Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Everyone feels this frustration to some degree, since no one can understand
all of the complexities that govern life on Earth. But the ideas and perspectives set
forth in this topic give you insight into what it means to think geographically about
the world. That type of thinking is critical if you are to raise the types of questions
that go beyond the generalizations and stereotypes that can work against deeper
understanding.
So many topics try to simplify the world in an alarmist way. The world is fl at
(Thomas Friedman)! There's a population bomb (Paul Ehrlich)! We live in a post-
American world ( Fareed Zakaria )! Such topics o f ten start from an interesting
observation, but then overlook how geography affects what is happening.
Each of us can attest that the world is anything but fl at. Millions of people in
India may be competing on a more level playing fi eld with those in North America
than was true in the past, but many other millions live in a different world that we
ignore at our peril. As geographer Yi Fu Tuan said, “People make places.” Each place
is an imprint of culture, a refl ection of diffusion, and a dynamic entity. Each place
has its own identity, which makes it unique.
It is important not just to understand that the world is diverse, but to
appreciate that the uniqueness of places cuts against the stereotypes that circu-
late about them. Many in India do not live in a fl at world, but that does not mean
they are unhappy or are unaffected by the wider world. The image of the tribal
woman in India is the counterbalance to the images of the developing world
I saw when I was growing up. I remember seeing pictures of women in remote
parts of South America wearing exotic clothing. I also saw television coverage
of children in Subsaharan Africa with distended stomachs and hunger in their
faces. But in these images of the developing world that I saw as a child, no one
was smiling.
The images I saw growing up formed the identities I had for the developing
world and people in it. My experiences since then have changed the ways I see the
world and my own place in it.
The king of Bhutan, a small country nestled in the foothills of the Himalaya
Mountains, decided that statistics that calculate the wealth of a country, from
gross national income (GNI) to Internet access, did not accurately measure the
state of people's lives. In the 1970s, the preceding king of Bhutan coined the
term gross national happiness, stating that the government needed to focus on
achieving happiness instead of focusing on gross domestic product (GDP). In
2008, the current leader of Bhutan, King Wangchuck, released a new measure-
ment, an index called gross national happiness (GNH) (Fig. 14. 2). King Wangchuck
explained that measurements such as gross domestic product (GDP) or GNI
emphasize production and consumption instead of conservation of resources
and environment.
The Center for Bhutan Studies measures nine dimensions of happiness and
calculates a single numerical index reported as GNH. The nine dimensions include
measurements of psychological well-being, time use, community vitality, cul-
ture, health, education, environmental diversity, living standard, and governance.
Regardless of the accuracy of the GNH index, we welcome a critical and refl ective
look at how we measure our world.
Our hope is that this textbook has helped you think through the ways you
make sense of the world. In this chapter, we consider how identities have changed
in a globalizing world. In an effort to deepen our understanding of globalization,
we also examine how networks operate in our world, in order to encourage you to
consider the possibilities for tomorrow.
