aphg unit 3.1-3.8

cultural relativism

unbiased way of viewing another culture, promotes understanding of cultural practices

ethnocentrism

judging other cultures in terms of one’s own standards, often includes the belief that one’s own culture is better than others

cultural traits

they are both invisible and visible and they combine to make up a culture

artifacts

physical cultural objects

mentifacts

ideas/values/beliefs of a culture (mental!!)

sociofacts

the way a culture organizes a society (ex form of government)

taboo

behaviors heavily discouraged in a culture (the behaviors don’t have to be inherently bad)

folk cultures

small homogeneous groups of people often living in rural areas that are isolated/resistant to change, has a strong sense of place

popular cultures

large heterogeneous groups of people living in urban areas that are interconnected through globalization and the internet, has placelessness

cultural landscape/built environment

made up of combinations of physical, agricultural, industrial, religious, linguistics, and traditional traits (basically landscapes that have been influenced by human involvement)

sense of place

feeling for features that make a space unique

sequence occupancy

the idea that society’s leave cultural imprints when they live in a place

centripetal forces

characteristics that unify a country or provide stability

centrifugal forces

characteristic that cause division in a country or cause destabilization

ethnicity

the sense of belonging or identity within a group of people with shared culture/ancestry

race

based on physical characteristics

ethnic enclave

place which has a cultural distinction from the larger surrounding area (ex china town)

ancient world

cultural hearth areas from which important culture traits including ideas technology and social structure originated

cultural region

is a formal or functional region in which a common cultural trait/custom prevails

cultural realm

a collection of smaller cultural regions that share related cultural systems (also called a marco-cultural region)

cultural diffusion

when a cultural trait is introduced and spread to other areas, there are two types

cultural hearth

the origin of a culture/cultural traits

relocation diffusion

when people move to a new location and take their culture with them

expansion diffusion

the spread of an item or idea from a hearth, in the process it remains and often strengthens the origin area, there are three types

contagious diffusion

rapid and widespread diffusion by direct contact, affects all areas uniformly as it spreads outwards (ex internet trends)

hierarchical/cascade diffusion

the process of spreading ideas from places to power to places for like peasants idk (top to bottom) (ex celebrity eating tomatoes so now everyone else eats them too)

reverse hierarchical diffusion

when the idea spreads from places of little/no power to places of high power (bottom to top)

stimulus diffusion

the spread of an underlying principle even though the main idea is not spread/ideas take on new form or cultural context (ex vegetarian mcdonald’s in india)

cultural barriers

things that pose as obstacles to cultural diffusion (ex taboos and religious beliefs)

cultural lag

when a social group is economically or psychologically unresponsive to change

multiculturalism

when several cultures are in one society (think salad bowl)

assimilation

when a group is no longer distinguished from the larger group (think blended soup)

acculturation

when a new group adopts practices of the larger group while keeping traits of their own culture (think chunky soup)

universalizing religions

religions that actively seek converts bc members believe they offer belief systems of universal appeal (ex christianity and islam)

proselytize

smarter word for convert (as in convert religions)

ethnic religions

religions that do not want converts (ex judaism and hinduism)

monotheistic religions

one God

polytheistic religions

multiple Gods

animism

belief that inanimate objects possess spirits and should be revered (has many characteristics of many native religions)

shamanism

based on the belief in good and evil spirits who can be influenced only by shamans

branch

large fundamental division of a religion

denomination

division of a branch of a religion

sect

small group that broke away from a denomination of a religion

interfaith boundaries

boundaries between the worlds major faiths

intrafaith boundaries

boundaries within a single major faith

religious fundamentalism

a return to the basics of one’s faith, found in christianity islam and judaism

religious extremism

religious fundamentalism carried to the point of violence, found in christianity islam and judaism (ex islam in afghanistan)

secularism

indifference/rejection to/of organized religious affiliations/ideas (can manifest as separation of church and state)

language taxonomy

family → branch → group → language → dialect (Ferris Bueller Got a Lucky Day)

language family

group of languages descended from a single earlier tounge

indo european

the most widely distributed language family

language branch

collection of languages within a family (ex the language family is germanic but the branch would be german english and dutch)

logograms

when a symbol means a word (ex kanji)

colonization imperialism trade

the historic causes of diffusion

imperialism

umbrella term for when the dominance of one political community over another weaker political community

colonialism

a type of imperialism, its the process of using military force to conquer/settle another territory

neocolonialism

this term has emerged in recent years because imperialism can also be done through the assertion in political/economic influence

pidgin language

extremely simplified non native languages used by people who speak different languages

creole languages

a combination of languages that are frequently developed through settings of colonization and slavery

lingua franca

common language used by speakers of diffent languages, usually used for business/trade/commerce (can change based on scale)

english

the world lingua franca

official language

language used by the government of a country for laws reports signs money and stamps, it can be a centrifugal or centripetal force

cultural convergence

the process of cultures coming into contact and doing acculturation to eachother

cultural divergence

when a culture restricts contact with other cultures in attempt to keep originality/seperating from mainstream (ex amish people)

reterritorialization

when people in a place start to produce an aspect of pop culture themselves in context of their own culture (similar to stimulus diffusion)

cultural appropriation

the process when people take customs/knowledge of another culture and use them to their own benefit through commodification

commodification

is the process of transforming cultural activity/item into a sellable item