Our World

Notes for 2-28-06

Latin America Part II
-Urbanization began in 1950s; today 75% urbanized
-Urban primacy: a country has a primate city 4 times larger than any other city in the country.
Urban reform
-Reflects colonial origins and contemporary growth
-Latin American City Model
-Squatter settlements: makeshift housing on land not legally owned or rented by urban migrants, usually is unoccupied open spaces in or near a rapidly growing city
-Mechanization of agriculture, population pressure, consolidation of lands
Patterns of Rural Settlement
-130 million people 25% live in rural areas
-Rural Landholdings
Latifundia: pattern of maintaining large estates
Minifundia: pattern associated with peasants farming small plots for their own subsistence
Agrarian reform: a popular, but controversial strategy to redistribute land to peasant farmers
- Agricultural Frontiers
Brazilian Amazon settlement is controversial
Provided peasants with land, tapped unused resources, shored up political boundaries
Population Growth and Movements
Rapid Growth throughout most of the century followed by slower growth
- Declining Total Fertility Rates (TFRs) since 1980s
- Asian Migration
Many Chinese and Japanese between 1870s and 1930s
New wave of immigrants from South Korea
- Latino Migration and Hemispheric Change
Economic opportunities spurred migrations within Latin America, or from Mexico to the U.S.
Political turmoil, civil wars caused migration
- 1500: population of 47 million; 1650:5 million
Largest populations on Indians today: Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia
Indians trying to secure recognized territory in their countries
Comarca: loosely defined territory similar to a providence or homeland, where Indians have political and resource control
Patterns of Ethnicity and Culture
Racial caste system under Spanish: blanco, mestizo, indio, negro
- Languages
About 2/3s Spanish speakers, 1/3 Portuguese speakers
Indigenous languages in central Andes, Mexico, Guatemala
- Blended Religions
90% Roman Catholic
-El Salvador, Uruguay have sizeable Protestant populations
Syncretic religions: blending of different beliefs
- Allows animist practices to be included in Christian worships
- Catholicism and African religions, with Brazils carnival as an example

posted by Anonymous @ 3/01/2006 04:07:00 PM