AP Human Geography Unit 3: Culture

Flashcards covering key vocabulary and concepts related to culture, cultural diffusion, and cultural landscapes.

Culture

The shared practices, technologies, attitudes, and behaviors passed down by a society.

Cultural Traits

Obvious and distinct aspects of a culture, such as food preferences, architecture, and land use.

Cultural Relativism

Evaluating another culture by that culture's own standards.

Ethnocentrism

Evaluating another culture by a group's own cultural standards, often leading to the belief that one's own culture is superior.

Xenophobia

Fear or dislike of foreigners or those with different cultural traits.

Cultural Landscape

How people modify a physical landscape in a way that reflects their culture.

Sequent Occupants

The cultural marks left on the landscape by each group of people that have occupied a place over the course of history.

Traditional Architecture

Buildings constructed with local materials to reflect the needs of the local people.

Post-Modern Architecture

Construction which emphasizes form over function, and is more culturally expressive.

Ethnicity

The cultural traits that a group shares which distinguish them from other groups; often including food, traditions, and cultural practices.

Placemaking

Modifying the landscape to live in a place.

Sense of Place

Filling a place with meaning and associating feelings with it.

Centripetal Forces

Factors that bring people together and create a sense of unity within a culture, such as a shared language or religion.

Centrifugal Forces

Factors that drive people apart, potentially leading to conflict or division within a society, such as religious or ethnic differences.

Cultural Diffusion

The process by which a cultural trait spreads from one place to another.

Cultural Hearth

The place where people of particular ethnic and cultural identities originate.

Relocation Diffusion

The spread of cultural traits as people migrate or relocate.

Expansion Diffusion

The cultural trait itself spreads while the people to whom it belongs remain in their cultural hearth.

Contagious Diffusion

A cultural trait spreading rapidly to adjacent populations without regard for class, race, or any other cultural category.

Hierarchical Diffusion

A top-down spread of a cultural trait, originating in a person or group or place of power and then spreading downward to those with less power and influence.

Stimulus Diffusion

When an original cultural trait does not itself spread but inspires or stimulates the creation or innovation of a new but related cultural trait.

Imperialism

When a powerful state enacts policies to extend power over another place.

Colonialism

When one powerful state establishes settlement in another place for the purpose of economic or political gain.

Lingua Franca

A single language adopted by many people of different languages that facilitates communication.

Creolization

When two languages are combined to form a new distinct language.

Globalization

The increasing interweaving and growing dependence of peoples throughout the world on each other economically, politically, and socially.

Urbanization

The movement of people from rural areas into cities.

Time-Space Convergence

As transportation technologies advance, the time and space between places shrink.

Cultural Convergence

As two or more cultures interact, they adopt one another's cultural traits and ideas, and the outcome is that the two cultures become more similar than different.

Cultural Divergence

The process in which the exact same process that brings cultures together and makes them more alike can also make them more distinct.

Language Family

The largest categorization of related languages; all languages in the family share a common ancestral language which no longer exists.

Language Branch

As languages develop from the same family, they branch out and separate, and each branch has similarities in grammar and syntax, but the speakers cannot understand languages from other branches.

Universalizing Religions

Religions that appeal to people of a wide variety of cultures.

Ethnic Religions

Religions that are tied very closely to particular ethnic groups in particular regions.

Toponyms

The name of a place.

Acculturation

When a people in a culture adopt some traits of another culture while they simultaneously maintain their own cultural traits.

Assimilation

When people assume almost all of the characteristics of the culture around them.

Syncretism

When two or more cultural traits blend together to create a new cultural trait.

Multiculturalism

When members of a cultural group don't fully assimilate but still maintain their own cultural identities while other groups around them do the same; especially prevalent in urban areas.