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Neu, Carson
November 28th, 2018
GEOG 202
Geography of the Global Village: Essay
Culture has an enormous impact on today’s world, but some people may be confused on what culture actually is. So, what is culture? It is the shared values, beliefs, and norms of a specific group of people and can impact the way we see things, the way we learn, and the way we live. Culture is hugely affected by the location in which we reside and can ultimately be tied into the main topic of this essay, Geography. Over the course of this class, we read a number of essays over the Geography of the Global Village written about different parts of the world and by authors from different parts of the world. In these essays, there are key factors that should be sought out for, cultural attitude, ethical responsibility, and the essay that best shows geography, culture, and the similarity between the two.
Cultural attitude can be defined as a way we see people from other countries or more simply, what comes to our mind when we see someone foreign. When describing the culture of someone or one’s homeland, the first thing that comes to mind is what can be seen as the cultural attitude. In the reading assignments we have been reading this semester, there are countless examples of different authors’ cultural attitude to pick from. The first example I have comes from The English in the West Indies or, The Bow of Ulysses by James Anthony Froude and is over the geography of the Caribbean. Froude describes the Caribbean just as he see’s it without any filter. He starts off by describing the entrance into the Caribbean as very heavily barricaded and naturally hard to attack. During the time this was written (1888), it was a territorial period
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where countless countries were going after different areas of land to own for themselves. Froude implies how this is going on during this time period when he mentions how heavily barricaded this port of entry was. Nowadays, it’s rather the complete opposite in the Caribbean. Rather than being heavily barricaded, it is an open barrier that seems very welcoming because of the whole tourist scene in that particular area. Another good cultural observation he makes is that during this time, countries “preyed” on these Caribbean countries. For example, Jamaica was almost fully run by the “white men” once they found out about the difference resources they had (i.e. sugarcane and fruit). Froude goes on to say that the Caribbean is basically free territory and says, “Some [men] are strong and can govern themselves; some [men] are weak and are prey of foreign invaders or internal anarchy-“ Present day, this really isn’t accurate. The Caribbean generally isn’t run by any other countries nowadays, they are self-sufficient with the tourism craze. There aren’t too many instances in which countries own territories in different parts of the world like it used to be because most of the territories that were owned are now independent countries or t...
