Abstract This first year geography paper examines everyday objects and globalization. The paper focuses on coffee which was tracked through globalprocesses. The paper examines the idea of coffee as a third world product sold in developed countries.
From the Paper "Coffee was chosen for this assignment because it is a food product that can be found in almost every household, apartment or university residence. Coffee is also involved in a complicated growing, processing and distribution process that moves from developing countries to developed countries. The conditions in which coffee is produced often demonstrate the negative consequence of globalization. For all of these reasons an examination of the coffee industry is very important for an understanding of the labour, trade and consumption patterns that have resulted from globalization. Coffee: A Geographical and Social Analysis Coffee is an ideal object to study globalization."
Abstract This paper analyzes the significance of the t-shirt in terms of human geography with a special emphasis on the process of globalization.
From the Paper "The t-shirt is an object in our everyday lives whose significance we almost never think about. Almost everyone will have worn one at some point in their lives. However, whether we purchase expensive cotton t-shirts at a designer store, or cheap mixed fabric t-shirts at discount stores, it is likely that they will all have one thing in common: a "Made in China" label."
Abstract This paper discusses how globalization affects and perpetuates divisions between the rich and the poor in the global community. More specifically, the paper examines the consequences of disproportionate exchanges of investment and people between different parts of the world. It links this discussion to concepts such as spatial interaction, scale, human/nature relationships and to the linkages between globalization and items such as space, place and landscape. The paper specifically analyzes the nation of Thailand and how it encapsulates the dilemmas and contradictions which comprise the phenomenon of globalization.
From the Paper "Briefly, as time permits, it would be remiss if a few minutes were not given over to how globalization impacts women even more so than men. As mentioned in the preceding paragraph, the destruction of local economies by the massive forces of globalization hits women especially hard - and, because it is hard enough for these women to get work to begin with, the feminization of poverty often follows (Seong-Won, para.2). Further, given how increases in acute poverty often spark increases in suicides and in crime rates (Seong-Won, para.2) - and given how women in developing lands are especially vulnerable to falling into acute poverty and every bit as vulnerable to the depredations of crime - it is impossible to argue against the contention that globalization saves its harshest punishment for the women of global south nations who are already on the bottom rungs of society to begin with."
Tags: developing, nations, poverty, globalization, production
Abstract A discussion on the effects of globalization among and within nation-states. New patterns of power, economic stratification, cultural and political inequality will be defined in assessing who the winners and losers in the globalizationprocess are.
A discussion on how the globalizationprocess will afford important opportunities for developing nations to ensure long-term economic growth for their citizens.
Abstract The paper examines how the globalizationprocess holds unprecedented opportunities for developing nations to establish long-term economic growth by taking advantage of the availability of capital and the willingness of advocates in the West to help achieve institutional reform consistent with economic growth. It looks at how the economic potential for the investor and developing economy is considerable and how the awareness is increasing that flexible economic policies are necessary for long-term success and stability. It also shows that while both sides have contributed positively to the debate on whether or not globalization is beneficial to developing countries, the proven and moderate approach of the globalist who advocates for institutional reform is proper, inclusive of some of the worthy approaches made by the sceptics and has the greatest chance of success.
From the Paper "To the observer, an important implication of Scholte's idea of transworld production is that it offers underdeveloped nations the opportunity for economic growth by making more efficient use of their methods for the production of raw materials. A plant for raw materials might be located near the source of extraction to warehouse the supplies as they await shipment, or a basic textile factory might be located in a populated area with an adequate labour supply to provide jobs and warehousing for finished goods before shipment. Political relations on an international basis inevitably must come to accommodate these supraterritorial links between the producer in the industrialized world and the supplier in the developing nation because such links benefit both."
Abstract This research proposal introduces the paper and provides an overview of what can be expected from including world geography into the subject resource guide. This paper assumes that world geography is not currently included. The study is to determine the importance and desirability, if they exist, of including world geography in the 10th grade secondary social studies curriculum.
Outline
The World According to Barber
In the Realm of Hyperbole
Cheerleaders and Naysayers: Right and Left?
The World According to Friedman
The World According to Gray
In The Realm of Pure Polemics
A Global Climatic Division?
Centers and Peripheries
The Byways of Global Ignorance
A Manifesto for GlobalGeography
From the Paper "Today, in the process of focusing on teaching to standards and preparing for achievement tests, teachers may easily lose sight of the glaring global problems that need to be addressed in social studies classes Typically, teachers present such issues in contexts that are closest to the student (e.g., school, community). Research has shown though, that studying world geography provides students with the analytical skills they will need to understand a problem from an international perspective. World geography can also help students understand the concept of an economic region."
Tags: classroom, development, education, high, school, globalized, discipline, lands, people
Abstract This paper considers the thesis of Tarak Barkawi in his book "Globalization and War" as he finds that war is itself a factor contributing to globalization. In part, Barkawi's discussion of war is a counter to the view of Samuel Huntington that war emerges from a "clash of civilizations." Instead, according to the paper, war is seen more as part of a process of change and as being based on an old image of world geography in a new context.
Abstract This paper discusses globalization's affects on global divisions between the rich and the poor. In particular, the paper looks at this state of affairs and links it to broader class discussions about spatial interaction, scale, human/nature relationships and "space, place, and landscape." It analyzes the consequences of asymmetric exchanges of investment and people in different parts of the world. The paper focuses its discussion on the situation in Thailand. It contains an annotated bibliography at the end of the paper.
From the Paper "The importance of this discussion is really two-fold. On one hand, demographic trends suggest that the Caucasian or "Western" percentage of the world's population will continue to decline relative to its non-white brethren over the next century; as a result, it is imperative that we understand the factors which are creating problems for that ever-growing proportion of the global population that is non-white. Clearly, if it can be proved that globalization benefits affluent (and demographically stagnant) western nations over demographically explosive Asian or South American nations, then the growing cost of this unjust arrangement will eventually cause debilitating political and social upheavals. In a related vein, there is evidence now available that Europe's share of the global market has declined relative to the share of the market enjoyed by China and by India. If this European decline continues, these latter nations may find themselves in the same position that poorer, developing countries found themselves in throughout the nineteenth, twentieth, and early twenty-first centuries; needless to say, if Europe wishes to be treated humanely by the new "masters of the house", it should endeavor to "smooth out" whatever rough edges of globalization are creating misery and poverty elsewhere."
Abstract This paper discusses the jargon of "globalization" and what we are to call "homelessness" in relation to topics of urban geography, medical geography, and implications for planners. The paper discusses long term implications of a permanent under-class, as predictable symptom of the modernization theory that is part and parcel of globalization's neo-liberal growth model.
From the Paper "Globalization and 'Homelessness' in Central Toronto. Introductory Discussion The euphemism of 'Globalization' that is used to refer to neo-liberal economic planning involves the removal of safety net spending in developed economies. A second euphemism is found in globalization's unwanted by-product of severe unwanted poverty among those we are accustomed to discussing, now, as "the homeless", a phenomenon that is a side-effect of the economic model that now prevails. By examining the example of central Toronto's vagrant destitution, one sees duplicated a phenomenon known in most Western cities, of the present, and with increasing homeless also reported in the notoriously strong economy of Japan. (Hasegawa: 2005)"
Abstract The paper states that it is not complicated to find some globalized places such as airline terminals, international hotels or CNN business news revealing the effects of globalization and its repercussions on our understanding of culture in the modern world. The paper relates that through the growing of global interconnections and the processes of ideas and global goods crossing national borders, cultures fuse across the globe. The paper also discusses the presence of English as an international language, and a homogenization of culture. The paper confirms that, culture is a set of values and practices characterized by its particularity, which nevertheless needs universal criteria as a reference to justify this particularity. It is also crucial to define culture as an "encompassing" concept and to keep in mind that it is difficult to know what is cultural.
From the Paper "In addition, a shared global culture is also relevant as a global dissemination of an American or Western culture. Indeed the processes of globalization are providing fuel for a cultural imperialism, that is to say a global culture liable to be a hegemonic culture. Thus the assertion of a shared global culture seems to be linked to what Friedman describes as "the increasing hegemony of particular central cultures, the diffusion of American values, consumers goods and lifestyles" (Friedman, 1994: 195). The diffusion of dominant standard icons and references such as MacDonald's, Coca-Cola leads to think about an obvious Americanization. In a word, cultures are both confronted by a global dominance of the western culture and by the practices of global capitalism. The result is probably a decrease of cultural differences: a process which undeniably worked to the advantage of the USA and others Western nations. A striking example of this tendency of cultural imperialism is the United Nations Educations Scientific and Cultural Organization's call for a "new world information and communication order" and its politics on global culture."
Abstract The book and the two articles chosen for review were selected as they represent critical "bookends" in the field of Canadian urban geography during the formative period in which immigration transformed physical and social landscapes of Canada's cities. As this review demonstrates, while Donald Kerr's and Jacob Spelt's "The Changing Face of Toronto: A Study in Urban Geography" explores the geography of Toronto as both a "natural" and a human construct, articles by Carlos Teixeira and Gilles Lavigne on how Portuguese immigration has shaped residential neighbourhoods in Montreal and Toronto focus on the human element in the shaping of space.
Abstract This paper discusses the two major waves of economic geography, that is the epistemological wave and the hermeneutic of cultural wave. It also discusses incorporating artisanal production in theory forming in geography and why this is so important to research in geography.
From the Paper "Artisanal Production and Geography The relationship between art and science has always been a contentious one. In many causes art and artisanal production have been ignored by disciplines wishing to be more scientific. This situation is discussed by Trevor J. Barnes in Retheorizing Economic Geography. Barnes argues that there have been two major waves of economic geography. These are the epistemological and the hermeneutic or cultural wave. The epistemological wave was characterized by a strong reliance on science (Barnes 546). For this reason the social, cultural and artistic were usually not dealt with in economic geography during the first wave."
Abstract This paper primarily attempts a discussion on three main concerns that stands out as critically important in the field of global outsourcing of jobs in the Canadian IT sector. Firstly it analyzes the future trends in the IT sector that can affect the production process as a whole. Secondly, it discusses outsourcing or more specifically off shoring as an outcome of the recent globalization and technological advancements that is rapidly changing the entire production and trading processes of information and technological industries. Finally, it tries to explain the interrelation between outsourcing and related economic aspects and its effects on Canadian IT sector. The economic aspects include the whole range of production process, economic growth, and behavioral changes in the labor market and an increase in national productivity.
Outline:
Executive Summary
Introduction
Is Outsourcing an Arbitrage?
Parameters of an Inherent Necessity
Benefits of IT Service Outsourcing
Management of Service Outsourcing
Technological and Managerial Advantage to Fight Against the Probable Threat
Conclusion
From the Paper "This is an age of globalised businesses, ever-expanding computer networks and international data flows. In this context the process of outsourcing has become a major component towards achieving higher economic growth rate and better competitiveness in the global economy. Canada already possesses a state of the art technological infrastructure, a skilled and educated labor force and low telecommunication costs. Outsourcing was always practiced as a valuable business process to enhance growth. Bigger business organizations sourced contract jobs from across the shore to deliver better customer satisfaction at reduced cost. This way they also managed to enhance their critical to quality business core functions and improve the productivity of their workforce. With a boom in the IT sector, more specifically in the information, technology and communication industry, the need to outsource has become more necessary than ever."
Abstract This paper asserts that the term "globalization" has actually come to mean "Americanization". The paper explains that, while globalization was supposed to open up the world to companies and countries everywhere through the free movement of capital, labor and goods, plus the availability of technology, America has been the country to benefit most from the globalizationprocess. The paper uses the example of American tobacco companies to illustrate how American companies have taken advantage of globalization to promote their businesses regardless of the cost to other countries. The paper concludes with the assertion that the rules of international trade, investment and finance require urgent reform and that the institutions that currently make the rules that govern the processes of globalization also require reform.
From the Paper "For more than a century an increasing number of domestic or national matters have become "internationalized," i.e., made the subject of bi- or multilateral cooperation, mostly in an institutionalized framework, a process which, in a wider sense, could be called internationalization. In the more recent past, however, the term globalization has entered into the vocabulary of scholars as well as political practitioners. Although it seems, at times, as if the new term is rather carelessly used as a trendy synonym for the word "internationalization," such interpretation of the term "globalization" would fall short of its distinct meaning."
Abstract This paper is a letter written to Stephen Roach, author of the article "Tipping Point of Globalization", complementing him on his sound explanation of the process of globalization and how this phenomenon may be nearing its end. The article has been compared with the ideas expressed in Thomas Friedman's book titled, "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" and it was found that both writers have expressed similar ideas regarding the globalizationprocess but the end was different in the two cases. While Friedman was explaining the beginning, Stephen is dealing with the end of globalization.
