AP Human Geo- Unit 3

Culture

The shared beliefs, values, practices, behaviors, and technologies of a society

Cultural Traits

Visible and invisible attributes that combine to make up a group’s culture

What are some examples of Cultural Traits?

Artifacts, Sociofacts, Mentifacts

Artifacts

Visible, physical objects created by a culture

What are examples of Artifacts?

Houses, clothing, architecture, toys, tools, and furniture

Sociofacts

The ways in which a society BEHAVES and organizes institutions

What are examples of Sociofacts?

Family, school/education, government, religion, land use, and gender roles

Mentifacts

The ideas, beliefs, values, and knowledge of a culture (what they THINK)

What are examples of Mentifacts?

Religious beliefs, language, and food preferences or taboos

Local/Traditional Culture

Small, homogenous (similar) groups of people, often living in rural areas that are isolated and unlikely to change

Cultural Traits of Local/Traditional Culture

• Architecture:

  • materials front the local physical environment

  • snow, mud, stone, bricks, wood, pelts, and grass

• Land-Use:

  • Agricultural

  • Sense of Place

Sense of Place

Unique attributes of a specific location—- cultural influences and feelings evoked by people in a place (distinctiveness)

Global/Popular Culture

Large, heterogenous groups of people, often living in urban areas that are interconnected through globalization and the internet/social media (quick to change, time-space compression)

Cultural Traits of Global/Popular Culture

• Architecture:

  • materials from factories and manufactured

  • glass, steel, drywall, cement

• Land-Use:

  • urban and suburban

  • placelessness

Placelessness

Loss of uniqueness of place in the cultural landscape so that one place looks like the next or does not inspire any strong emotional or cultural ties (uniform landscape)

Cultural Norms

Agreed upon cultural practices or standards that guide the behavior of a culture

Cultural Taboos

Behaviors heavily discouraged by a culture

Ethnocentrism

Judging other cultures in terms of one’s own standards and often includes the belief that one’s own culture/ethnic group is better than others

Cultural Relativism

An unbiased way of viewing another culture, the goal of this is to promote understanding of cultural practices that are not typically part of one’s own culture. Leads to the view that no one culture is superior to another culture when compared.

Cultural Landscape

A natural landscape that has been modified by humans, reflecting their cultural beliefs and values

What is Cultural Landscape composed of?

• a combination of

  • agricultural and industrial practices

  • religious and linguistic characteristics

  • evidence of sequent occupancy

  • traditional and postmodern architecture

  • land-use patterns

Sequent Occupancy

The idea that societies or cultural groups leave their cultural imprints when they live in a place, each contributing to the overall cultural landscape over time. Most cultural landscapes are a mixture of historic and modern structures.

What is an example of Sequent Occupancy?

The Great Pyramids

What are some factors that make patterns in the Cultural Landscape?

Ethnicity, Gender, and Land-Use

Attitudes toward ethnicity and gender, include the following:

• role of women

• gendered spaces

• ethnic neighborhoods

Ethnicity

A sense of belonging or identity within a group of people bound by common ancestry and culture. This is different from race which is based on physical characteristics.

Ethnic Neighborhoods/Enclaves

People of the same ethnicity that cluster together in a specific location, typically within a major city (ex: Chinatown)

Ethnic Patterns

There is oftentimes a predictable distribution of ethnicities that can be examined at multiple scales

What is the Ethnic Pattern in the U.S.?

• Historically and contemporarily there are clusters of ethnic groups in specific regions

  • Southwest: Latin Americas and Native Americans

  • Southeast: African American

  • West: Asian Americans

  • Northeast: Irish/Italians

  • Midwest: Scandinavians/Northern Europeans

  • Appalachia: Scots/Irish

What is the role of women in traditional cultures?

Oftentimes the primary role of a woman is to have children, not be active in education or the workforce

Gendered Spaces

Places in the cultural landscape utilized to reinforce or accommodate gender roles for men and women

What are some examples of designated gendered spaces?

• parking spaces of pregnant women

• stores designated for women only

Why do geographers study land-use patterns?

To see the cultural values of the people living there by seeing and analyzing how the cultural landscape is used

Example of Land-Use: Terrace Farming

• typically practiced in South, Southeast and East Asia, and Latin America

• practice of cutting flat areas out of mountainous terrain to make it arable

  • rice farming is most commonly, although other crops can be grown this way too

Example of Land-Use: Indigenous Land-Use

• U.S. Reservation System

  • Indian Removal Act of 1830: forcibly removed Indigenous peoples from land to make space and separation from American settlement (Trail of Tears)

  • U.S. government established reservations which were plots of land in which tribes were forced to relocate

• Subsistence Whaling

  • Indigenous tribes in northern Alaska rely on the Bowhead Whale as both a food source and a cultural lifestyle

Traditional Architecture

Influenced by the environment and built with available local materials. Reflective of history, culture, and climate

What is an example of Traditional Architecture?

Stone and Clay houses in Nepal

Postmodern Architecture

Diverse designs, representative of popular culture, business and economic success

What is an example of Postmodern Architecture?

Skyscrapers

T or F: regional patterns of language, religion, and ethnicity contribute to a sense of place, enhance place making, and shape the global cultural landscape

True

Cultural Realm

Areas of the world that share cultural traits such as language families, religious traditions, food preferences, architecture, and/or a shared history. These cultural traits comprise a similar cultural landscape (although not the exact same) in each area.

What are some examples of Cultural Realm?

Both settlements could have been settled by Europeans, so they have the same base culture, but then grow separately to have different traits.

Centripetal Forces

Characteristics that unify a country and provide stability

What are contributing factors to Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces?

Language, Ethnicity, and Religion

What are examples of Centripetal Forces?

Common language (in France), ethnicity, religion (in Iran)

Centrifugal Forces

Characteristics that divide a country and create instability, conflict, and violence

What are examples of Centrifugal Forces?

Multiple competing ethnicities, languages (in Belgium), or religions (Northern Ireland)

Cultural Hearth

The geographic origin of a culture of cultural traits. Traits first diffuse from these areas.

What are examples of Cultural Hearths?

London, NYC, Paris, etc.

Diffusion

The movement or spread of cultural traits, knowledge, ideas that trend from the hearth

What are the types of Diffusion?

Relocation and Expansion

Relocation Diffusion

The spread of cultural traits through migration of people (people take their cultural traits with them as they move)

What is an example of Relocation Diffusion?

The migration of Europeans to the Americas in the 13th and 14th centuries which resulted in the spread of Christianity and European languages such as Spanish and English

Expansion Diffusion

The spread of a cultural traits through the interaction between people (there are three subtypes of this diffusion)

What are the subtypes of Expansion Diffusion?

Contagious, Hierarchical, and Reverse Hierarchical

Contagious Diffusion

A cultural trait spreads rapidly, widely, and continuously from its hearth through close contact between people (time-space compression and globalization have accelerated this type of diffusion via the internet and smartphones)

What is an example of Contagious Diffusion?

Viral Videos

Hierarchical Diffusion

The spread of cultural traits from the most interconnected, powerful, wealthy people/organizations down to others

What are examples of Hierarchical Diffusion?

• Cell phones were first only owned by wealthy elites in large cities, as time progressed they became mass-produced and spread to a wider market

• popular culture trends, music, and fashion

Reverse Hierarchical Diffusion

The spread of cultural traits from the least interconnected, wealthy, or powerful people/organizations outwards

What are some examples of Reverse Hierarchical Diffusion?

• Hip-hop music in the U.S. started in city centers with large amounts of poverty and discrimination against African Americans and then diffused to the broader public

• Walmart was initially started in a small town in Arkansas and now has location internationally

Stimulus Diffusion

As cultural traits spread they are altered/modified due to a cultural barrier, taboo, or difference

What is an example of Stimulus Diffusion?

Followers of the Hindu religion are clustered in India and believe that cows are sacred and holy animals. It is a taboo to eat beef. As McDonald’s diffused to India, it was adapted to offer veggie burgers.

What are Historic Causes of Cultural Diffusion?

Imperialism, Trade

T or F: Colonialism causes Imperialism or Neocolonialism

False, imperialism causes the other two

Imperialism

The dominance of one country over another country through diplomacy or force

Colonialism

When a powerful country established settlements in a less powerful country for economic and/or political gain

Neocolonialism

“new” colonialism—term to describe how in more modern times, imperialism can be pursued through the assertion of political, economic, and cultural influence rather than occupation

Trade

People interact in order to buy and sell goods—interaction results in the exchange of culture and ideas

What is an example of Trade?

The Silk Road was a network of trade routes that connected East Asia and Europe, and was central to the economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between these regions from the 2nd century BCE to the 18th century

T or F: as European powers took over colonies they imposed their language and religion on the indigenous people, which resulted in new forms of communication and cultural traits

True

Pidgin Language

An extremely simplified, limited non-native language used by two people who speak two different languages

What are examples of Pidgin Language?

• Papua New Guinea: a mixture of English and Papuan languages. Result of British colonization of the territory.

• Choppy language, but makes complete sentences.

Creole Language

A pidgin language that develops into a new combined language with native speakers. Frequently developed through settings of colonization or slavery

What are examples of Creole Language?

• Cajun/Louisianian: spoken in Louisiana, traits of English and French

• Haitian: spoken in Haiti, traits of Indigenous West African and French

Lingua Franca

A common language used by speakers of two different languages for communication. Usually for business, trade, commerce, or in popular culture

What are examples of Lingua Franca?

• Globally: English

• Regionally:

  • Mandarin in China

  • Swahili in Africa

  • Arabic in Southwest Asia

  • Russian in Eastern Europe and Russia

Dialects

Variations in accent, grammar, usage, and spelling and develop out of geographic distance or isolation

What is the difference between Dialects and Accents?

• Dialects = different words

• Accents = different pronunciation

What is an example of Accents in the U.S.?

You all, y’all, you guys, youse guys, you’uns

T or F: English only has one dialect

False, there are multiple due to the distance between areas that speak it

Official Language

Used by the government of a country for laws, reports, signs, public objects, money, and stamps

Yes and No, it can also be a Centrifugal Force

Can having an official language be a Centripetal Force?

Friction of Distance

As a cultural trait diffuses, the people who adopt it might alter it—think of the game telephone. Things change over distance and time.

T or F: due to distance decay and friction of distance closer groups of people were more different than groups that were further from each other

False, they were more alike

Globalization

The trend toward increased cultural and economic connectedness between people, businesses, and organizations throughout the world without regard to borders or barriers

What are some examples of how popular culture diffuses?

• Internet and Technology

• Social Media and Relationships

• Media (TV/Movies/Radio)

• Politics

• The Economy

• Urbanization

Time-Space Compression/Convergence

The shrinking of the world due to improvements in communication and transportation technologies (facilitates cultural convergence and the widespread diffusion of popular culture)

Cultural Convergence

The process of two or more cultures coming into contact with each other and adopting each other’s traits to become more alike

What are some examples of Cultural Convergence?

• World Sports

• K-Pop

• McDonald’s

• Language

The results of time-space convergence and the widespread diffusion of popular culture are:

• loss of Indigenous languages and traditional cultures

• of about 5,000-6,000 languages being spoken today, only half will exist in 100 years

What causes the extinction of languages and cultures?

• Genocide

• Pressure of Globalization and Cultural Convergence

Language Family

Largest group of related languages that are connected through a common ancient ancestry and traced back to a common hearth

What are some examples of Language Families?

• Indo-European is the largest group with about 3.2 billion speakers distributed across the world

• Sino-Tibetan is the second largest with 1.4 billion speakers mostly concentrated in East and Southeast Asia

Language Branch

Collection of languages that share a common origin from thousands of years ago. They were separated from other languages in their family and are now distinctive although related.

What are some examples of Language Branches?

• Romance: includes languages like Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian

• Germanic: includes languages such as German, English, and Dutch

Language Group

Collection of languages that share a more recent past with similar vocabularies and some overlap

What are some examples of Language Group’s

• Similarities between Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish

• West Germanic languages such as Dutch and Afrikaans will have more similarities than with their North Germanic ancestors and vice verse

Isogloss

A geographic boundary within which a particular linguistic feature occurs. Lines that divide dialects.

Kurgan Warrior Theory

Indo-European language first diffused from a hearth located in modern Russia/Ukraine around 1,000 BCE. The Kurgans, who were nomadic warriors conquered their way through Europe and South Asia and spread the language