Unit 3 Culture

1
Unit 3 Culture

• Quick Refresher

2
Cultural Geography

• Transformation of the land
• Ways in which humans interact with the
  environment (HEI)
• Cultural landscape (Carl Sauer) the
  modification of the natural landscape by human
  activities
• Cultural ecology studies the relationship
  between the natural environment and culture

3
Theories Explaining HEI

• Environmental determinism physical environment
  actively shapes culture, so that human responses
  almost completely molded by the environment
• Possibilism recognize the importance of
  physical environment, BUT believe that cultural
  heritage is at least as important as physical
  one people are primary architects of culture
• Environmental perception importance of human
  perception on the environment, rather than actual
  character of the land culture shapes over views
  of hazards and disasters (ex. Floods from gods or
  natural disaster build alter or dam?)
• Cultural determinism human culture as
  ultimately more important than physical
  environment in shaping actions view human
  culture as the molder of the physical environment
  (ex. take back the earth encourages action to
  reverse global warming, pollution, destruction of
  forests, etc)
• Political ecology government of a region
  affects the environment in that region, which in
  turns affect the choices (ex. Zoning laws
  regulate possibilities for buildings in certain
  areas)

4
Folk and Popular Culture

• Folk is limited, smaller area, homogeneous
  groups, spread mostly through relocation
  diffusion slow to change
• Popular is mass culture that diffuse rapidly,
  within a heterogeneous group, spread though
  expansion diffusion quick to change
  threatening local or regional distinctiveness and
  causing cultural homogeneity, or cultural
  sameness
• (ex. Starbucks reducing the diversity of local
  coffee shops throughout the country)

5

• Cultural imperialism invasion of a culture into
  another culture with the intent of dominating the
  invaded culture politically, economically, and/or
  socially diffusion of popular culture can lead
  to cultural conflict as people protest the
  arrival of a type of popular culture into its
  region cultural nationalism is the resistance by
  a group against cultural imperialism and cultural
  convergence (ex. Nationalists attacking
  McDonalds as a symbol of American cultural
  imperialism)

6

• Maladaptive diffusion adoption of a diffusing
  trait that is impractical for a region or
  culture popular culture does not necessarily
  reflect its original environment (?) / point of
  invention (Ex. Wearing jeans in warm climates
  when jeans invented more as winter clothing or
  rise in use of cars on island nations where
  expensive and impractical)

7
Early Cultural Hearths

• Southwest Asia (Middle East / Fertile Crescent),
  North Africa, South Asia, and East Asia near
  great river systems
• Later in South/Central America and even later in
  West Africa

8
Cultural Hearths
9
Diffusion

• Carl Sauer / Torsten Hagerstrand
• 2 categories relocation and expansion
• Expansion divided into contagious, hierarchical,
  and stimulus time-distance decay the influence
  of cultural traits weakens as time and distance
  increase
• Relocation is caused from ideas being spread by
  movement to new location
• Migrant diffusion specific type of relocation
  diffusion when spread is slow enough that they
  weaken in the area of origin by the time they
  reach the other areas (ex. spread of smallpox
  in Native American population as immunities had
  been built up in Europe)

10
Concepts of Culture

• Material culture concrete human creations
  called artifacts
• Non-material culture abstract concepts of
  values, beliefs, and behaviors
• Values culturally defined standards that guide
  the way people determine guidelines for moral
  living
• Beliefs specific statements that people have
  based on values

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• Behaviors actions that people take based on
  values/beliefs
• Norms rules and expectations by which a society
  guides the behavior
• Mores serious expectations / backed up by laws
• Folkways - unofficial expectations etiquette
• Culture trait Culture complex Culture
  system Culture region
• (football all rules/gear for football game
  American athleticism American sporting
  events)

12
Cultural Diffusion

• Independent inventions developments that can be
  traced to a specific civilization (ex. democratic
  process independent invention of Ancient
  Greece)
• Acculturation the less dominant culture adopts
  some of the traits of the more influential one
  (taking on American sounding name) usually leads
  to some form of accommodation by dominant culture
  too (adding Spanish to some American signs)

13

• Transculturation a more equal exchange of
  cultural traits
• Ethnocentrism practice of judging another
  culture by the standards of ones own culture
  some makes you patriotic, but too much can lead
  to atrocities (holocaust)
• Cultural relativism practice of evaluating a
  culture by its own standards
• Syncretism process of fusion of old and new
  (diffused idea to new group adaptation
  reformulation)

14
Language

• Key to the world of culture
• Systematic way of communicating ideas and
  feelings through the use of signs, gestures,
  marks, or vocal sounds.
• Ensures cultural transmission, the process by
  which one generation passes culture to the next
• Linguistic geography study of speech areas and
  their local variations by mapping word choices,
  pronunciations, or grammatical constructions.

15
Language
ONLY 10 languages spoken by at least 100 million
people
16
Language Hearths
Most commonly spoken have diffused from their
origins through TRADE, CONQUESTS, AGRICULTURAL
migrations.
17
Language

• Bilingualism / Multilingualism
• Long term contact with less skilled people can
  result in pidgin language simplified version of
  the dominators language
• IF pidgin lang. becomes part of culture and is
  written down or becomes the main language, it is
  a creole language (mixture) (Ex. Haiti pidgin
  French Haitian Creole)