AP HUG Chapter 3 Vocab/Concepts

Culture

Culture

A set of belief systems, norms, and values practiced by a group of people

Material culture

Physical things that people make and often give value to

Ex: Sports jerseys, cars, homes

Non-material culture

The ideas of a culture often held dear to the group

Ex: Judaism’s belief in God

Folk culture

Local and homogeneous culture, rooted in tradition (Is often rural and static)

Ex: Mariachi band in Mexico

Pop(ular) culture

Interregional and often global culture that is heterogeneous (Often urban and changing)

Ex: Modern slang, style, and music

Shared practices

• Birth rituals

• Death rituals/burials

• Weddings

• Education

• Coming of age ceremonies/practices

Technologies

• Communication methods

• Transportation methods

• Life-automation methods

Attitudes and behaviors

• Gender roles

• Age roles

• System of government

• Religious roles

Types of cultural traits

• Language

• Clothing/fashion

• Art

• Food preferences

• Architecture

• Land use

Some types of cultural groups

• Ethnicity

• Gender

• Religion

• Nationality/country of origin

Cultural Relativism

Requires evaluating a cultural group by its own standards and is a celebration of diversity

Ethnocentrism

Evaluates one culture with the ideals and perspective of another culture (can lead to thoughts of violence and cultural superiority)

Cultural landscape

The combination of cultural, economic, and natural elements that make up a landscape

Ex: Skyscrapers in NYC

Elements of a cultural landscape

• Physical features

• Agricultural and industrial areas/practices

• Religious and linguistic characteristics

• Evidence of sequent occupancy

• Traditional and modern architecture

• Land use patterns

Possibly indicated features in a cultural landscape

• Role of women in the workforce

• Ethnic neighborhoods

• Indigenous communities and lands

• Gender roles and accepted areas(Ex: locker rooms)

Core

Domain

Sphere

Asssimilation

Complete change of culture enforced by a dominant culture

Acculturation

Change of culture by adding traits from a dominant culture

Acommodation

A change in a place/culture to work with new people

Ex: Billingual assistance

How is local culture maintained?

• Ethnic enclaves

• Community effort

Ethnic enclave

Areas created for people with a common culture and their culture is expressed (helps them feel at home)

Ex: Little Tokyo, Chinatown

Cultural appropriation

Adaptation of culture for benefit (usually for $)

Custom

Practice a group routinely follows

Commodification

The marketing of something not necessarily tangible turned into profit

Ex: “Pura Vida” t-shirts in Costa Rica

Reterritorialization

When an idea goes to a new place and is produced in a new fashion (type of stimulus diffusion)

Global-local continuum

Every scale impacts another

Glocalization

As much as global impacts local, local impacts global

Ex: Impact of destruction of the Capitol

Placelessness

The lack of a sense of place

Identity

How we define ourselves

Identifying against

Using a comparison against others to define ourselves

Gender

A social construct createing social differences between men and women

Race

Social grouping of people based on arbitrary difference (like skin color)

Residential segregation

Separation of groups by color and other characteristics by neighborhoods and housing

5 measures of segregation

• evenness

• Exposure

• Concentration

• Centralized

• Clustered

Invasion and succession

New immigrants move into old immigrant neighborhood

Ex: Irish, English, and Italians to poor America

Ethnicity

Common ancestry, culture, origin

Gendered spaces

Spaces in which only men or women are expected to enter

Queer theory

Spaces created for people of common sexuality

Gender inequality

Differences in the treatment of men and women (More developed typically means less gender inequality)

Barriorization

The change in ethnic group in an area over time

Gentrification

The buying of houses to drive up prices

Standard language vs. official language

Language taught in schools and used generally vs. language mandated and while others are not expected to be used

Dialects

Differences in vocabulary, syntax, and pronunciation but the same language

Isogloss

Geographic boundaries of differing dialects

Mutual intelligibility

Dialects vs. language debate

Language divergence vs. language convergence

When languages split or come together into a single language

Origin of (most) language

Proto-Indo-European language from Mesopotamia

Dispersal hypothesis

Language went east of Mesopotamia near India, north near the modern-day -stans, then came back around the Caspian Sea

Renfrow hypothesis

Languages diffused from the Fertile Crescent area

Europe language families

• Indo-European

  • Germanic

  • Slavic

  • Romance

• Uralic

  • Finland, Estonia, Hungary

• Altaic

  • Turkey and the -stans

• Basques

  • Euskera

Sub-Saharan Africa language families

Niger-Congo

• Khaisan(clicks)

• Bantu

• Nigeria: over 400 languages (English is official language)