Ch. 11 Journal

'Colonialism'

Summary: The first stage of expansion happened in the 16th century, driven by explorers, mercenaries and merchant adventurers. The quest for treasure spurred exploration in the West, including the Indies.

In the 17th century, the British were interested in North America, which provided tobacco and cotton. The British colonized North America and the Caribbean, which lead to manufacturing because of the scale of raw materials and slave labor. Also, the Triangular Trade brought slaves to America from Africa. Cotton, sugar, tobacco and large profits to Europe from America, and cloth and guns to Africa from Europe.

The 18th century intensified slave trade in the Atlantic. People were taking over the coasts of Africa and territory within Asia. The Dutch East Indies Company profited from the spice islands of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. The 19th & 20th century was defined by industrial capitalism and imperialism. This included the Scramble for Africa, where the continent was carved between Britain, France, Belgium, Germany and Portugal. By 1900, Europe controlled 90% of the continent. The scrambled occurred during the great depression.

Vocab:

imperialism - general system of domination by a state over other states

monopoly capitalism - capitalism characterized by giant corporations that control much of the local and/or world markets, increased competition

indentured service - people contracting themselves to work for a certain number of years

semi-proletarianization - providing labor for others because they cannot pay back what they owe, called of debt bondage

Proletarianization: process of generalized employment of wage labor, employment of commoditized labor

petty commodity production - producing commodities for sale based on economic necessity, small scale and often includes household labor

-popular with rural populations who preferred petty commodity production than work hard labor in plantations and mines

The decline of slavery was marked by industrialization and new technology in North America and Britain, which rendered slave labor less competitive.

Colonial Labor Regimes: (p. 262)

A. Forced Labor (slavery)

B. Semi-proletarian Labor (debt bondage)

C. Petty Commodity Production

D. Proletarianization

Labor was an important part of colonialism, as was land. The demand for labor and land shaped the way of life. Society was also impacted by ethnic division of labor, of which Europeans were superior. Their strategy was 'divide and rule' (language and religion). In a way however this also united the anti-colonialists. Some people say that development was created in order to provide agency and establish order, to provide 'trusteeship' of someone's future. People also say the development was invented by Western Europe to control and manage the social effects, to "engineer progress within a framework of order, intention and design to anticipate and contain the social and above all class contradictions of capitalist development experienced in Europe" (p. 267).

My thoughts: I do believe development took place order to provide agency, but it was an effect of the social and structural devastation from colonialism. I don't think it was purposefully "invented" because of colonialism rather a way for developed nations to make amends and "improve" the poorer countries that they exploited.

Ch. 10 Journal

'Diversity in Pre-Capitalist Societies'

European demands, then, were on one side of the equation, but the other side depended on what the colonized regions had to offer in the first place, and how their inhabitants could be persuaded to part with with what was theirs. p. 220

My thoughts: In order to understand capitalism, we must see it from both sides of the equation. If one side is unwilling to budge, capitalism won't work. While capitalism can imply one nation dominating another, it doesn't necessarily mean that one nation is superior in regards to arts and culture, as illustrated by Europe's admiration of Mogul India. Europeans admired their fine arts, grand cities. To me, it's a matter of who got there first, who came up with the idea of saying how to run things, and exerting those ideas forcefully onto others which brought about imperialism, increased exchange in resources, products and the birth of capitalism.

Summary: Subsistence producers were swallowed up by powerful, capitalist states. For example the Spanish in Latin America. One people group called the Mundurucu were divided in the 1950s into those who chose to preserve their subsistence lifestyle in the Amazon and those who chose to branch out to other jobs such as collect rubber for traders. For the Mundurucu, there was no division between private "family" life and "work" life. Family relations would be present while they exchanged goods and their sexual division of labor was unique. Women did the majority of the work, the hard field labor, household labor and childcare while men were the hunters or cleared ground for cultivation.

Based on the Mundurucu, pre-capitalist societies they had no political organization like how we perceive ourselves today, associated with a specific race or political stance. They had no bureaucratic structure. Every village had a chief, but their purpose was for influence instead of authority. They also believed in supernatural powers and symbols. Economically, pre-capitalist societies were not organized to produce a surplus and were mostly egalitarian, kinship was very important. There were other kingdoms however, with an implicit caste system, like the Hutu, Tutsi and Twa of pre-colonial Rwanda (p. 229).

The Kingdom of Bakongo was an empire In Africa (present-day Angola) with smiths making weapons, knives and were exchanged throughout the country. They exchanged with colonists, merchants and missionaries. Europeans easily dominated established kingdoms such as the Incas of Peru, with the invasion of Spanish conquistadores. The Incas had an unwritten language. The Moguls 1526-1761 in north-west India, whose influence spread because of their monetized economy and organized state. The ruling elite were Muslims and the masses were Hindu. Castes existed in the division of labor.

The rise of Islam had a powerful effect in European cultures and was a unifying factor from West Africa to Indonesia. Its spread took off after the death of Muhammad in 632.

2 ending points:

-Wealth went to the transformation of productive processes in Europe, the Industrial Revolution

-European imperialism brought the new world economic order (p. 240).

Reaction to 'Darwin's Nightmare'

The culture and lifestyles of the fishing population is tragic. Fishing villages are infected with poverty, prostitution and filth. The trade itself is a downward spiral because the poor need a job so they become fisherman. However their job is dangerous on the lake (they go out in little pirogues) and they do not get paid a lot. It is hard to support a family on a fisherman's income. The local people do not benefit from this market whatsoever. The fish that is caught is processed at a factory that cuts them into filets. This process drives up the price of fish so that the locals cannot afford to buy it. While the factories provide jobs, this industry is not sustainable because it does not contribute to the health and longevity of the local population. All the fish is shipped out and the profit goes into the hands of the companies that privatized the fish market. (Something I noticed was that there were lots of businessmen in TZ who came from India, and I wonder about the socio-cultural ties with India and Tanzania.)

Many Russians fly to Tanzania in Post-Soviet planes to take fresh cargo back to European nations daily. They try to stuff planes with so much cargo in order to save money but the planes often end up crashing from the weight of the fish. It is common to see bits of plane debris at the airport from planes crashes that failed to lift off. Because there are many foreigners (especially Russians) that fly into Tanzania, prostitution is very common. They interviewed some "pilot's girlfriends" and the women said that they receive a good meal and maybe some beers when clients come. Prostitutes don't enjoy their job, they do it out of necessity. They interviewed Eliza (I believe was her name) and she said that she had dreams to become a teacher. Tragically, later into the film they found out Eliza was killed by a client.

There is a high level of HIV/AIDS but there is no clinic around for treatment, or medications readily available. There was a Christian minister in one fishing village however he does not advocate the use of condoms. This can be a problem because he believes pre-marital sex is a sin. However HIV/AIDS is spread through the culture of extra-martial sex. There needs to be re-alignment of sex education and HIV/AIDS prevention because NOT telling people to use condoms causes more harm than good.

The biodiversity in Lake Victoria is deteriorating. Levels of oxygen are depleted, the native species are disappearing because the alien species that was introduced is predatory to all other species and taking over the lake. Some hungry villagers, the poorest of the poor, will eat whatever the planes and factories leave behind. They will scrounge the dumps for fish carcasses that still have meat and roast them, but these fish dumps are crawling with rotting soil and maggots. Plus these carcasses are probably moldy and barely edible. One villager said this fish tasted more bitter than normal.

The youth make glue to inhale to help them sleep. It's made from fish parts. When they sniff it, they can sleep anywhere and according to a young boy, "it gets rid of fear." The documentary shows lots of street children left on their own, many to get in fights and fend for themselves. They sleep in groups. There was one girl who had to stay with the younger boys for fear that the older boys would take advantage of her.

The predatory species in Lake Victoria has spawned endless problems. While the Lake provides a supply of fish, fisherman and their families are suffering. There is disease, poverty, HIV/AIDS, hunger, homelessness and prostitution that are magnified by the lake's vicinity. Messing with nature and privatization of the fish market has caused so much more harm than good. The stories of these fishing villages are often unheard of. I am glad that this documentary brings those problems to light and forces us to think about the implications and consequences of 'capitalism' and global markets.

Cox Reading 'Political Geography'

Cox states that capitalism means "the production of commodities with commodities." That means in a market, everything becomes a commodity, something that is bought, sold or rented. Capitalism cannot exist without labor markets. After the Cold War, the world moved towards capitalism and free markets, but this comes with problems too. Capitalism produces competition, the cheapening of the product and developing it, and wage competition.

Three preconditions exist for capitalism:

1) the separation of the immediate producers from the means of production.

This can often be forcible and violent.

2) (abolition of slavery) immediate producers must be free to work for a wage

3) there must be people with large sums of money

Forces of production:

1) skill of the worker

2) instrument of labor

3) object of labor

Socialization of production include interdependence between firms and specialization. Firms need each other to stay afloat. It includes skill development like literacy and technical know-how. Sources of tension include the inequality of power, insufficiency (wages, benefits) and insecurity (unemployment), insignificance (people replaced by machinery), the degradation of the environment, politics (monopolies, left-wing and right-wing, property rights).

Environmental degradation includes the depletion of non-renewable resources. Examples of this include over-fishing and oil. If oil is used at a rate faster than we can replace it, we will run out of resources. There are external costs involved as well which are not caused purposefully but have an equally important impact on future generations, like pollution caused by a power plant. This impacts both humans and the environment. Another factor of environmental degradation is population growth as well as growth in consumption. Not only are there more numbers of people on this earth, but each person tends to consume more.

"Moving in the direction of lower wages and less militant, more pliable labor is often a strategy for business as it attempts to elude the challenge of the labor movement" (pp. 52-53).

Businesses will always be up against labor unions. Businesses will find loopholes to cheapen the mode of production or try to replace labor with machinery, and labor unions will try to uphold their rights and improve working conditions. Cox says that the worker's movement is very geographically uneven, and I agree. The quote above illustrates that businesses will move to a place that is favorable to them, where they don't have to follow the rules. It's like a chase... the businesses will go where labor unions don't exist. That geography will then try to "cope."

Cox states that with the change of capitalism, there is a change of the home and the cityscape. Centered around the construction of a factory may be the construction of houses, schools and churches. Capitalism changes the infrastructure of an area. It can affect transportation, communication, the price of housing etc. Space has become commodified, and "conflicts between firms and employees is reflected geographically" (p. 61).

What I got from this: capitalism and politics are determined by geographical location.

Ch. 6 Journal

'Is the World Overpopulated?'

Overview: The traditional Malthusian view is that the growth of population will eventually overtake the production of food because the Earth has limited resources. The production of food grows arithmetically (1,2,3,4...) while the human race reproduces geometrically (2,4,8....). This leads to important questions: Is the world being overpopulated? Does the world have enough resources to support people?

The Neo-Malthusian view is similar to the traditional Malthusian but is less pessimistic, stating that human intervention can put a check on population growth. However their theory stems from the view that the poor have the most children due to ignorance and "lack of foresight" and make it an imperative that people have less children (p. 133).

Population is rising because mortality is decreasing. The trend is that population increases are stemming from low-income countries. In fact, many higher-income nations have a declining population. One explanation may be that people in low-income countries tend to have more children in order to compensate for possible losses. Also there is improved public health and sanitation, allowing safer deliveries, higher fertility and longer lifespans. The United Nations Population Fund projects that the world population may stop growing at 10 billion people (p. 127). Currently the world's population is nearly 6 billion people. The three components of population are mortality, fertility and distribution.

The Demographic Transition Theory (p. 128) ties together industrialization and fertility and is based on the modernization theory. Since the Industrial Revolution, high mortality and fertility rates have turned to low mortality and low fertility rates in developed nations. The more industrialized, the more likely a nation will have low deaths and low fertility.

Migration: "The level and the nature of development determine migration patterns. Migration decisions have emotional and practical repercussions of great significance, affecting the equality of people's life." p. 129

My thoughts: The migrant population is often overlooked. I think it is an important part of the population equation so I am glad they talk extensively about the plight of migrant workers. They are often faced with unequal treatment, work long hours with low pay, work in dangerous environments and are prone to mistreatment and vulnerable to disease, especially if they are illegal migrants since they shy away from going to hospitals. The book gives examples of historical migrations such as migrants from the India subcontinent going to oil-producing Middle Eastern countries, European migrants to North & South America in the 1900s, the migration caused by famine in Indo-China and sub-Saharan Africa and refugees from the Cambodian Pol Pot regime.

"Development is the best contraceptive." - Bucharest slogan 1974 (p. 134)

My thoughts: Was this really a slogan? It made me laugh out loud but also think twice about the impact of development. I don't think it is the only way to slow population growth. While it is a catchy phrase, development incorporated with education are the best contraceptives. Also, the book talks about the many social factors that contribute to population size. This connects with the International Conference on Population and Development's (ICPD) Programme of Action which advocate for women and health. Their focus is on: 1) reproduction, women and the family 2) the inter-relation between population dynamics and development 3) mortality, migration and the elderly.

Population vs. birth control: birth control refers to the rights of couples or individuals to control childbearing on the basis of choice. Population control refers to the controlling of childbearing through policies.

Vocab:

Replacement level- level of fertility at which women have enough daughters to replace themselves

Infant Mortality Rate- number of deaths to infants under one year of age in a given year per 1,000 live births

fertility rate- number of live births per 1,000 women aged 15-44 years in a given year

crude birth rate- number of births per 1,000 population in a given year

Ch. 8 Journal

'Wars'

[War] like disease, exhibits the capacity to mutate, and mutates fastest in the face of efforts to control or eliminate it. War is collective killing for some collective purpose; that is as far as I would go in attempting to describe it" (Keagan, 1998 p. 165).

My thoughts: the number of wars had risen in the 1990s, many due to ethnic conflict and this is unfortunate because war kills many people, causes strife, a collapse of infrastructure, security, the education system, and decreases livelihoods. It can also cause deep bitterness between two parties and many innocent bystanders are trapped in a fight that they had no say in. I agree with Keagan that wars have the capacity to mutate in its forms and origins, because there will always be disagreements in the world. However if careful deliberation and decisions take place, wars can be avoided, just like diseases can be stopped from spreading. In measuring the evolution of wars, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has coined definitions for 'major armed conflict,' 'intermediate armed conflict,' and 'minor armed conflict.'

1994 marked the year of massive genocide and after that the world's perception of civil war had changed. 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda and the single most largest exodus of 200,000 refugees fled to Tanzania. Epic fail on the international community's part. The UN Security council refused to take any action when they heard that genocide was taking place, and refused to establish the UN peace-keeping force in the country. People were dying like flies in Goma, the refugee camps due to the spread of cholera.

"Counter-productive conflicts between international NGOs were well documented for most of the main African emergencies in the 1980s, including those in the Sahel, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique" (p. 182).

My thoughts: Reading quotes like these make it seem like everyone and everything has failed Africa. The attempts of support and aid has led to more corruption... interventions are not sustainable, creation of aid dependency and supporting the enemy and common themes that emerge when it comes to NGO intervention. The book says that "scores of agencies fell over each other, occasionally going so far as to deliberately undermine what were perceived as being rival projects" (p. 182). There seems to have been a mad rush to help... but too much of any good thing is detrimental. I guess this applies to aid without proper management and direction. It is tough to distinguish between maintaining national sovereignty/territorial integrity and maintaining international peace and security (Article One of the UN Charter).

New modes of fighting. In the post Cold War era, there were new forms of fighting being developed, as well as new ways to accumulate weapons, arms and equipment. Therefore the discipline of warring between groups is less important and insurgents might terrorize civilians more explicitly and arm the local people to fight rebels. New military tactics have been developed such as land mines which traumatize populations. Children can learn how to operate AK-47s.

Characteristics of contemporary war:

• economic exclusion
• decline of state institutions
• ethnic essentialism - where ethnic views are considered to be the only option
• the media - refugees spread info about atrocities, the book says that refugees "engender sympathy" (p. 175). Can sympathy be engendered? I believe refugees may engender helplessness, despair or hunger. The author must mean that refugees provoke biased sympathy, but can sympathy really be one-sided during a war, and in a refugee camp...?

Summary: War is a complicated thing. Internally displaced people are not technically refugees and we cannot judge the scale of contemporary warfare based on refugee numbers. In conclusion, there does not seem to have been a massive increase of wars since 1990 and most of the wars being fought are not between states, rather they occur in the poorer parts of the world that cannot recover quickly from war's destruction (p. 172).

Ch. 5 Journal

'Unemployment and Making a Living'

Summary: 1) Work is characterized by its relationship between paid and unpaid work.

2) Unemployment statistics do not give an accurate picture of those in work and those who need increased income to make a living.

3) Statistics do not accurately portray unpaid labor force, a large amount which is women.

4) In the global South, there are higher amounts of subsistence agriculture and petty commodity production.

5) A major issue with work is that despite working extremely hard, many workers yield low production levels, thus receiving low pay and remaining in poverty.

6) We need to understand the relation between products and labor (what is produced, how, for whom?)

Definitions:

unemployment- being without work but currently available for employment

employment- paid employment for others or self-employment performing work for profit or family gain

economic activity- all persons who furnish the supply of labor for the production of economic goods and services

work- the expenditure of energy for a purpose, includes paid and unpaid labor

The informal sector means casual and informal wage work. Often they are illegal because they are not officially registered businesses. Or, those unable to find a job will seek work in this sector. They tend to be labor intensive with low capital investments and unregulated.

The social division of labor means there are different kinds of good and services that are complementary and relate to each other. Also technical division of labor, and sexual division.

"To be registered unemployed, one first needs to be counted. If there are no labor offices in the rural areas or in the shanty urban areas there may well be a zero or low count in those locations. Also, to be counted as unemployed, one usually has to be without employment, currently available for it, and 'seeking' it." There are good reasons why many people may not bother to 'seek' employment" (p. 102).

My thoughts: The above quote show the complexity of the work force by the strict definition of unemployment. In many developing countries a social system does not exist, nor benefits or job security, so many people would not bother to register to be counted as unemployed. That is why 'seek' is in quotes because there are many barriers preventing workers from seeking jobs. Many people make their living and survive on work that is not officially counted as 'employment' such as women's unpaid labor in the home. Therefore many times the unemployment factor is overestimated, because the population is still active in providing for their needs. For example on page 105, the proportion of Andean women in agricultural work was 21% instead of the reported %3. The book states that this is a common underestimation because these numbers affect women from the poorer strata and are closely tied to their background and socio-economic status.

Why women's work is underestimated: pp. 106-7

• it is difficult to differentiate between domestic work and unpaid work
• censuses classify workers according to occupation
• some activities are performed by women at home though they are clearly tied to market

Notes: What causes unemployment? It is not a single process therefore involves many things: closing down of organizations, relocation, outsourcing, intensifying labor with fewer workers, increased flexibility of work negotiations (i.e. casualization), technical change, demographics (i.e. rural areas), land alienation through privatization.

"One early development policy is that there is a high level of 'disguised' unemployment (or underemployment) in the rural areas in the global South that could be used for new development projects" (p. 120).

My thoughts: It is important to note the difference between unemployment (when capable people seeking a job cannot find it) and underemployment, people in work that limits their skills and capacities. The above quotes cautions against using unemployment as a reason to start projects without first investigating the root of the problem, the culture, the history of their market and exchanges. Policies can be dangerous and cause more harm than good when they impose solutions to unemployment, when it is really just 'underemployment' or an issue that is portrayed worse than it actually is.

Ch. 4 Journal

'Diseases of Poverty"

Summary:

According to the WHO, health is defined as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not just the absence of disease" (p. 75). The book cautions that disease analysis through numbers can be persuasive, misleading and often based on assumptions. Death rate, under-five mortality rate (U5MR), infant mortality rate and life expectancy are proxies for determining a population's risk of disease. There are many many variable of health: age, gender, urban vs. rural, education, poverty. Selective biomedical interventions include vaccinations for malaria, measles, tetanus, rehydration salts and vitamins, and treatment for diarrhea. Two challenges that arise from these interventions is that often the health sector is poor and cannot provide the resources, and also that embracing these interventions and changing behaviors is not sustainable.

"China's performance... teaches an important general lesson: large improvements in the health of the population can be achieved of there is a broad and lasting political commitment, with a consistent emphasis on preventive measures and basic curative care. In other words, social progress is not merely a by-product of economic development. Policies matter" (World Bank 1990 p. 89).

I completely agree that the health of a nation is shaped by policies. However people can choose to adapt a health lifestyle, therefore health goes two-ways. It is the responsibility of the individual and also the government.

AIDS is a disease of poverty. HIV/AIDS causes huge amounts of mortality, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. The virus can be spread through sexual intercourse, needle sharing, blood transfusions, syringes by injecting drug users. Using a condom is one way to protect against the spread of disease. There is a picture on p.91 in the text that shows a grandmother with 2 grandchildren Thailand, since their parents died of AIDS. There is a huge generation gap between grand-parents and grandchildren because the parents are dying. This places increased pressure on the older generation to provide for an increasing amount of young. Also this affects how the younger generation is raised, because resources are limited and can affect their health, education and living conditions.

"The World Bank has recently estimated that 15-20% of all HIV infections in Africa now occur in infants that have been infected by their mothers" (p.91). This statistic is very unfortunate because the unborn child is at risk and has no choice in his/her fate. I believe if mothers go to clinics and the necessary precautions and medication to prevent transmission, rates will drop. This is more easily said and done and success relies upon increased government involvement through spending, education campaigns and response from the people. Prenatal counseling by maternity nurses can go a long way and this type of transmission can be prevented if the right steps are taken, mainly through policies that provide resources and education to expectant mothers.