Synthesis Assignment
Please recall that four ‘big ideas’ have run through all of the modules in this course:
Big idea 1: IDENTITY: Individual and group identities are created through dynamic and dialectic processes; identity is not static. Both individuals and groups perceive themselves as products of multiple rather than singular identities, although certain identities may carry more weight at particular moments in histories. Identity is formed by factors including geography, culture, language, history, mobility, technology, and economy. Identity is relational in nature.
Big Idea 2: DIVERSITY: The world’s regions are diverse in both their physical and cultural/economic geographies, and the identities of the people who live in each region are shaped by both historical and present geographies, languages, cultures, and economies. Characteristics of a place and people undergo constant change, and contain great diversity at scales as small as the household and as encompassing as the “world region.”
Big Idea 3: UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT & MARGINALIZED PEOPLES: Development of regions and the world has historically been uneven, with certain groups or areas gaining greater human well-being or economic advantage more rapidly than other groups or areas. This uneven development partly manifests itself in placing greater burdens of environmental damage upon those groups or areas with less power relative to others.
Big Idea 4: GLOBAL INTERDEPENDENCIES: Geographic areas of the world depend upon one another for resources including natural, human, and technical resources. The relationships between certain geographic areas help to determine the degree to which areas are able to move in new directions of economic or social development. Path dependencies are created and transformed, generating opportunities and constraints for each world region and its peoples. Global production networks (or global value chains) are key forces shaping the nature of inter-regional interdependencies. GPNs/GVCs are driven by transnational corporations but strongly shaped by the role of the state and state-firm relations in the development process. The role of labor in this development process is highly contested and varies over space and time.
Please choose ONE of THREE options:
OPTION A: Marginalized Peoples, Uneven Development, and Scale
· Throughout the course, we’ve seen that different populations have drastically different economic opportunities, qualities of life, amounts of political power, life expectancies, literacy rates, etc. These disparities can be either amplified or reduced over time, depending on how societies and economies develop. We can look at uneven development at multiple scales of analysis, perhaps leading us to different conclusions. For example, trends (textbook pp. 25-30) of uneven development are visible between countries, regions, and even more broadly between the “global north” and “global south” (p. 28). While, at the global scale, the USA may be dominant, a country-level analysis of the USA would uncover communities within its borders that are marginalized.
In this paper, you will look at THREE world regions of your choice to reflect on uneven development and marginalized peoples at both regional and global scales. The Three Regions I have chosen for you are the Kurds of the upper Middle East, the Uyghurs of the Xinjiang province in northwest China, and the Romani people who can be found in numerous states across Europe. Who are the marginalized or underserved groups within these three regions, and in what ways are they marginalized? What commonalities and what differences do you see across the three regions? At a global scale, are the regions that you chose more politically and economically dominant or peripheral?
An ‘OPTION A’ paper should follow this general format:
Section 1: Introduction (~200-250 words)
Section 2: Comparing and contrasting your three regions’ INTERNAL patterns—regional or sub-regional scale—of uneven development and marginalization (~450-550 words)
Section 3: Comparing and contrasting your three regions’ relative power (politically, economically, culturally) on the global-scale (~400-500 words)
Section 4: Conclusion (~150-200 words)
Links of websites with good information:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kurd
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22311356/china-uyghur-birthrate-sterilization-genocide
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