Defining Culture

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Defining Culture

• Culture is the total knowledge, attitudes, and
  behaviors shared by and passed on by the members
  of a specific group.

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Divisions of Academic Geography

• Physical Geography Human or
  Cultural Geography
• Rocks and Minerals
  Population
• Landforms
  Settlements
• Soils
  Economic Activities
• Animals
  Transportation
• Plants
  Recreational Activities
• Water
  Religion
• Atmosphere
  Political Systems
• Rivers and Other Water Bodies
  Social Traditions
• Environment
  Human Migration
• Climate and Weather
  Agricultural Systems
• Oceans
  Urban Systems

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8 Factors that make up Culture

• Food and shelter
• Religion
• Relationships to family and others
• Language

• Education
• Security/
• protection
• Political and social organization
• Creative expression

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Food and Shelter

• The kinds of foods your family mainly eats
• The type of housing you live in

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Religion

• The type of religion that you and your family
  practice

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Relationship to family and others

• How you and your family interact
• Who you live with, what types of things you do
  together, etc

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Language

• The language that your family speaks
• There may be more than one

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Education

• How important you think school is
• How long you plan to go to school
• How many people are educated in your family

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Security/Protection

• The laws of your family
• The laws of your community
• How people keep safe and treat each other

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Political and Social Organization

• How is the government set up
• Are there political parties
• Do you belong to a political party

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Creative expression

• How you express your self creatively
• Art
• Music
• Theatre
• Writing
• Much much more

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Society and the Individual

• A group that shares a common language, a sense of
  identity, and its culture is called a society.

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• An ethnic group has an identity as a separate
  group of people within the region where they
  live.

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What kinds of cultural values are reflected in
each of these American houses?
Gated community?
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Culture Change and Exchange

• Cultures and societies are always in the process
  of changing. Taking existing elements of society
  and creating something new to meet a need is
  called innovation.

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Key Concepts

• Diffusion - the processes by which a feature,
  idea, or peoples spread to new places.
• Migration - the movement of people on the planet.
• Globalization the increasingly interconnected
  nature of worldwide trade and exchange.

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Diffusion

• Relocation
• Contagious

Ideas, goods, and people move and diffuse across
the earth. When people are involved we call this
MIGRATION.
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Globalization

• The increasing interconnectedness of different
  parts of the world through common processes of
  economic, political, and cultural change.

Panama, 1997
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• Exposure to an innovation does not guarantee that
  a society will accept that innovation.
• Acculturation occurs when individuals in a
  society accept or adopt an innovation.

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The Geography of Language
Die Geographie der Sprache

• La Geografía del Idioma

La Géographie de Langue
La Geografia di Lingua
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• Language is one of the most important aspects of
  culture because it allows the people within a
  culture to communicate.
• Organized system of spoken words by which people
  communicate with one another with mutual
  comprehension (Getis, 1985).
• Languages subtly gradate one to another.
  Dialects and other regional differences may
  eventually lead to incomprehensibility - a new
  language.
• Migration and Isolation explain how a single
  language can later become two or more.

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Language as Element of Cultural Diversity

• 6000 Languages spoken today, not including
  dialects
• 1500 Spoken in Sub-Saharan Africa alone
• 400 in New Guinea alone
• 100 in Europe
• However, this diversity is diminishing
• 2000 Threatened or Endangered Languages

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Endangered Languages

• As recently as 3,000 years ago, there were 10,000
  to 15,000 languages in the world.
• Now about 6000 left.
• Of those, 1/2 will be gone by the year 2100 and
  all but 500 of the rest will be endangered.
• More than 90 percent of the languages in
  existence today will be extinct or threatened in
  little more than a century if current trends
  continue.

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Language and the Environment
Mt Cook, New Zealand
TOPONYM - a place name. These are language on
the land, reflecting past inhabitants and their
relation to the land.
Cook Islands, Polynesia
Devils Tower, WY
Badwater, Death Valley
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Indo-European Language Family

• Main Branches
• Germanic - Dutch, German
• Romance - Spanish, French
• Baltic-Slavic - Russian
• Indo-Iranian - Hindu, Bengali

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Indo-European Language Family - Germanic Branch

• West Germanic
• English (514 million)
• German (128)
• Dutch (21)
• East Germanic
• Danish (5)
• Norwegian (5)
• Swedish (9)

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Indo-European Language Family - Romance Branch

• Like English these languages have been spread by
  Colonialism.
• Spanish (425 million)
• Portuguese (194) - most in Brazil

• French (129)
• Italian (62)
• Romanian (26)

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Sino-Tibetan Language Family (20)

• Branches
• Sinitic - Mandarin (1075),Cantonese (71),
• Austro-Thai (77) - Thai, Hmong
• Tibeto-Burman - Burmese (32)

Chinese languages based on 420 one syllable words
with meaning infered from context and tone.
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Afro-Asiatic Language Family

• Main Branch
• Semitic
• Arabic(256)
• Language of the Koran spread by Islamic Faith
  and Islamic (Ottoman) Empires
• Hebrew (5)
• Language of the old Testament (with Aramaic)
  completely revived from extinction in Israel,
  1948.

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• Key Points
• Language is a fundamental element of cultural
  identity.
• Languages diverge via migration and isolation.
• Small languages are disappearing as a result of
  globalization.
• Languages that share a common ancestor belong to
  the same family.
• Language diversity is a source of political
  conflict in the world.

McDonalds, Israel
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The Geography of Religion
The Great Mosque, Mali

• Origins and Distributions of the Major Religions
• Key Terms
• Religious Ecology
• Secularism, Fundamentalism, and Conflict

The Wailing Wall, Jerusalem
Hindu Statue (Ganesh)
Buddhist Monks
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• Religion is an aspect of culture that has a great
  deal of influence on peoples lives.
• Traditionally, religions have been categorized as
  one of three types
• monotheistic, with a belief in one god
  polytheistic, with a belief in many gods and
  animistic, often with a belief in divine forces
  in nature.

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The Roots of Religion

• Animism (Shamanism) - the belief that all
  objects, animals, and beings are animated or
  possess a spirit and a conscious life. Also
  called shamanism because of the prominence of a
• Such beliefs are common among hunter-gatherers.
• 10 of Africans follow such traditional ethnic
  religions.
• These beliefs are losing ground to Christianity
  and Islam throughout Africa.

Nigerian Shaman

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• The five major religions of the world are
  Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and
  Buddhism.

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• The oldest monotheistic religion is Judaism.
• It is concentrated in Israel.
• Followers are called Jews.
• Holy book - Torah
• Religious center - Jerusalem

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• The largest of all religions with two billion
  followers is Christianity.
• Evolved from Judaism.
• Based on the teachings of Jesus Christ
• Christians live on every continent
• Holy book - Bible

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Christianity in the U.S.
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• The worlds oldest religion, Hinduism, dates back
  about 5,000 years.

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Hinduism

• 900 million adherents primarily in India
• Ganges River is considered a sacred river.
• Polytheistic religion
• Reincarnation - endless cycles. Karma and Yoga.
• Divine spirit - Brahman
• Vishnu and Shiva most common of hundreds of
  deities.

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Hinduism

Lord Vishnu
Ganesh
Dancing Shiva/Nataraj
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Islam

• 1 billion adherents
• Originated in Saudi Arabia (Mecca and Medina)
  around AD 622.
• Lunar calendar makes Ramadan move through the
  seasons (30 year cycle - 19 years with 354 days
  and 11 with 355).
• Sunni (83) - throughout the Muslim world.
• Shiite - Iran (40), Pakistan (15), Iraq (10)

• Five Pillars of Islam
• There is one God and Muhammad is his
  messenger.
• Prayer five times daily, facing Mecca.
• The giving of alms (charity) to the poor.
• Fasting during Ramadan for purification and
  submission.
• If body and income allow, a Muslim must make a
  pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca during their lifetime.

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Islam
Prophet Muhammad
Holy Text Koran

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Buddhism

• 300 million adherents primarily in China and
  S.E. Asia
• Originated near modern Nepal around 560 BC by
  Prince Siddhartha Guatama (Buddha or Enlightened
  One).
• Indian traders brought it to China in 1st century
  AD.
• By 6th century it had lost its hold on India,
  but was now in Korea and Japan.

Four Noble Truths 1. All living beings must
endure suffering.2. Suffering, which is caused
by desires (for life), leads to reincarnation.3.
The goal of existence is an escape from suffering
and the endless cycle of reincarnation by means
of Nirvana.4. Nirvana is achieved by the
Eightfold Path, which includes rightness of
understanding, mindfulness, speech, action,
livelihood, effort, thought, and concentration.
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Buddhism
Theravada literally is, "the Way of the Elders")
is the oldest surviving Buddhist schoolin which
followers renounce all worldly goods and
desires. Mahayana focuses on Buddhas teachings
and compassion. Karma - your past bad or good
actions determine your progress toward Nirvana
through reincarnation. You are your own God.

• Buddhism is an offshoot of Hinduism

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Key Terms
Secularization - a process that is leading to
increasingly large groups of people who claim no
allegiance to any church. Some of these people
are atheists. Others simply do not practice.
Still others call themselves spiritual, but not
religious. Common in Europe and the cities of
the U.S. as well in the former Soviet Union and
China.
Fundamentalism - a process that is leading to
increasingly large groups of people who claim
there is only one way to interpret
worship. Fundamentalists generally envision a
return to a more perfect religion and ethics they
imagine existed in the past. Common in the U.S.
and in some Islamic nations as well as the former
Soviet Union and China.