scramble for Africa: European strategy to partition the African continent.
Berlin Conference (1884)