This video documents what it want like in the Syrian cities of Homs after brutal governmental crackdowns during the summer of 2012. Warning: this is a real portrayal of war. For more context on the video, see: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2012/06/scooters-eye-view-wartorn-homs/2356/
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Global news with a spatial perspective: Interesting, current supplemental materials for geography students and teachers. http://geographyeducation.org
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I can´t stop smiling from a photo I stumbled upon on the facebook page of Nomaden (a Norwegian travel store) – I just love it! I tried to find the source of the photo, but no luck. I found it sprea...
Seth Dixon's insight:
I think this is my new litmus test for potential friends. If this picture from Mongolia doesn't bring a smile to your face, I just don't think that we can be friends. If anyone can find the original source (or a hi-res version), I'd love to hear about it. 
chris tobin's comment,
February 21, 1:33 PM
Great happy photo. This is a possible National Geographgic photo
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Should we look to traditional societies to help us tweak our lives? Wade Davis takes issue with the whole idea
Seth Dixon's insight:
Jared Diamond is famous for his work in writing Guns, Germs and Steel as well as Collapse. His latest work, The World Until Yesterday, he encourages modern readers to examine the traditional societies for insights on how to improve the human condition. In this book review by Wade Davis, he critiques this approach and suggests that we should see indigenous societies as reminders that our modern lifestyle is not the only way. Tags: book reviews, folk cultures, indigenous. Delete the scoop?
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Through his Vanishing Cultures Project photographer Taylor Weidman documents threatened ways of life. About his work in Mongolia, he states: "Mongolian pastoral herders make up one of the world's largest remaining nomadic cultures. For millennia they have lived on the steppes, grazing their livestock on the lush grasslands. But today, their traditional way of life is at risk on multiple fronts. Alongside a rapidly changing economic landscape, climate change and desertification are also threatening nomadic life, killing both herds and grazing land."
Seth Dixon's insight:
In times of ecological hardships and global economic restructuring, many children of nomadic herders are seeking employment out of the rural areas and in the urban environment. The cultural change that this represents is for Mongolia enormous and is captured wonderfully in this photo gallery. Pictured above are the ger (yurt) camps that ring the capital city Ulaanbaatar. Ulaanbaatar houses a permanent population of displaced nomads. During the winter, Ulaanbaatar is the second most air-polluted capital in the world due largely to coal burning. Tags: Mongolia, images, indigenous, culture, globalization. 
Adrian Bahan (MNPS)'s curator insight,
March 12, 6:44 PM
What factors are threatening pastoral herders way of life? Why? Delete the scoop?
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This classic Geography in the News by Neal Lineback has been re-released on his Lineback World View site. This is an excellent lesson for K-12 educators to prepare their students to understand the historic and geographic context of Thanksgiving. Delete the scoop?
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In North East India just north of Bangladesh is the province of Meghalaya. This is an astounding video that shows a (literally) natural way that local people have adapted to an incredibly flood-prone environment. The organic building materials prevent erosion and keep people in contact during times of flood. The living bridges are truly a sight to behold. Tags: environment, environment adapt, SouthAsia, water, weather climate, indigenous. Delete the scoop?
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Esri Press book provides insight for GIS implementation from indigenous sovereign nations.
"The book offers insight into how tribal governments and supporting organizations are employing GIS, from day-to-day operations to special projects for tribal leadership. Tribal GIS also highlights how GIS is being used to embrace a new movement in tribal governance toward improving citizen services, decision support for community leadership, sustained economic development, and the protection of tribal assets." 
Kim Vignale's comment,
July 10, 2012 9:53 PM
GIS is a great program that integrates physical and social geography. Native Americans are becoming technologically advanced by using this modern program. This program is very helpful in mapping out land that is owned by the tribe and the sustainability of resources. For example, land that is strictly used for agriculture can be mapped out and boundaries can be created with land that is being used commercially. GIS is a great program that can help many officials create plans locally, regionally, and internationally.
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The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) is not affiliated with the United Nations (UN). The UNPO seeks to represent nations (as opposed to states) that are not fully autonomous are without a vote in the UN. This group supports all ethnic groups in their pursuit for political self-determination, economic empowerment and environmental resource control. This is an excellent source for case studies in devolution, ethnic conflicts, indigenous peoples and many issues from both cultural and political geography. Delete the scoop?
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"While Germans tend to talk about privacy and how the internet takes away our freedom, chief Almir of the Surui tribe in Brazil came up with an idea when he first came in contact with Google Earth. He saw it as a great tool to visualize the devastation of the rainforest. With the help of Google providing the knowledge and equipment he started the project and provided an unfiltered perspective never seen before. This is a growing project on a growing problem that should matter to all of us. It’s never a service or product itself that matters; it’s what you do with it. Check the video and see for yourself." Globalization inherently brings serendipitous juxtapositions. In this clip we see the merger of geospatial technologies to protect indigenous cultures and their cultural ecology. 
's comment, September 18, 2012 10:06 AM
Whenever I think of tribes I often picture a culture of people that is not modernized and practice sacred tradition. Here, we have a tribe that is not only aware of Google Earth, but is using it to help save the environment. Located in Brazil, the Surui tribe knows first hand how valuable the rainforest can be to any society. Chief Almir has probably seen hundreds of acres of rainforest destroyed in his lifetime. Their tribe most likely feed off the land and therefore is even more dependent on the rainforest's and all they have to offer. I found the contradicting statement from the Germans very interesting because it shows the many different opinions of google earth. For example in the Germans case they are worried about people spying on them, taking away freedom, etc. As for Chief Almir and the Surui tribe, they just want to protect the environment.
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A Historian’s Take on Food and Food Politics...
This brief article highlights that as much as technology has changed food production, there this is much more that has remained the same. Of the thousands of plants on Earth, 11 account for most of what we eat (corn, rice, wheat, cassava, potatoes, sorghum, millet, beans, barley rye and oats) . Not surprisingly, those 11 plants are the same that have been cultivated by humans for thousands of years--makes you think that early humans, while not technologically advanced, were constantly conducting agricultural experiments and found many of the best animal and plant resources for human consumption. This is one reason losing local indigenous knowledge about cultural ecology and the species' genetic diversity would be a great loss for humanity. Delete the scoop?
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New York has long been a city of immigrants, but linguists now consider it a laboratory for studying and preserving languages in rapid decline elsewhere in the world.
This is an excellent video for showing the diffusion of languages in the era of migration to major urban centers. It also shows the factors that lead to the decline of indigenous languages that are on the fringe of the global economy and the importance of language to cultural traditions. Here is the article related to the video available. 
Sam Capron's curator insight,
February 6, 10:35 PM
This video was a very powerful reminder that culture and traditions are important no matter the size and influence of them. Finding a man who is thought to be the last in the United States to speak a language is something that I had never even considered previously. Delete the scoop?
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For years, researchers have puzzled over why Viking descendents abandoned Greenland in the late 15th century.
Seth Dixon's insight:
As the climate began to cool the diet of the Greenland settlers changed dramatically. Originally their diets consisted of about 20-30% seafood, but as farming became nearly impossible on this increasingly marginal land, it jumped up to about 80%. The economic livelihood of the settlements was in danger and the solution lay in a cultural transition, but one that they didn't want to make. "They saw themselves as farmers and ranchers rather than fishermen and hunters...[and were] worried about the increasing loss of their Scandinavian identity." In essence they abandoned Greenland in part because they chose not abandon their Viking heritage to embrace a culture that would have be more like that of the Inuits. Cultural factors may have mattered more than economic limitations.
Tags: Greenland, folk culture, historical. 
James Good's comment,
April 19, 6:33 PM
It would make sense that the Vikings abandoned Greenland because they felt isolated from their mother country. There must have been a strong Scandanavian folk culture that the people of Greenland valued enough to make such a drastic movement. It is very likely that the people of Greenland cherished their home land and its culture. This culture was probably more exciting to them then the dismal life in the far north.
Once the demand for walrus tusks and seal skins decreased, there was really no need for the Vikings to stay in Greenland anyways. If they did not want to become farmers and take advantage of the potential farming land that Greenland had to offer, then there would be no benefit to staying there anyway. 
Conor McCloskey's comment,
April 30, 10:25 AM
Humans have been exploring our planet for thousands of years. Settlements are established, and deemed successful or unsuccessful. The successful ones are still around today, however the unsuccessful one’s usually fall to the wayside and are forgotten. Many things can make a colony of human exploration unsuccessful, much like Viking colonies in Greenland. These colonies were abandoned and archeologists have search for the reasons why. Questions of the fertility of the land and available animals to hunt have been reasons that archeologists use to explain the colonial abandonment.
The push and pull factors of ancient Viking life are apparent through their migratory patterns. There are many possible reasons for the Vikings to have left this colony though archeologists are struggling to find just one. Food source seems to be a major reason why other colonies were abandoned, though seal meat does not seem to be at a shortage in this area. Ancient reason of migrating is similar to modern ones, however they are also very different. Globalization has changed the way humans live, the interconnectedness of the world has made living in places that could support life in ancient times possible. 
Zakary Pereira's comment,
April 30, 5:11 PM
Of course they left, who would want to be basically stranded on Greenland away from any other civilization? Not me for sure. Plus, the lack of supplied they were receiving and tools it would have been near impossible to live and thrive in Greenland. They were also losing their identity; they were thinking of themselves more as farmers and ranchers rather than fishermen and hunters, their original identity as Scandinavians. Nonetheless it was imperative that they leave and head home because the colony in Greenland surely would have run dry and died out. If not for the overkilling of seals for food or the bone-chilling winters, I might theorize that they might stay in Greenland however that is not how history unfolded and it doesn’t surprise me that they left. Like James said, once their trade had virtually ceased, the outpost in Greenland was useless because they could be just living back home where you weren’t in extreme weather conditions and living off of seal meat.
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Aboriginal leaders threaten to ban tourists from a top Australian landmark in protest at "racist" government policies.
Seth Dixon's insight:
This is an old article, but a fascinating topic that cuts across many geographic issues. Uluru, the landform that that European explorers named Ayers Rock, was the key place that is at the center of a struggle between indigenous people and the government. Many feel that the government's course of action in the mid 2000's was paternalistic and racist. They banned alcohol and pornography in over 70 indigenous communities in an attempt to lower the rates of child sex abuse. Sex Abuse is high (and often hidden) in aboriginal communities where a child is 7 times more likely to be abused than in the rest of the Australian population. Questions to Ponder: Would the government impose such measures on other populations within Australia? When crimes have a racial component, does a government have the right to limit a particular groups' actions? Why or why not?
Tags: Australia, indigenous, ethnicity, race, Oceania. Delete the scoop?
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Live presentations have been a part of National Geographic since the 1800s, and today more than 140 are viewable online. See this year's best.
Seth Dixon's insight:
These talks are always quality presentations and this set of 10 videos is a part of the Explorers Journal sponsored by the National Geographic Society. 
Eliana Oliveira Burian's curator insight,
December 28, 2012 6:27 AM
Top 10 National Geographic Talks!!!! Delete the scoop?
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Papua New Guinea, once home to cannibals, still has an exotic aura. The local tourist economy caters to those notions, and visitors may see a hybrid of the traditional and the modern. This story is an intriguing blend--we see traditional cultures engaging in the global economy. They have created two villages: a traditional one designed for tourism filled with emblems of their folk cultures, and another one where people work, live eat and play with various markers of outside cultural and technological influence. "Tourists are taking pictures. They don't want to take pictures of those who are in Western clothes. People who are in Western clothes are not allowed to get close to people who are dressed up in the local dressings." Questions to Ponder: Which village do you see as the more "authentic" one? How can culture also be a commodity? Tags: folk culture, tourism, indigenous, culture, economic, rural, historical, unit 3 culture, Oceania. Delete the scoop?
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The Endangered Languages Project is a website for people to find and share the most up-to-date and comprehensive information about the over 3,000 endangered ...
This short video is a great primer for understanding the importance of linguistic diversity. Why the loss of linguistic diversity (a global phenomenon) related to other themes on geography, such as political and economic autonomy for minority groups? Why are so many languages vanishing today? What forces are creating these emerging cultural patterns? For more on the project, see: http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/ 
Rj Ocampo's comment,
August 26, 2012 6:45 PM
I believe the endangered languages project is very important because when we lose languages, we lose cultures, and each culture has something great to offer in this world.
Matt Nardone's comment,
September 2, 2012 3:52 PM
I learned a lot from this video/article. I can not believe out of 7000 languages today only about half will survive by the new century. I never thought of language loss as a result of injustice and oppression of a culture. I think that it is very interesting that to save a language means to restore a cultures ideals, ideology, and norms. I think that it is pretty cool Google is trying to help perserve some of the languages that may be fading. It is neat to think that one of the largest social media/communication companies has a great interest not in a universal language BUT a great interest in maintaining differences and uniquenesses about languages.
Adrian Francisco's comment,
September 3, 2012 11:04 AM
I like this project and how it preserves languages that are about to die. It's not good when a language dies because there might be some information written in the language and in the future when we look at books we would not know what it is saying.
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Isolation or inclusion - can India protect an ancient Andaman tribe on the verge of extinction?
"An ancient indigenous tribe is on the verge of extinction in India's Andaman Islands. Habitat loss, disease and exploitation could wipe out the 400-strong Jarawa tribe, who still hunt using bows and arrows.
Lapses in policing and continued activity by tour operators, who encourage 'human safaris' where Jarawa women and children have in the past performed for tourists, are partly to blame for jeopardising the tribe's existence. Many activists want to close the main road into the tribal reserve to protect the tribe from further interaction with the outside world, but it is a lifeline providing food and work for the island's 600,000 inhabitants.
To include or isolate?" Delete the scoop?
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In the lush rainforests of Africa's Congo Basin, hundreds of thousands of indigenous people live as hunter gatherers, depending on the forest's natural resources for their survival.
The "Mapping for Rights" program trains people in the Congo to map the land they live on using GPS and other geospatial technologies. This can assist the to produce documents to politically protect their land from encroachment and preserve their access to the forest. Globalization can blur many of the modern/traditional narratives as the world becomes interconnected in complex ways. Delete the scoop?
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The ancient Basque culture has survived against the odds.
The Basques are an intriguing cultural group to study in part because of their linguistic distinctness is Europe (Basque is a non-Indo-European language) but also because they strive for greater political autonomy within Spain. This video could be used when teach about folk cultures, language, devolution, heritage as well as within a regional context. 
's comment, February 2, 2012 5:15 PM
The CNT remains one of the organized labor organizations in Spain which adheres to the autonomy of Basque as declared in the Second Spanish Republic and the Revolutionary Republic. Thank for posting this and helping revive this wonderful culture. If globalization has contracted space parallel to time, can we through our actions and struggle revive what time may have lost through our new form of connectedness?
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TED Talks With stunning photos and stories, National Geographic Explorer Wade Davis celebrates the extraordinary diversity of the world's indigenous cultures, which are disappearing from the planet at an alarming rate.
This is a fantastic look at indigneous cultures around the world. 
Dania Lopez's comment,
December 6, 2012 11:30 PM
This lesson was a great to express diversity and conservation of heritge. It is real important for every culture to preserve their language and their cultural because it represents what we are as individual. Many people want us to change to their way of life but we have to feel proud who we are as individual.
Jesse Gauthier's comment,
December 8, 2012 5:21 PM
The first thing that struck my attention in this video was when the speaker said that other cultures teach us about alternative ways to orient ourselves, as humans, on Earth. I never thought about cultures in that sense. When I would look at another culture that is much different from my own culture I just couldn’t comprehend their way of life. But, each culture is just using the Earth’s resources in many various ways, making us not so different in the end. It also makes it much easier to comprehend stranger cultures than our own.
Don Brown Jr's comment,
December 10, 2012 10:27 PM
This video brings to light a real dilemma concerning the “plight” of indigenous cultures in the modern world. The forces of globalization has been accelerated by improvements in communication and transportation technologies which have made interaction seem almost instantaneous compared to previous centuries. Yet, this globalized world is changing our notions of significance and attachment to place due to this relative ease of mobility. I have to acknowledge that this is something the indigenous cultures haven’t lost. As Davis clearly explains, the relative isolation that these societies adapted to is becoming increasingly difficulty to maintain, as the forces of global economic integration is binding the world closer to gather (whether people like it or not).
Also another issue that concerns me revolves around the unintended consequences of trying to preserve these cultures. It is possible that we may be accelerating their extinction as external pressure from us may cause these indigenous cultures to become specialized areas which eventually become subject to “exotic” tourism and research, inevitably changing the culture of what was intended to be preserved. Delete the scoop?
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