Latin America Geography

  1. Aztecs
    Settled in Mexico City; conquered by Cortez
  2. Incas
    settled in the Andes; conquered by Spain for gold/silver; almost completely exterminated
  3. Colombian Exchange
    biological swap of plants, animals, people, and diseases between the colonial powers (Europe/Africa) and the colonies (the Americas)
  4. Favelas/Shanty towns
    informal settlements of the edge of the cities; area of makeshift housing without government control, city services.
  5. Neo-liberalism
    privatization, direct foreign investment, few import/export restrictions (less tariffs), business-driven market economy
  6. underemployment
    employed but don't earn enough to live or get by; leads immigrants to move to the US.
  7. Maquiladoras
    assembly plants near the US-Mexico borders; built by foreign investors and earn foreign capital; exported goods to the US; used for it's benefits of lower wages, fewer benefits, and fewer regulations
  8. mestizo
    a person of mixed European and Indian ancestry
  9. Cartel
    • a formal organization of produced and manufactured goods; not regulated by the government; increases profits by reducing the competition
    • La Familia - southwest Mexico
  10. Diaspora
    the scattering of a particular groups of people over a vast geographical area
  11. Nacrocorridos
    pop songs glorifying drug-trafficking - based out of Mexico, but moved to other Latin American countries
  12. Mules
    people who smuggle small quantities of drugs, usually inside themselves (in their stomach) across national borders.
  13. Migrant smuggling
    illegal entry of person into foreign country of which a person is not a citizen
  14. coyote
    migrant smuggler; paid by undocumented immigrants to smuggle them across the US-Mexican border.
  15. Neocolonialism
    economic and political strategies by which powerful states indirectly or sometime directly extend their influence over another weaker state.
  16. off-shore banking
    • islands or micro states that offer financial services that are typically confidential and tax-exempt that offer their services to individual and corporate clients for a set fee.
    • Bahamas and Cayman Islands
    • Used for: privacy, taxation, stability, drug trade, terrorism
  17. Maroons societies
    runaway slaves who established communities rich in African tradition throughout the Caribbean and Brazil.
  18. creolization
    the blending of African, European, and even some Amerindian cultural elements into the unique sociocultural systems found in the Caribbean.
  19. brain drain
    migration of the best-educated people from developing countries to developed nations where economic opportunities are greater.
  20. capital leakage
    gap between the gross receipts an industry brings to a developing country and the amount of capital retained there.
  21. isolated proximity
    a concept that explores the contradictory position of the Caribbean which are physically close to North America and economically dependent upon that region.
  22. Yanomanmo
    native group of people in Brazil; lived apart from the cities; live in the dense Amazon Basin; colonialism never even reached them
  23. Greater Antilles
    4 major islands - Cuba, Jamaica, Hispanola, Puerto Rico
  24. Hispanola
    Haiti and Dominican Republic
  25. Lesser Antilles
    Dozens of Islands, Island Arc (produced by volcanic activity)
  26. Rimland
    coastal zone off the mainland of Central and South America - political strongholds were here due to the ports.
  27. Transnational Migration
    • livelihood between home (where you come from) and the host (where you live now) countries.
    • 2 way street - part of the 21st century globalization
  28. Remittances
    money sent by migrants to their families back home; a way of trying to help the country or the region to help the standard or living; helps economically stabilize the other counrtries
  29. Free-trade zones
    industrial parks attracting foreign corporations; The Caribbean has a lot of appeal.
  30. International Monetary Fund
    world's financial system includes about 187 countries; facilitates international trade, promotes sustainable economic growth; increase in employment and decrease in poverty
  31. Ska Music
    dance music; late 1950's; pre-cursor to reggae; Caribbean and US R&B
  32. Rude Boys
    2 tone 1960's adolescents; unemployed, impoverished, associated with delinquency; black and white unity
  33. 3rd wave
    US suburban, mixed punk & ska, faster, commercial (Radio and MTV)
  34. Grand tour
    wealthy people would send their children after their education to travel around Europe for a while year.
  35. Eco-tourism
    interest in the environment and desire to benefit the places where we visit; encourages local people to develop tourism in sustainable ways.
  36. beach tourism
    all-inclusive beach resort; all look the same; cater to the desire that you want to go to the beach; the culture doesn't matter
  37. subsistence agriculture
    farming that produces only enough crops or animal products to support a farm family's needs; little sold at local market
  38. NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement)
    an agreement made in 1994 between Canada, US, and Mexico that established a 15-year plan for reducing barriers to trade among the 3 countires
  39. rural-to-urban migration
    the flow of internal migrants from rural migrants to cities that began in the 1950's and intensified in the 1960's and 1970's
  40. primate city
    the largest urban settlement in a country that dominates all other urban places, economically and politically; generally the countries capital city
  41. shifting cultuvation
    an agricultural system in which plots of land are farmed and then abandoned for a number of years until fertilization is restored, at which point they are again brought under cultivation
Author
erica1114
ID
48742
Card Set
Latin America Geography
Description
vocabulary
Updated