colonialism

The World’s Newest Republic

How one nation’s sovereignty movement is setting off a chain reaction among former British colonies in the Caribbean.

“Though Barbados gained its independence as a constitutional monarchy in 1966, only last year did the nation formally sever ties with Britain—removing Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state and electing the nation’s first president in the process. Removing the Queen as head of state is not a political endpoint, then, but one step toward reasserting Black Barbadian identity and sovereignty.” SOURCE: The Atlantic

What is the difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain, and England? Or what about the distinction between the Commonwealth, possessions of the Crown, and the British Empire? It is easy stay out of the complicated nature of these questions, but many people in former parts of the British Empire are starting to delve into these questions; the death of Queen Elizabeth made many of these conversations more on the forefront of the public consciousness. Some Commonwealth countries like Barbados have distanced themselves from what they see as vestigial remains of a complex colonial heritage, and countries like Jamaica are seriously considering following suit.

Questions to ponder: What old forces have kept political connections between the UK and former colonies in place for so many decades? What new forces are reconfiguring political and cultural institutions in the Caribbean?

TAGS: Barbados, colonialism, Middle America, political, sovereignty.

November 3, 2022 0

Hawaiian Shirts

aLOHA

“There are a few ways to tell if you’re looking at an authentic, high-quality aloha shirt. If the pockets match the pattern, that’s a good sign, but it’s not everything. Much of understanding an aloha shirt is about paying attention to what is on the shirt itself. It’s about looking at the pattern to see the story it tells.” SOURCE: 99 Percent Invisible

An article of clothing is a product of the culture that made it and the place that it is from. If a place has a complex cultural history, with series of migrations that have shaped the place, then the cultural artifact might have a rich product as well. Such is the case with the Aloha shirt from Hawaii.

GeoEd Tags: 99pi, podcast, culture, migration, colonialism, unit 3 culture.

October 10, 2019 0

Belize: A Spanish Accent in an English-Speaking Country

"BELIZE has long been a country of immigrants. British timber-cutters imported African slaves in the 18th century, and in the 1840s Mexican Mayans fled a civil war."

Source: www.economist.com

This is an older article (2012), but the pattern mentioned here is all the more relevant. Belize has a much higher Human Development Index ranking that its Central American neighbors such as Guatemala. That fact alone makes Belize a likely destination for migrants. Given that Belize was ‘British Honduras’ during colonial times, English is (still) the official language, but that is changing as increasingly Spanish-speaking immigrants are changing the cultural profile of Belize.

January 31, 2019 0

What Anthony Bourdain Understood About Cities

The work of the acclaimed chef and writer, who has died at 61, provides a model for a truly inclusive urbanism based on the creativity of all human beings.

Source: www.citylab.com

At the APHG reading last week, it felt as if everyone was in shock and mourning Anthony Bourdain’s passing. I felt so amazingly thick, but I was dying to ask "who?" Judging by everyone’s reaction, I think I’m the only geographer who has never watched any of his shows and was feeling the shame. I quickly checked out Parts Unknown (on Netflix) and the appeal of his work was immediately evident; it is more about place than it is strictly about the food. Food is simply his portal into understanding the people, culture, and politics of a given place. Some say that his approach brings an anti-colonial flair to urbanism and travel, but as I’m a newbie to his work, I’m just going to start appreciating it now as we mourn his loss.

Tags: culture, worldwide, diffusion, urban, urbanism, place, food,

colonialism, video, media.

June 14, 2018 0

Are Americans trashing the English language?

“Are American’s trashing the English language? The Economists language expert, Lane Greene, knows a thing or two about English. Lane is a fan of words, lots of words, and Lane is an American living in London. He’s become accustomed to British English slang. But Lane often hears Britons complain that there are too many American words and expressions creeping into British English, these are called Americanisms. British writer Matthew Engel can’t stand Americanisms being used in Britain and even wrote a book about it. But are Americanisms trashing British English?”

Source: www.youtube.com

This video touches on important cultural and spatial dynamics of the linguistic change impacting the world’s current lingua franca…in other words, this is incredibly relevant to human geography.

Tags: language, culture, worldwide, English, diffusion,

colonialism.

March 5, 2018 0

Drought and Famine

In which John Green teaches you a little bit about drought, which is a natural weather phenomenon, and famine, which is almost always the result of human activity. Throughout human history, when food shortages strike humanity, there was food around. There was just a failure to connect those people with the food that would keep them alive. There are a lot of reasons that food distribution breaks down, and John is going to teach you about them in the context of the late-19th century famines that struck British India.

Source: www.youtube.com

Famine is exacerbated by natural factors such as drought, but those only stress the system, they rarely cause the actual starvation. The real failure is that the political/economic systems created by governments and how they handle stains in the food production/distribution systems. Widespread famines are very rare in democracies and are much more prevalent in authoritarian regimes. Many of the recent examples have come from collectivation strategies that governments have implemented (currently Venezuela, but historically the Soviet Union and China). The Choices program has some good resources about teaching current events with the famines today.

Tags: food, poverty, historical, colonialism, economic, political, governance, agriculture, crash course.

May 24, 2017 0

Growth of Colonial Settlement

European settlement began in the region around Chesapeake Bay and in the Northeast, then spread south and west into the Appalachian Mountains.

Questions to Ponder: How did European immigrants settle along the East Coast? How did geography determine settlement patterns?

Tags: migration, map, historical, colonialism, USA, National Geographic.

Source: www.nationalgeographic.org

April 5, 2017 0

The languages the world is trying to learn, according to Duolingo

If you own a smartphone and are trying to learn a language, you probably have Duolingo. English is far and away the most dominant, with a caveat: For some learners, English is the only language Duolingo offers with translation into their native tongue. That doesn’t change the fact of universal interest in English, though, which Duolingo notes is studied by 53% of its users. Things get more interesting when you look at the second-most popular language by country. There French takes the lead, followed by Spanish, German, and Portuguese.

Tags: language, colonialism, technology, diffusion, culture, English.

Source: qz.com

Questions to Ponder: What role do colonial history and modern economics play in shaping this linguistic data? How does migration influence patterns in bilingualism? What is a lingua franca?

January 12, 2017 0

Bamenda protests: Mass arrests in Cameroon

Some 100 people are arrested after protests against using French in Cameroon’s English-speaking region.

Areas controlled by Britain and France joined to form Cameroon after the colonial powers withdrew in the 1960s. The country has 10 semi-autonomous administrative regions – eight are Francophone and use the French civil law. English-speakers have long complained that they face discrimination. They often complain that they are excluded from top civil service jobs and that government documents are often only published in French, even though English is also an official language. Bamenda is the founding place of Cameroon’s largest opposition political party, the Social Democratic Front.

Tags: language, colonialism, Cameroon, Africa, culture, political, devolution.

Source: www.bbc.com

November 28, 2016 0