Wednesday, May 6, 2020

The myth of the continents A critique of metageography-...

The myth of the continents: A critique of metageography- Martin W. Lewis and Kà ¤ren E. Wigen’ In trying to summarize this piece of writing, I have tried to talk about what stood out to me, all quotations used for emphasis are from The myth of the continents: A critique of metageography (University of California Press: 1997). The very first thing we are taught about how the world is divided- before classifying it as first, second and third world or even simply North, East, West and South- is that it is divided into different continents. These different continents are then associated with different problems, cultures, and histories amoung other things. This then makes it possible for people from different continents to be distinctive†¦show more content†¦Southeast Asia for example was only identified because it was â€Å"a suitable geographical platform for military strategists.† There are not many characteristics that are unique to that part of the world. Considering the agricultural patterns for example, they are the same patterns found in southern China and central Madagascar to name a few. There is no concrete way to define landmasses based on environmental criteria since there are many different, unrelated areas with the same environmental conditions. Southwest Asia and North Africa is another example of this. There is no single conventional way in which the world is divided. Different Geographers focus on different parts of the world, while others cannot seem to agree where some regions start and end. â€Å"For one author the ‘Middle East’ stretches all the way from Morocco to Afghanistan; for another, it begins only at the Nile Valle; for a third, it might dip southward to encompass, sub-Saharan Somalia.† There are no definite natural separations between continents and it would therefore it would be contradictory to insist on consistent regional separations. The way continents and world regions in general end up being divided creates distortion of different information. A country like Sudan is often considered to be in the Middle East even though part of it is in Sub-Saharan Africa, in failing to divide countries in

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