AP Human Geography: Cultural Patterns and Processes

Acculturation

The adoption of cultural traits by one group or person under the influence of another.

Animism

Most prevalent in Africa in the Americas; these people see the world as being infused with spiritual and supernatural powers.

Architectural Structure

The style of a particular culture or society’s buildings, which varies dramatically over space and time.

Assimilation

When integration of new arrivals into the economic and cultural mainstream of a host society is complete.

Buddhism

a universalizing religion originating in India, based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, which emphasizes the concept of suffering caused by desire and the path to enlightenment through following the Eightfold Path, aiming to achieve Nirvana by escaping the cycle of reincarnation

Charter Group

The first ethnic group to establish cultural norms in an area.

Baptist denominations (location)

Predominant in the “Bible Belt”; essentially the southeastern United States.

Upper Midwest Predominate Religion

Lutheran

Midland States predominate Religion

Methodist

Dominant religion in the SW; AZ, NM, TX; some dominant pockets in FL.

Spanish Catholicism

Dominant in Utah and parts of surrounding states

Mormonism

Dominant in the NE United States

Catholicism

The West (large parts of CA, ID, NV, OR, WA)

Largely categorized as being mixed religion.

Christianity

The world’s most widespread religion; monotheistic w/origins in Judaism; 3 Major Categories: E. Orthodox, Protestant, and Roman Catholic; Hearth is in the E. Mediterranean, diffused through colonization, the setting up of churches and boarding schools, etc.

Confucianism

Derived in the 5th century B.C.E.; Emphasizes relationships among all living things and therefore stresses harmony or balance through the following of particular standards or processes.

Contagious Expansion Diffusion

Described diffusion resulting from direct contact with an individual; All infectious diseases (AIDS, COVID-19)

Cultural Appropriation

When a group or culture adopts knowledge or accustom from another culture, using it for their own benefit (i.e. Monetary Gain)

Cultural Hearth

The origin of a particular cultural trait

Cultural Relativism

The idea that a person’s beliefs, values and practices should be understood based on that person’s own culture, rather than be judged against the criteria of another, different cultural system.

Cultural Landscape

Refers to spaces that have been modified by human activity.

Cultural Traits

Specific customs that are part of everyday life, including language, religion, ethnicity, and social institutions.

Culture

The ideas, practices, and material objects associated with a particular group of people.

Denominations

Subgroups of a larger belief system that have slightly different rituals or interpretations from other subgroups.

Dialects

Geographically distinct versions of a single language that vary somewhat from the parent form.

Diaspora

The dispersion of people from their original homeland; this is often due to forced migration.

Cultural Diffusion

Process by which an idea or innovation is transmitted from one individual or group across space.

Ethnic Cleansing

Involves the effort to rid a country or region of everyone of a particular ethnicity either through forced migration or genocide.

Ethnic Enclaves

A relatively small area occupied by a distinct culture or ethnicity, which largely results from chain migration. Common names of these are “Little Italy” and “Chinatown”

Ethnic Islands

Small, rural areas settled by a single ethnic group as opposed to ethnic neighborhoods or enclaves, which are urban.

Ethnic Neighboorhoods

Concentrations of people from the same ethnicity in certain pockets of the city.

Ethnic Provinces

When entire regions become associated with ethnic or racial aggregations.

Ethnic Religions

Appeal to small groups of people with a common heritage or to large groups of people living in a single region; Hinduism and Judaism.

Ethnicity

Refers to a group of people who share a common identity.

Ethnocentrism

Tendency to evaluate other cultures against the standards of one’s own, implying superiority of one’s ethnic group.

Extremism

A violent version of fundamentalism; becoming more prevalent across the globe.

Folk Culture

Small, homogenous cultures that spread through relocation diffusion; refers to cultural practices that form the sights, smells, sounds, and rituals of everyday existence in trad. societies in which they developed.

Fundamentalism

Strict and literal adherence to a set of principles, beliefs, or teachings

Gender

Refers to socially created distinctions between masculinity and femininity.

Genocide

A premeditated effort to kill everyone from a particular ethnic group.

Global Religions

Have numerous members and are widespread; their doctrines have global appeal; Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam.

Hinduism

An ethnic religion tied to Indian culture; oldest major religion; has a caste system which gives every Indian a particular place in the social hierarchy from birth.

Indo-European Language Family

The language family tree is broken down first into major languages: Albanian, Celtic, Germanic, and Italic.

Interfaith Boundaries

refers to boundaries between the world’s major faiths, such as Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam.

Intrafaith Boundaries

Refers to boundaries within a single major faith, such as the boundary lines that separate different denominations of Christianity.

Islam

A monotheistic religion, stemming from Judaism, Islam is based on belief that there is one god (Allah), and that Muhammad was Allah’s prophet.

Islamism

Typically characterized by moral conservatism, literalism, and an attempt to enforce Islamic values in all aspects of life, including politics; also known as political Islam.

Judaism

an ethnic, monotheistic religion originating in the Eastern Mediterranean region

Kinship

Typically describes a relationship based on blood and marriage.

Language

a system of communication used by a group of people, including spoken and written words, which reflects and transmits cultural identity and is studied geographically

Language Extinction

Occurs when a language is no longer in use by any living people.

Language Families

A collection of many language, all of which came from the same original tongue, but have different characteristics.

Language Groups

A set of languages with a relatively recent common origin and many similar characteristics.

Lingua Franca

A common language used for communication between people of different cultures.

Local Religions

Specific to an area; some are ethnic religions, such as Hinduism and Judaism, while others are tribal and often polytheistic.

Monotheistic Religion

A religion that only has one god or deity; Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

Multiculturalism

The presence of, or the support for the presence of, multiple distinct cultural and/or ethnic groups within a society.

Official Languages

Languages in which all government business occurs.

Pidgin

When two groups of people w/ different languages meet, a new language w/ some characteristics of each may result.

Placelessness

The lack or absence of the emotion that a place invokes; the lack of unique and distinctive characteristics; directly counters sense of place.

Polytheistic Religions

Religions that have more than one god or deity; Hinduism and many Native American religions.

Pop Culture

Coveys a notion of cultural productions fueled by mass media and consumerism.

Race

Categorization of humans based on skin color and other PHYSICAL features.

Racism

An ideology that views race as the defining feature of human traits/characteristics and use this to categorize certain races against each other, or make one superior/inferior to another

Religion

A set of teachings that imply a value system, include some notion of the sacred, and include ideas about the place of human beings in the universe

Sacred Spaces

Areas or places of religious or spiritual significance.

Segregation

Measure of the extent to which members of a particular minority ethnic group are not uniformly distributed among the total population.

Sense of Place

The feeling that an area or geographic space invokes; usually a unique characteristic or idea.

Sequent Occupance

The idea that successive societies leave their cultural imprints on the landscape, which in turn contributes to the built environment.

Shamanism

A single person fulfills the role of priest, counselor, and physician and claims to be a conduit to the supernatural world; tends to attract small localized followings.

Social Distance

Measure of the perceived differences between an immigrant ethnic group and the charter or host society.

Spread of Islam

Islam began in Saudi Arabia near Mecca and Medina, and spread originally through expansion diffusion to surrounding areas, including other parts of the Middle East and Northern Africa; diffused by relocation to Indonesia + Malaysia

Stimulus Diffusion

describes the pattern by which which a concept concept is diffused, but not in the same form as in original contact.

Toponymy

The names different cultures give to various features of the Earth, including settlements terrain, features streams, and other land features

Universalizing religions

claim global applicability and actively seek new converts

Hindu (location)

Indian Subcontient

Islam (location)

Dominant in the Middle East, Northern Africa, and parts of the South Pacific/SE Asia

Christianity (location)

Dominant in Australia, Europe, and North/South America

Buddhism (location)

Parts of South Asia