Hi and welcome to Crash Course physics. Today we’re going to jump into the space-time continuum.
Just kidding! Though science fiction writers and physicists aren’t the only ones exploring
space-time, which is when the three dimensions we see in space are represented together with time.
Geographers and physicists are both trying to describe the world and tell the stories
of the Earth, so it makes sense that we share some of the same vocabulary.
As geographers when we talk about space-time, we mean more that space and time are becoming one --
the distance between different spaces doesn’t matter as much, and the time it takes
for ideas or people to diffuse from one location to another is getting smaller and smaller.
Like in our episode on industrial geography we talked about globalization,
and how in a globalized world the movement, flows,
and connections -- whether economic or political or social or cultural --
have made it seem like we’ve compressed time and space, as the geographer David Harvey once said.
As how we live and work changes, our spaces, places, and human-environment
interactions are being reorganized on every possible scale. In this final episode,
come with me as we start to tell the stories of geographies of the future.
I’m Alizé Carrère, and for the last time, this is Crash Course Geography.
INTRO
For our last episode of Crash Course Geography it seems fitting to come full circle and revisit
our fundamental geography tools: space, place, and bananas -- I mean, human-environment interactions.
Throughout our journey through this series, we’ve talked about lots of different types of space.
But basically, space refers to all the features and relationships that occur in a given area.
And now the digital world has created a (somewhat) new virtual space with its own
landscape or technoscape where we can interact without necessarily being physically together.
Like, it takes many people to pull an episode of Crash Course Geography together.
Our field producer Neil and I shoot this in Miami, Florida with our editor Madeline and
producer Brandon zooming in from Colorado and Indiana. And they work with our writers
and consultants April and Zohra in Ohio and Kelly our fact checker in Massachusetts, and
Tuna who does our sound design in Montana. And of course the Thought Café team with Meg and Tenzin
illustrating the series from Ontario, Canada and Monique animating it from Sao Paulo, Brazil.
We work as a team from many different locations and time zones.
And while we’re each located in an absolute or specific space,
we’re also simultaneously in a relational space that’s connected through social media and the
virtual world to lots of other places when we’re interacting with each other.
Like during a zoom meeting I might be paying rapt attention of course...and
ordering a library book or placing a take-out order for lunch.
Or maybe I’m out doing errands but also chatting with my sister and the chickens in France.
So many different kinds of spaces are converging all at once.
And that means how we think about space in geography has changed and will change
in the future. We’ve broadened our concept of space and the spaces we navigate daily because
all of these different types of space have become an integral part of our lives. They influence
and impact each other and will profoundly change how we live, work, shop and play.
Right now though, in the early 2020s, we don’t know the whole story of virtual space.
There’s still a lot to study in geography because these virtual spaces
can also be filled with power struggles and possibilities, just like physical spaces.
And as our understanding of space changes and grows, we also have to think about
another core concept: place and what that means in the future.
Place is an area in a space that humans have given meaning to or have become attached to in some way.
So places are like locations plus so much more -- they’re also the setting of everyday life.
We experience places and they exist because we exist, which makes place a social
construct that is unique to particular people and which can change over time.
As space and time converge, today more than ever,
places are linked to other places and regions in a global rather than a local context
and are highly interdependent. Like New York City and London in some ways are more closely linked as
important economic places than say New York City and my hometown Ithaca, a little bit upstate.
In fact, globalization has made some people afraid that we’re heading towards a world
where global consumerism will make every place the same. Whether we’re in Denver or Dubai,
we’re confronted with the same airport, hotel, or office
and with the same shops, the same brands, and the same products.
Some people find that this homogenization, or blending together, makes them feel placeless
and dislocated. But other people find that same-ness comforting. And another
school of thought says that these brands are globally ubiquitous,
but are being adapted in different ways to meet the tastes, desires, needs, and culture of locals.
Either way, this means that places aren’t lost. But it does mean that the people who
live in places affected by globalization -- so most of the world -- do need to decide what it
is they want their place to be, whether that is reasserting identity and claim to a territory
in order to recreate a specific time and place in the past or a new vision of their future.
Like the slow city movement, which is a grassroots response to globalization
and an example of people trying to recover a sense of place. The goal of slow cities,
or cittaslow, is to develop places that retain healthy environments, good food,
sustainable economies and a vital community life based on seasonal and traditional rhythms.
Like Damyang County in South Korea, which has improved its physical environment
by restoring its traditional gravel pathways and creeks and has strict building regulations
to make sure new construction is in line with the town’s historic character.
Residents can learn traditional arts and crafts and there is a daily and
weekly market for local products and for farmers to sell produce.
Defending territory is a placemaking force, and it’s a way we show we’re
attached to a specific location and have created a place we feel we belong.
So in some ways, globalization has made local settings more important than ever before.
And even though globalization seems overpowering,
there are still so many local differences in what resources are available
or how the space is organized. So really, places are constantly under construction
as people respond to the opportunities and constraints of wherever they are.
Which means as geographers, we’ll continue working to understand what makes people,
places and regions different from one another.
One of the areas our new understanding of space and place are on display is the new world of data.
Many of our interactions are part of information spaces made up of data
points that are controlled by just a handful of organizations. And data is the new oil.
Whether we’re shopping, in school, at work, or simply taking a walk, we can leave a virtual trail
or digital footprint through websites we visit, messages we send through different platforms, and
even cameras -- whether it’s a security camera at a local store or your neighbor’s doorbell monitor.
In this surveillance landscape our locations and our identities are used to extract data.
And like oil, extraction means profit.
This new round of extraction is called surveillance capitalism,
and nowhere is this surveillance more obvious than in our urban spaces. Today’s cities are
also smart cities, saturated with cameras and sensors that secure homes, workplaces,
and everything in between, with the goal of making our cities safer and more efficient.
But creating smart cities also means we’re letting a massive amount of data be collected.
These technologies have the ability to collect granular data on local weather,
pollution, and traffic patterns. And they can also collect personal data as we move
through public spaces -- personal data that can be commercialized.
But just because we can doesn't mean we should. Or at least,
doesn't mean we should without at least first thinking critically about which
communities may benefit most from technological solutions -- and who might be harmed, instead.
Like as cities become more focused on security, that might also mean new ways to manipulate,
segregate, and keep surveillance on our most marginalized and vulnerable social groups.
We need to think about how spaces and infrastructure will be provided in the future
and the roles that technology, data, and privatization will play in shaping our cities.
If all this is sounding a bit dystopian, I’m with you. But as geographers, we can study these new
spaces and economies and ask questions about the relationships and patterns that they form.
In fact, environmental geographers have studied what happens when we
restrict access to public spaces and the problems that creates in great detail.
When communities stop being in charge of their own spaces, it amplifies negative consequences -- like
when fisheries start being privately owned, it ends up consolidating and limiting who can
catch fish. By restricting access, we also lose out on a lot of community knowledge,
which can include informal practices that help reduce impacts on a resource.
And the world of data is no different. Some communities are pushing back on
surveillance and all the data collected by private companies
by arguing for more data to be open access. This turns data from a private good to something that
is held in common and that we care for as a public good, like water in a watershed.
Communal data also gives under-resourced communities new outlets to claim space and power.
Like through efforts like open geographic data or the effort to map
previously silenced patterns, through projects like Mapping Prejudice.
Though our current surveillance landscape and an
open data future aren’t the only two options for how we can deal with data.
And as geographers we can help figure out how those options affect spaces and places.
And finally, the third core geography concept is human-environment interactions
or are all the ways humans connect with and live within the environment
and the impact the environment has on lives, choices, and experiences of people.
As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, the human footprint extends over
the vast majority of Earth’s surface. In fact some people call our current geological era
in Earth’s history the anthropocene. It’s the period where human activities like agriculture,
industrialization and urbanization have had far reaching effects on Earth’s ecosystems.
And this is an important piece of recognition for geographers,
because it means our work has renewed relevance as more people
recognize the idea that the natural world is inextricably linked with the human world.
But the anthropocene holds both promise and peril and it’s important how we think about it.
For instance, let’s consider geoengineering, or the active manipulation of the Earth’s climate
in order to counteract the effect of climate disaster.
Geoengineering solutions like carbon capture actively push carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
gases from the atmosphere into Earth’s crust, so it can’t trap heat in the atmosphere anymore.
And reducing the amount of carbon dioxide we put into the atmosphere
is a goal that’s socially and geographically dispersed. That means countries and societies
must all participate to reduce the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.
But another geoengineering solution -- solar radiation management which is
when we reflect a small amount of the energy from the Sun back into space,
rather than letting it reach us on Earth -- is the inverse.
It's adding aerosols or space reflectors to our atmosphere, rather than taking them away.
Geoengineering the climate like this requires advanced technological capabilities.
It also means a small group of states or private companies would
be able to manipulate the climate of entire regions however they wanted.
So as geographers, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us helping the world navigate whether we can
or should drastically manipulate the physical environment in new ways to suit human needs.
And because geographers are experts on the relationships between
physical and social processes, we can help
evaluate the consequences or potential benefits of manipulating our environment.
The anthropocene requires us to radically rethink the idea of nature and even humans and our
relationship with each other. What is just and what is equitable, both socially and spatially,
are still important questions, because there are power relationships bound up in who will be the
winners and losers, or who gets to decide what is beneficial and what is harmful.
So throughout this series we’ve talked a lot about the different patterns and processes that shape
our world and how deeply they’re affected by the past. But nothing is set in stone.
And as we’ve said many times, the Earth is a beautifully dynamic place, and human innovation
and our desire to claim and create our own places will continue to build new landscapes and futures.
Whether it’s climate change, data landscapes, or understanding the movement of people and ideas,
power and economics, geographers are right there,
getting their boots muddy or digging through archives and big data.
We’re helping to explain the relationships between the physical and social forces
and the outcomes those interactions generate in order to tell all the stories of the Earth.
And with that, we’ve made it to the end of our journey -- around the world and back again,
learning about things like volcanoes, glaciers, agricultural patterns,
and the movement of language and religion, and, of course, bananas.
It has been an honor to be your companion along the way -- with the help of so many friends -- and
I hope that understanding a bit more about both physical and human geography has given you new
perspectives to ponder, and a renewed sense of awe and wonder about our extraordinary home planet.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey.
Thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course Geography which is filmed at the
Team Sandoval Pierce Studio and was made with the help of all these nice people. If you want
to help keep Crash Course free for everyone, forever, you can join our community on Patreon.