Unit 3

Culture

Culture

All of a group's learned beliefs, behaviors, actions, and objects

Cultural trait

Visible and non visible elements of culture

Cultural complex

A series of interrelated cultural traits

Cultural hearths

The area in which a specific cultural trait develops

Diffuse

Spread to other places

Taboos

Behaviors heavily discouraged by a culture

Traditional culture

Used to encompass all three cultural designations and share the function of passing down long-held beliefs, values, and practices

Folk culture

The beliefs and practices of small, homogeneous groups of people, often living in rural areas that are relatively isolated and slow to change

Indigenous culture

When members of an ethnic group reside in their ancestral lands, and typically possess unique cultural traits, such as speaking their own exclusive language

Globalization

Increased integration of the world economy since the 1970's

Popular culture

When cultural traits such as clothing, music, movies, types of businesses, and the built landscape spread quickly over a large area and are adopted by various groups

Global culture

Elements that are quickly adopted worldwide

Cultural landscape

The modification of the environment by a group and is a visible reflection of that group's cultural beliefs and values

Artifacts

objects created by and used by humans that comprise the material culture

Material culture

Consists of the tangible things, or those that can be experienced by the senses

Mentifacts

Comprised of a group's non material culture

Nonmaterial culture

Consists of intangible concepts or those not having a physical presence.

Sociofacts

The ways people organize their society and relate to one another

Placelessness

The loss of uniqueness of place in the cultural landscape so that one place looks like the next

Built environment

The physical artifacts that humans have created and that form part of the landscape

Traditional architecture

Reflects a local culture's history, beliefs, values, and community adaptations to the environment and typically utilizes locally available materials

Postmodern architecture

A movement away from boxy, mostly concrete or brick structures toward high rise structures made from large amounts of steel and glass siding

Contemporary architecture

An extension of postmodern architecture; uses multiple advances to create buildings that rotate, curve, and stretch the limits of size and height

Ethnicity

Membership in a group of people who share characteristics such as ancestry, language, customs, history, and common experiences

Ethnic enclaves

Clusters of people of the same culture, but surrounded by people of a culture that is dominant in the region

Cultural regions

Regions determined by characteristics or clear features

Cultural realms

Larger areas that include several regions; Cultures within these realms have a few traits they all share, such as language families, religious traditions, food preferences, architecture, or a shared history

Sacred place

A specific place or natural feature that has religious signifigance

Diaspora

When one group of people are dispersed to various locations

Charter group

The first group to establish cultural and religious customs in a space

Ethnic islands

Formed by ethnic concentrations in rural areas and maintain a strong, long-lasting sense of unity due to their limited interaction with people outside of their group

Sequent occupancy

Ethnic groups moving in and out of neighborhoods and creating new cultural imprints on the landscape

Neolocalism

The process of re-embracing the uniqueness and authenticity of a place

Cultural patterns

Consists of related sets of cultural traits and complexes that create similar behaviors across space

Cultural hearth

Where a religion or ethnicity began

Nationality

Based on people's connection to a particular country

Centripetal forces

Those that unify a group of people or a region

Centrifugal forces

Those that divide a group of people or a region

Sharia

The legal framework of a country derived from Islamic edicts taken from their holy book

Blue laws

Laws that restrict certain activites

Fundamentalism

An attempt to follow a literal interpretation of a religious faith

Theocracies

Countries whose governments are run by religious leaders through the use of religious laws

Ethnocentrism

The belief one's own cultural group is more important and superior to other cultures

Cultural relativism

The concept that a person's or group's beliefs, values, norms, and practices should be understood from the perspective of the other group's culture

Cultural appropriation

The act of adopting traits, icons, or other elements of another culture

Diffusion

The spread of information, ideas, behaviors, and other aspects of culture from the hearth to wider areas

Relocation diffusion

The spread of culture and/or cultural traits by people who migrate and carry their cultural traits with them

Hierarchical diffusion

The spread of culture outward from the most interconnected places or from centers of wealth and importance

Reverse hierarchical diffusion

A trait diffuses from a lower class to a higher class

Stimulus diffusion

When an underlying idea from a culture hearth is adopted by another culture but the adopting group modifies or rejects one trait

Expansion diffusion

The spread of cultural traits outward through exchange without migration

Contagious diffusion

When a cultural trait spreads continuously outward from its hearth through contact among people

Imperialism

A broad concept that includes a variety of ways of influencing another country or group by direct economic control or cultural domiance

Colonialism

A particular type of imperialism in which people move into and settle on the land of another country

Animism

The belief that non-living objects such as rivers or mountains, possess spirits

Native speakers

Those who use the language they learned from birth

Lingua franca

A common language used by people who do not share the same native language

Slang

Words used informally by a segment of the population

Pidgin language

A simplified mixture of two languages that has fewer grammar rules and a smaller vocabulary, but is not the native language of either group

Creole languages

Two or more separate languages mix and develop a more formal structure and vocabulary to create a new combined language

Social constructs

Ideas, concepts, or perceptions that have been created and accepted by people in a society or social group and are not created by nature

Time-space convergence

The greater interconnection between places that results from improvements in transportation

Cultural convergence

Cultures are becoming similar to each other and sharing more cultural traits, ideas, and beliefs

Cultural divergence

The idea that a culture may change over time as the elements of distance, time, physical separation, and modern technology create divisions and changes

Linguists

Scientists who study languages

Language tree

A graph showing how several languages are related to eachother

Indo-European language family

A large group of languages that might all have descended from a language spoken around 6,000 years ago

Romance languages

The distinct regional languages derived from latin

Isogloss

boundaries between variations in pronunciations or word usage

Dialects

Regional variations of a language

Adages

Sayings that attempt to express a truth about life

Official languages

A language designated by law to be the language of government

Homogeneous

Made up largely of ethnically similar people

Adherents

Believers in their faith

Ethnic religions

Belief traditions that emphasize strong cultural characteristics

Universal religions

Actively seeks converts to its faith regardless of their ethnic backgrounds

Hinduism

An ethnic religion and philosophy developed in ancient India, characterized by a belief in reincarnation and a supreme being who takes many forms

Polytheistic

Having many gods

Monotheistic

Having one god

Karma

The idea that behaviors have consequences in the present life or a future life

Caste system

A rigid class structure

Buddhism

Religion inspired by Hinduism that emphasizes mediating, reflecting, and refraining from earthly desires

Sikhism

A relatively new monotheistic universalizing faith

Gurdwaras

A sikh's place of worhsip

Judaism

The monotheistic religion of the Jews having its spiritual and ethical principles embodied chiefly in the Torah and in the Talmud

Christianity

A monotheistic system of beliefs and practices based on the Old Testament and the teachings of Jesus as embodied in the New Testament and emphasizing the role of Jesus as savior.

Islam

A religion based on the teachings of the prophet Mohammed which stresses belief in one god (Allah), Paradise and Hell, and a body of law written in the Quran. Followers are called Muslims.

Pilgrimage

A religious journey taken by a person to a sacred place of his or her religion

Homogenization

Making people of different places more alike

Acculturation

An ethnic or immigrant group moving to a new area adapts the values and practices of the larger group while still maintaining valuable elements of their own culture

Assimilation

When an ethnic group can no longer be distinguished from the receiving group

Syncretism

The fusion or blending of two distinctive cultural traits into a unique new hybrid trait

Glocalization

A form of syncretism that involves the creation of products or services for the global market by adapting them to local cultures

Multiculturalism

The coexistence of several cultures in one society, with the ideal of all cultures being valued and worthy of study

Nativist

Anti-immigrant attitudes may form among the cultural majority, sometimes bring violence or government action against the immigrant or minority group.