Regionality Writing Portfolio - Essay Example

Regionality Writing Portfolio Introduction Regional geography, being a very versatile field, reveals valuable information concerning development of certain regions in the context of interaction between environment and human activity. Studying regions of different types and sizes, this approach contributes to understanding of the unique character possessed by these regions and their peculiar cultural and natural attributes. The territory of the world is traditionally divided into formal regions, i.e. countries; but studying our planet in regions might provide closer insight into the way certain areas formed under the influence of historical, anthropogenic, cultural and geographic factors: impact of geographical position and conditions on the history and economy of the region, the way vernacular regions are defined in the course of historical development and due to similarities in language and heritage, historical meaning of slave trade or certain natural resources and many other aspects of regional development. The following portfolio is intended to demonstrate diversity of developmental trajectories that can be revealed through the prism of regional approach. Africa and Northern America: influence of slave trade Influence slave trade produced on the African continent is immense, for nearly 400 years of slave trade deprived Africa of around 12.5 million of labor force. Buying slaves – previously captured people of other ethnic groups and tribes – from coastal kingdoms, Americans and Europeans halted development of the entire West Africa through affecting local husbandry, agriculture and handicraft (Rowntree et al., 2014). Moreover, collaboration and grafting leaders of coastal kingdoms, the traders instigated conflict between different African nations and eventually caused wars. In the internal wars, Africa hardly had any wealth accumulation and lost around 100 million of labor force, for many able-bodied people died. At the same time, establishment and strengthening of economic and political entities was heavily impeded by the fact that many African communities had to hide from the slave traders through relocation of their settlements and thus were more interested in survival than in development of countries or increase of economic might. In general, Atlantic slave trade that thrived until the 19th century facilitated the flow of labor force from Africa’s interior to the expanding territories of the New World, which were in need of more workers. As a result, many African regions were left underdeveloped and rather poor due to lack of labor force and – owing to efforts of their future colonizers – absence of efficient centralized states. This made Africa vulnerable to further colonization by European states that took benefit from the conditions and low ability to resist colonization. Moreover, most African countries still live in poverty: it is reported that African GDP per capita was just around $1000 in 2013. The U.S. as a region, on the other hand, experienced positive impact of labor force influx, for increasing territory and particularly plantations required more cheap manpower and slave trade brought a good deal of it to the country (Dodson, 2003). Inflow of African slaves contributed to industrialization and modernization and made a great contribution to development of the modern ethnic and racial landscape of the region. However, the negative impact produced by slave trade in the long-term perspective is the issue of racism ad racial segregation haunting the country. There is a recent example of racial discrimination in the United States: on 17 June, 2015, another hate crime, mass shooting, occurred in Charleston Church (South Carolina). A white 21-year-old man shot six black women and three black men. The event was just a little part of American racial discrimination (Costa et al., 2015). Therefore, slave trade made a contribution to formation of America as a ‘salad bowl’ region and thus brought in the element of racial discrimination, for racism was originally aimed at black people only. Post-colonial controversies in Nigeria Nigeria as a formal region has gone through the civil war in the second half of the 20th century, with the post-colonial conflicts lasting from 1967 to 1970. The civil war sparked by escalation of controversies between federal and local governments of the country regarding distribution of rights (Nnaemeka, 1997) resulted in death toll exceeding 2 million. Having been divided into three regions – north, east and west – Nigeria faced conflict between the ethnic groups dominating in these regions, i.e. Igbo and Hausa, which was brought to its end by federal government’s victory and establishment of control over Biafra. Biafra War is considered the second bloodiest military conflict of the 1960’s, together with Vietnam War, and is the result of the long-term effect produced by political, geographic and cultural factors. Thereby, the roots of the controversies are to be sought in Nigeria’s colonial past, when it was colonized by Portugal and Great Britain (from 1472 to 1960). Similar to other colonial states in Africa created for better management of the newly acquired territories, Nigeria was originally an artificial geographical entity incorporating a great number people descending from different cultures and ethnic groups. British colonization did not consider religious, ethnic and linguistic differences, promoting policy of regional division (i.e. distinguishing three regions, West Nigeria, East Nigeria and North Nigeria). Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa as three prevailing ethnic groups founded their political parties and thus enhanced ethnic controversies with the political element. Therefore, colonist geopolitics that took place in this territory at the dawn of its recorded history shaped the region as a great number of ethnicities united within the same political, formal, borders. In addition, other world powers gradually realized the potential danger of Biafra War. However, intervention of USA, France, Great Britain, Israel and USSR was not actually aimed at protection of Nigerian civilians from the warfare, but rather at their own profit (Uzokwe, 2003). Great Britain, took a supportive stance towards Nigerian federal government, insisting on value of the country’s integrity and independence. However, the interest lay primarily in oil installations located predominantly in the East; Britain used support of federal government as a strategy of maintaining access to cheap and high-quality oil. France, on the other hand, backed Biafra, lending military assistance to it yet without recognizing the new state diplomatically. Such stance was mainly justified by France’s geopolitical purposes and competition in West Africa (against Britain). USA, though formally neutral, still sent arms to the federal government protecting its private investments. Thus, both the borders of the region and the outcomes of the war were preconditioned by a wide range factors including geopolitics, while Nigeria has always suffered from political instability, underdeveloped infrastructure and corruption in economic management despite possessing rich oil deposits. Kurdistan Population of Kurdish people is estimated 30 million, though due to numerous historical factors they have been distributed among four countries of the Middle East - Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. The shares of Kurdish population in these countries are 45%, 31%, 22% and 5% of total population respectively, while other Kurds are scattered around other countries including EU (McDowall, 2004). Up to now, the Kurds have not established their own state, though the blurred geo-cultural region this people inhabits covers parts of the aforementioned four states and is commonly referred to as Kurdistan. The position Kurdish people are placed in is the result of historical, political and cultural reasons, which maintain their status as that of nomadic people. Since the late 4th century BC, the Kurds had been controlled by Seleucid Dynasty, and in the 16th century, their territory was divided between the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Safavid Dynasty. In 1847, the last Kurdish Principality was destroyed by the Ottoman Empire, thereafter, the Kurds were entirely controlled by other counties. The aftermath of the World Wars I and II entrenched passive status for the Kurdish people depriving them of the self-controlled sovereign region and distributing their territories between the newly established states in the territories of the former Ottoman Empire. Treaty of Lausanne divided the Kurds between Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. Since that time, Kurdish people have been separated and difficult to band together; political fragmentation of this large ethnic group makes the Kurds a fraction – minority – in Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. Thereby, the ethnic groups is in a continuous struggle against the local governments. Compared to other three countries, Iraqi Kurdish self-governance is the most developed. Due to various reasons, Turkish, Iranian and Syrian Kurds have not implemented the real self-governance so far. After 2003’s fall of Hussein’s regime, Iraqi Kurds were supported by the U.S. in realization of their self-governance strivings. A nation refers to an ethnic group or community, while the state implies a number of ethnic groups, a large group of people sharing a single system of administration and the same borders and having an organized political community. Viewed from this viewpoint, Kurdistan and the Kurds’ conflicts within the borders of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey can be described as the conflict of definitions. The concept of the given region held by the Kurds is rather vernacular, with Kurdistan as a geographical region being based on similarities in culture, religion, traditions, ethnicity and, probably, historical origins. On the other hand, the formal regional division imposed by the Treaty of Lausanne goes against this concept, resulting in the overlap of the regions. Crimea and Ukrainian-Russian conflict The dispute between Ukraine and Russia, which involves a number of political, ethnic, economic, and historical aspects (e.g. blurred cultural lines between the two countries that have many commonalities), resulted in the ongoing war in the Eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, a peninsula that used to be an autonomous republic in Ukraine, by Russia. Crimea became part of Russian empire back in 1783; in 1795, the region merged into the Novorossiysk Governorate, later obtaining autonomous status. After the World War II, Joseph Stalin sparked deportation of Crimean Tatars form the territory of the republic as a means of collective punishment for collaborationism. Thereby, the region was lowered in status, becoming the Crimean oblast’. In 1954, USSR government issues a decree transferring the region to Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which later became independent Ukraine and included Crimea as an autonomous republic of Crimea. The Euromaidan revolution began in 2013 when the president (Victor Yanukovych) refused to sign an association with the European Union. The revolution formally led by the opposition brought the regime of the president to the end. The revolution resulted in exile of pro-Russian president, a new government and the rise of patriotism in Ukraine. However, the new legislation concerning the status of the local languages and particularly Russian triggered the wave of discontent in Crimea, which was against Ukraine’s integration in EU and lately urged the citizens to strengthen their friendly ties with Russia instead of supporting Ukraines idea. Crimean citizens started demonstrations against the new Ukrainian government, which spread rapidly due to Russia’s overt support for the separatist political factions (Nesnera, 2014). The crisis in relationships between Russia and Ukraine began when Russian government brought troops to Crimea and supported local referendum aimed at separation from Ukraine and accession into Russian Federation: according to Russian media, 95% of voters supported joining Russia, though the treaty of accession was not recognized by the majority of international community. Crimea has been a beneficiary region due to its geographical conditions and position: access to the Black Sea and warm coast are the basis for tourism and agriculture (which brought the lion’s share of revenue – seasonal - to the region) and underdeveloped industry. Despite these peculiarities, Russia took much interest in annexing the region, for Crimea is located in an area that gives access to gas and oil reserves worth trillions of dollars. Moreover, loss of Crimean region deprives Ukraine of the chances for energy independence of Ukraine. What is also rather important is that the destiny of this region has proved to depend both of cultural factors (which define pro-Russian moods in Crimea) and its geographical position. Thereby, Russia’s further intentions to annex eastern and southern parts of Ukraine through instigation of uprising from the inside – intentions that resulted in the ongoing warfare in Donbass region – can be explained as a strategic means of gaining land access to Crimea, while Russia itself can access it only from the sea. Deforestation in Latin America Due to its favorable geographical position and climate conditions, Latin America possesses rich forestry resources: the mainland area in Couth American covered with forests is estimated 9.2 million square kilometers, which is a half of the entire continent’s area and 23% of the world’s forests. Mexico, Caribbean area and Central America possess 700,000 square kilometers of rainforests. Amazon rainforests covering 5.5 million square kilometers are the treasury of biological species – with approximately 10% of the world’s species found there. Particularly, many edible, medicinal and economically valuable resources can be found in the rainforests. Latin America incorporates all three main human races and is predominantly agricultural and farming region, while industry is less developed. Thereby, expansion of pastures for animal husbandry and croplands for agriculture leads to deforestation: in order to cultivate and grow cattle, local residents began to cut trees for more space. Nowadays, evolution of farming and agriculture to the industrial scale is the primary cause of logging (which, by the way is often illegal). Governmental efforts to bring local economies to industrial level are also marked by implementation of new energy policies, i.e. production of biofuel via planting raw materials and – consequently – cutting forests for more land (Guan, 2014). Of course, agriculture is one reason of deforestation in Latin America. It is a common fact that development prospects for agricultural countries are limited, and it is the necessary trajectory to tie economy’s development of a region or a country with industry. Nowadays, industrial progress facilitates economic and social development for an area. Thus, Latin America putting efforts into industrial development – namely, cattle grasslands, logging industry, mining, tourism and others – is the reason of deforestation that might have such environmental consequences as soil degradation and erosion and destruction of biodiversity. China: disparities between the regions China as one of the largest countries is experiencing rapid development; however, this growth has resulted in political, demographic and economic tensions and uneven economic landscape within the country. Economic inequality roots in radical disparities between rural and urban areas and between the western and the eastern coastal region of the country. Western part of the country still lags in terms of industrial development and thus income, infrastructure, industrialization etc.: the per capita gross domestic product in the coastal areas in the east is two times higher than that of the west. Intensification of economic development leads to an increase in the poverty levels within the country (Kitazume, 2007): while urban areas continue to grow and prosper with the number of middle-class citizens gradually rising, rural areas still face the problem of poverty due to underdeveloped industry, infrastructure and transport. In the course of the country’s development and due to geographical reasons, main urban areas and industrial centers have been concentrated in the eastern coastal regions, while interior, the western regions, has been less urbanized and not so densely populated. Moreover, economic inequality could be explained by the major power grids and hydroelectric plants being located – obviously – in the coastal areas, while energy transportation costs make it less beneficial to place industrial capacities in the west. In order to solve the issue of lagging Western economy, the government has been implementing a range of programs and reforms aimed at improvement of industry, infrastructure and transportation in the western region. Particularly, High-Speed Rail system has been in the process of development since 1999 due to China’s investments. This high-speed transportation system is aimed at evening up economic disparities between western and eastern parts, making markets more accessible and providing more mobility for the labor force. Bolivia vs. Argentina: urbanization Although Argentina and Bolivia are the regions with many similarities in climate and geography, trajectories of development for these two countries are rather different as well as their demographic and economic conditions. Particularly, Bolivia and Argentina are rather different in terms of urbanization level. Argentina is highly urbanized, with as much as 92% of the population living in the urban areas and ten major metropolitan areas accounting for 50% of the population. Buenos Aires, the second largest city in South America, has 3 million inhabitants, while this figure rises to 13 million for the entire Greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area. On the other hand, only around 62% of Bolivians inhabit urban areas, while the rest live in rural areas. The lion’s share of the population is concentrated in the areas of La Paz, Santa Cruz and Cochabamba. Generally, both the standard of living and the level of urbanization are different in the two countries. Argentina has both higher level of urbanization and higher standard of living, and this could probably be explained with the initial European style of development adopted by the country: this is reflected, for instance, in city planning. In contrast, Bolivia with its lower level of urbanization has rather few apartments in its urban areas, with 75% of dwellings being classified as houses. Naturally, such type of urban planning does not facilitate accommodation of large numbers of people in rather small urbanized regions. Moreover, as economic hardships faced by inhabitants of rural areas can be considered a factor sparking internal migration to urban areas, it could be assumed that Bolivia has better conditions and more stable employment for the residents of rural areas: agriculture employs around 40% of the population, while Argentinian agriculture provides workplaces for only 7% of population. Thereby, the difference in urbanization between these two rather similar (economically, historically and culturally) regions is justified by a set of developmental factors. Conclusion The aforementioned insights into development of certain regions provide the valuable information for human geography. Thereby, one could summarize the given information in a few statements. Firstly, it becomes obvious that physical geographic features of the region can predetermine its development and even boundaries: there are, for instance, disparities between western and eastern China. Secondly, differences in definition of formal and vernacular regions can result in negative impacts on the latter: there are two opposite examples of Nigeria, a formal region incorporating a number of conflicting vernacular regions based on cultural and ethnic commonalities, and of Kurdistan, a sole vernacular region based on the same cultural and ethnic heritage, which is dissolved between four different formal regions. Thirdly, the region’s political development can be guided by the natural resources it has, which is clear from the examples of Nigeria and Crimea. Fourthly, natural conditions of the region can be changed due to effect of certain economic or historical factors: deforestation of Latin America shoes interconnection between economic development and changing landscape of this large region. Generally, the provided information about diverse regions illustrates the main peculiarity of regional development and – at the same time – the main strength of regional approach: regional geography helps one understand that development of a certain region is not always defined by its formal boundaries and is always a product of physical conditions, geopolitical factors, human activity and historical events. Thereby, one can see that studying regions rather than countries allows for more discretion and detail in tracing and predicting development of a certain world’s area. Reference list Costa, R., Bever, L., Freedom du Lac, J. & Horwitz, S. (2015). Church shooting suspect Dylann Roof captured amid hate crime investigation. Washington Post. Retrieved August 8, 2015 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/06/17/white-gu nman-sought-in-shooting-at-historic-charleston-african-ame-church/. Dodson, H. (2003). How Slavery Helped Build a World Economy. 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Rowntree, L., Lweis, M. & Price, M. (2014). Diversity Amid Globalization. Boston: Prentice Hall. Uzokwe, A. O. (2003). Surviving in Biafra: The Story of the Nigerian Civil War. Bloomington: iUniverse. Read More