Chapters 4, 5, Vocab Terms Globalization and Diversity

A popular but controversial strategy to redistribute land to peasant farmers. Throughout the 20th century, various states redistributed land from large estates or granted title from vast public lands in order to reallocate resources to the poor and stimulate development.

Latin America

The largest intermontane plateau in the Andes, which straddles Peru and Bolivia and ranges in elevation from 10,000 to 13,000 feet (3000 to 4000 meters).

Latin America

The relationship between elevation, temperature, and changes in vegetation that result from the environmental lapse rate

Latin America

A Brazilian conditional cash transfer program created to reduce extreme poverty. Families who qualify receive a monthly check from the government as long as they keep their children in school and take them for regular health checkups.

Latin America

A trade agreement between the United States and Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic to reduce tariffs and increase trade between member countries.

Latin America

An exchange of people, diseases, plants, and animals between the Americas (New World) and Europe/Africa (Old World), initiated by the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492.

Latin America

The removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a non-forest use.

Latin America

An economic strategy in which a country adopts the U.S. dollar as its official currency.

Latin America

A form of tourism oriented to natural environments with the aim of conservation, education, and low environmental impact; it tends to be smaller in scale than mass tourism.

Latin America

An abnormally large warm current that appears off the coast of Ecuador and Peru in December.

Latin America

The decline in temperature as one ascends higher in the atmosphere.

Latin America

The conversion of tropical forest into pasture for cattle ranching. Typically, this process involves introducing species of grasses and cattle, mostly from Africa.

Latin America

A much-debated concept that presupposes a dual economic system consisting of formal and informal sectors.

Latin America

A large estate or landholding in Latin America.

Latin America

Assembly plants on the Mexican border built by foreign capital. Most of their products are exported to the United States.

Latin America

The Southern Common Market, established in 1991, which calls for free trade among member states and common external tariffs for nonmember states.

Latin America

A person of mixed European and aboriginal ancestry.

Latin America

A small landholding farmed by peasants or tenants who produce food for subsistence and the market.

Latin America

Economic and political strategies by which powerful states indirectly (and sometimes directly) extend their influence over other, weaker states.

Latin America

Economic policies widely adopted in the 1990s that stress privatization, export production, and few restrictions on imports.

Latin America

Tropical ecosystems of the Americas that evolved in relative isolation and support diverse and unique flora and fauna.

Latin America

Founded in 1948 and headquartered in Washington, DC, an organization that advocates hemispheric cooperation and dialogue.

Latin America

A business practice that transfers portions of a company’s production and service activities to lower-cost settings, often located overseas.

Latin America

A trade-oriented agreement formed in 2011 which includes Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Chile; Costa Rica and Panama are in the process of joining the alliance.

Latin America

The largest urban settlement in a country that dominates all other urban places, economically and politically.

Latin America

Monies sent by immigrants working abroad to family members and communities in their countries of origin.

Latin America

A large upland area of very old exposed rocks.

Latin America

Makeshift housing on land not legally owned or rented by urban migrants, usually in unoccupied open spaces within or on the outskirts of a rapidly growing city.

Latin America

An organizing principle for meeting human development goals while at the same time sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the resources and ecosystem services (clean air or water) upon which the economy and society depend.

Latin America

Religions that feature a blending of different belief systems. In Latin America, for example, many animist practices were folded into Christian worship.

Latin America

A treaty signed in 1494 between Spain and Portugal that drew a north–south line some 300 leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde islands. Spain received the land to the west of the line and Portugal the land to the east.

Latin America

A supranational organization that seeks to integrate trade and population movements within South America. Created in 2008, it is modeled after the European Union.

Latin America

A state in which a disproportionately large city (for example, London, New York or Bangkok) dominates the urban system and is the center of economic, political, and cultural life.

Latin America

Migration of the best-educated people from developing countries to developed nations where economic opportunities are greater.

The Caribbean

The potential of return migrants to contribute to the social and economic development of a home country with the experiences they have gained abroad.

The Caribbean

The gap between the gross receipts an industry (such as tourism) brings into a developing area and the amount of capital retained.

The Caribbean

A regional trade organization established in 1972 that includes former English colonies in the Caribbean Basin as its members.

The Caribbean

A pattern of migration in which people in a sending area become linked to a particular destination, such as Dominicans with New York City.

The Caribbean

Temporary labor migration, in which an individual seeks short-term employment overseas, earns money, and then returns home.

The Caribbean

The blending of African, European, and some Amerindian cultural elements into the unique sociocultural systems found in the Caribbean.

The Caribbean

The scattering of a particular group of people over a vast geographic area.

The Caribbean

A duty-free and tax-exempt industrial park created to attract foreign corporations and create industrial jobs.

The Caribbean

Heat energy produced in Earth’s hot interior that can be utilized for generating heat and electricity.

The Caribbean

The four large Caribbean islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico.

The Caribbean

A tropical storm system with an abnormally low-pressure center, sustaining winds of 75 miles per hour (121 km/hour) or higher.

The Caribbean

Foreign workers (generally South Asians) contracted to labor on Caribbean agricultural estates for a set period of time, often several years.

The Caribbean

The arc of small Caribbean islands from St. Maarten to Trinidad.

The Caribbean

Runaway slaves who established communities rich in African traditions throughout the Caribbean and Brazil.

The Caribbean

Agriculture based on a single crop.

The Caribbean

A proclamation issued by U.S. President James Monroe in 1823 that the United States would not tolerate ­European military action in the Western Hemisphere.

The Caribbean

Economic and political strategies by which powerful states indirectly (and sometimes directly) extend their influence over other, weaker states.

The Caribbean

Financial services offered by islands or microstates that are typically confidential and tax exempt.

The Caribbean

A cultural region that extends from midway up the coast of Brazil, through the Guianas and the Caribbean, and into the southeastern United States.

The Caribbean

Monies sent by immigrants working abroad to family members and communities in their countries of origin.

The Caribbean

The mainland coastal zone of the Caribbean, beginning with Belize and extending along the coast of Central America to northern South America.

The Caribbean

Complex social and economic linkages that form between home and host countries through international migration.

The Caribbean