Geographies of Inequality

The single most pressing challenge facing us at the dawn of the 21^st century is the world’s ability to address the increasing inequalities that characterize globalization and development. Extremes of wealth and poverty across the globe (in the global South and the North) underlie conditions of health and illness, educational opportunity and illiteracy, land ownership and forced migrations, employment protections or unregulated ‘flexible’ work. The World Bank’s 2000 report states that: “…2.8 Billion people – almost half the world’s population – live on less than $2/day” and that: “… the average income in the richest 20 countries is 37 times the average income in the poorest 20 – a gap that has doubled in the last 20 years”. The Human Development Report (1999) notes that: “The fifth of the world’s people living in high income countries has 86% of the world gross domestic product; 82% of export markets; 74% of world telephone lines; the bottom fifth in the poorest countries has about 1% of each”. According to the Multinational Monitor in 2003 (7/1/2003), “[T]he richest 10 percent of the world's population's income is roughly 117 times higher than the poorest 10 percent, according to calculations performed by economists at the Economics Policy Institute (data from the International Monetary Fund). This is a huge jump from the ratio in 1980, when the income of the richest 10 percent was about 79 times higher than the poorest 10 percent”. Paul Krugman (2002) notes that in the United States the 13,000 richest families have as much income as the 20 million poorest. This course examines the paradox that fifty years of ‘development’ in the post-war era have brought us to this place.

Purpose and Scope

This course examines histories of economic development and geographies of inequality in contemporary times. I discuss these issues and their human impacts from the perspective of historical and contemporary changes in the international political and economic system. Understanding global to local interactions of economic, political and social forces and actions provides a set of tools for understanding the nature of socio-economic changes across the globe, as well as in North America. The course begins by reexamining some of the defining themes in debates over development: 'overpopulation', migration/immigration dynamics, and the production of inequality and poverty. We discuss the historical legacies of colonialism in Africa, Latin America and Asia, linking these to current debates about 'development' -- such as protectionism and free trade as strategies for economic development. The course culminates with a discussion of the human dimensions of structural political and economic processes. We discuss working in the global economy and grassroots networks of political action.

Learning goals:

I have two learning goals for this course. The first is that students learn a political-economy analysis of development. The second is to focus critical attention on the ways in which Southern places and peoples are represented and understood in the United States.

Course Readings:

A World of Difference. Society, Nature and Development. Porter, P. and E. Sheppard. 1998. London: Guildford Press.

Readings packet available at Rams Copy and Print and on reserve at Odegaard Undergraduate Library.

Course Requirements:

1) Students are expected to attend all lectures and to complete all assigned readings.

2) There will be one midterm exam worth 25% of your final course grade.

3) There will be four in-class exercises during the quarter that combine to be worth 25% of your final course grade.

4) There will be three credit/no credit assignments worth 10% of your grade and a graded paper assignment worth 20% of your grade.

5) There will be a final examination worth 20% of your final course grade.

Important Dates:

Friday Nov 10^th, Veteran’s Day - no class

November 23^rd and 24^th Thanksgiving Day – no class

Friday December 8^th, last day of class

Monday, December 11^th: Final Examination @ 8:30-10:20am

Internet Sites Useful to this Course can be found on my homepage at http://faculty.washington.edu/lawson/courses/230/230res.htm.

OUTLINE OF TOPICS

I. MAJOR THEMES

Weeks 1 and 2: Sept. 27^th – Oct 6^th

Introduction: Cities in the global economy; development as idea and practice; political-economy approach to development

Myths of underdevelopment: representations of Asian, Latin American and African people and places – represented as “poor, violent, corrupt, backward, overpopulated and bloated states”

Bringing the learning home: understanding the United States in contemporary times

Readings: Porter and Sheppard, Introduction pp: 3-23; chapter 2 pp: 27-40; chapter 4 pp: 61-77; Reading Packet articles ‘The Other Davos’ pp: 3-16; and ‘Nickel and Dimed.

II. RE-EXAMINING DEBATES OVER 'DEVELOPMENT'

Week 3: Oct. 9^th- 13^th

Population: are too many people the issue? Examine debates over ‘overpopulation’ and ‘overconsumption’

Readings: Porter and Sheppard, chapter 7 pp: 121-142; Reading Packet articles ‘There is no Global Population Problem’ and ‘Worldwide Development or Population Explosion?’ (affluenza video)

Week 4: Oct. 16^th – 20^th

Migration/Immigration and Urbanization: forces behind mobility and impacts of migration and debates over immigration in the U.S. (Fast Track to Poverty video)

Readings: Porter and Sheppard, chapter 19 pp: 425-437; Reading Packet articles 'Why Migration’ ‘Latinos in the Age of National Security’ and ‘The Faulty Logic of Immigration Rhetoric’.

Week 5: Oct 23^rd – 27^th

Pre-colonial urbanization: Sub-saharan Africa example of urbanization and indigenous

knowledges lost

Colonial Imprint and Impacts: the Berlin Conference, trading economies and global cities

Readings: Porter and Sheppard, chapter 14 and 15 pp: 307-365; and Reading Packet articles ‘Randy Borman: Cofan Chief’, ‘Ecuadorians Wage Legal Battle’ and ‘All the Way to Timbuktu’ (Cofan video).

Week 6: Oct 30^th – Nov 3^rd

Invention of economic development: Bretton Woods and the post-war order; World Bank, International Monetary Fund -- development for whom?

Readings: Porter and Sheppard, chapter 16 pp: 366-381 and chapter 17 pp: 382-396; and Reading Packet articles ‘The First Fifty Years’ and ‘Fifty Years is Enough’

IV. DEBT AND A NEW WORLD ORDER: GLOBALIZATION

Week 7: Nov 6^th – 10^th

Debt and a New World Order: Urban/industrialization, debt, crisis, and the International Monetary Fund

Readings: Porter and Sheppard, chapter 23 pp: 510-539; and Reading Packet articles SAPRIN News Release and letter to World Bank’, ‘No Prescription Needed’ and ‘The Debt Crisis and Jubilee’ and ‘Jubilee 2000 USA’

Weeks 8 and 9: Nov 13^th – 22^nd

Structural Adjustment and US Welfare Reform

Readings: Reading Packet articles ‘Odious Debt’, ‘Structural Adjustment: Making Debt Deadly’, ‘Jubilee 2000 USA articles’ and ‘Vulnerable Women and Neoliberal Globalization’ and ‘Can Working Families Ever Win?’ (Waging a Living video)

V. WORKING IN THE WORLD ECONOMY

Week 10: Nov 27^th – Dec 1^st

Making a living intransnational corporations or on the streets: gender, ‘flexible’ workers, and informal economies

Readings: Porter and Sheppard, chapter 19 pp: 437-458, chapter 20 pp: 459-474 and Reading Packet articles ‘Women Behind the Labels’ and ‘Women Street Vendors: the road to recognition’

VI. ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENTS

Week 11: Dec 4^th – Dec 8^th

Politics and civil society: global networks, transnational alliances, CONAIE and Ecuador coup, anti-globalization movement, fair trade movement (Santiago’s story on fair trade coffee - video; In Women's Hands - video).

Readings: Porter and Sheppard, chapter 25, pp: 553-567; and Reading Packet articles ‘Adelante! The New Rural Activism in the Americas', and ‘The Globalization of Resistance and Struggles’

COURSE SCHEDULE

Week # Evaluation

Week #2, Fri Oct 6th Map Test: Africa

Week #4, Fri Oct. 20th Map Test: South Asia

Week #6, Mon Oct 30^th MIDTERM

Week #8, Fri Nov 17^th Map Test: S.E. Asia

Week #10, Fri Dec 8^th Map Test: Latin America

MONDAY Dec 11th FINAL EXAM 8:30 - 10:20 am

MONDAY Dec 11^th FINAL PAPER DUE BY 5:00pm

Note: Before each in-lab exercise, you will receive a place name list and a map for preparation.