CULTURAL CHANGE and GLOBALIZATION

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CULTURAL CHANGE and GLOBALIZATION
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• Cultures are always changing. Because cultures
  consist of learned patterns of behavior and
  belief, cultural traits can be unlearned and
  learned anew as human needs change.

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• Discovery and invention have been primary sources
  of culture change. Yet only when a society
  accepts an invention or discovery and uses it
  regularly can culture change be said to have
  occurred.

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• Some inventions are probably the result of dozens
  of tiny, perhaps accidental, initiatives over a
  period of many years.

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• Other inventions are consciously intended. Yet
  why some people are more innovative than others
  is not really understood. A margin for risk? Or
  nothing else to lose?

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• Diffusion is the process by which cultural
  elements are borrowed from another society and
  incorporated into the culture of the recipient
  group.

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• There are three basic patterns of diffusion.

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• diffusion by direct contact in which elements of
  a culture are first taken up by neighboring
  societies and then gradually spread farther and
  farther afield

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• diffusion by intermediate contact, in which third
  parties , frequently traders, carry a cultural
  trait from the originating society to another
  group

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• stimulus diffusion in which knowledge of a trait
  belonging to another culture stimulates the
  invention or development of a local equivalent

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• Diffusion is a selective not automatic process. A
  society accepting a foreign cultural trait is
  likely to adapt it in a way that effectively
  harmonizes it with the societys own traditions.

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• When a group or a society is in contact with a
  more powerful society, the weaker group is often
  obligated to acquire cultural elements from the
  dominant group.

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• Acculturation is a process of extensive borrowing
  in the context of superordinatesubordinate
  relations between societies.

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• Acculturation in contrast to diffusion comes
  about as a result of some sort of external
  pressure.

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• Revolution is the most dramatic and perhaps rapid
  way a culture can change.

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• Usually revolutions indicate a violent
  replacement of a societys rulers.

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• Rebellions occur customarily in state societies
  where there is a ruling elite.

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• Not all peoples who are suppressed, conquered or
  colonized eventually rebel or successfully revolt
  against established authority.

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• Many cultural changes in the modern world have
  been generated, directly or indirectly, by the
  dominance and expansion of Western societies.

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• Commercial exchange is a fundamental change for
  many cultures that have had other modes of
  exchange or kinds of economies.

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• Some examples
• 1. increased migration for economic necessity or
  better opportunties
• 2. self-sufficient economies change to trade or
  cash cropping

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• The growing influence of Western societies has
  also led to religious change in many parts of the
  world.

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• In many societies such change has been brought
  about intentionally through the efforts of
  missionaries.

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• Ethnogenesis is the process by which new cultures
  are created.

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• Globalization is the spread of cultural features
  around the world.

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• Globalization is minimizing cultural diversity
  but not eliminating it.