IAS Mains Geography Optional Paper 1 Section B 2018 (Part -2)
Q. 7 a “Famine is a social phenomena rooted in institutional and political economic arrangements, which determine access to food by different classes and strata.” Comment. - Food Security, Nutrition and Famine:
Food Security, Nutrition and Famine:
Difference between famine and drought
Shortage of water versus shortage of food and nutritional security
- Hoarding of food
- Economic conflicts
- Political unrest
- Movement of food due to natural hazards
- Reduced purchasing power
- Lack of aid
- Reduced workforce
Irish Potato famine - potato disease
Russian famine - agricultural production during WW-I
China Famine due to Great Leap Forward movement
Ethiopia famine due to poor governance
Dutch winter famine of 1944 caused severe shortage of food
Q. 7 b Provide a brief outline of ideas related to “sense of place” as propounded by Yi-Fu Tuan and Relph in the humanistic geography that emerged in the 1970՚s.
Humanistic - Buttimer, Relph and Tuan
Phenomenology - Relph and Tuan
There is no objective world independent of man՚s existence
All knowledge comes from experience
Topophilia - emotional connections to place
Nature of knowledge
Role of territory
Influence of religion
Tuan
- To know world is to know oneself
- Geography is mirror of man
Relph
Places and placelessness
Q. 7 c Elaborate upon the influence of Marxist philosophy on geographical research, outlining key themes addressed by Marxist geographers since the 1970՚s.
- Marxist Geography
- Reproduction of social formations
- Against capitalism
- Spatial organization of socio-environmental relations
- Superstructure - understand economic processes by theory of religion
Q. 8 a “Welfare geography emphasizes spatial inequality and territorial justice.” Comment with reference to the main ideas and scope of the subfield
- Came with rise in radical geography
- Welfare approach emerged as the response to quantitative revolution, spatial science, positivism, and model-building
- Identify and explain the existence of crime, hunger, poverty, environmental degradation, malnutrition, deprivation, and other forms of discrimination and disadvantage
- Understanding how the whole social, economic and political system functions, and teasing out universal tendencies
- Details of particular social, economic and political systems; for example, how housing policy under capitalism advantages some people in some places and disadvantages other people in other places
Q. 8 b Discuss critically the manner in which quantitative revolution provided the methodological foundation for models and modelling in geography
- Ackerman
- Weaver
- Christaller
- Harvey
- Ullman - urban structure
Allowed projections
Identify trends
Come up with estimate of error
Formulate structured ideas
Reduced observations to factors
Q. 8 c Discuss in brief the main thesis in “Limits to growth” 1972 and also provided a critique of the same.
Relation between earth and human systems
Written by Meadows
Commissioned by Club of Rome
- World population
- Industrialization
- Pollution
- Food production
- Resource depletion
Predictions were weak
Failed to recognize to flexibility and adoptability
Assumed that new source would not be found (incorrect)
Insufficient evidence of variables
✍Examrace Team at Aug 24, 2021