3.20

cultural patterns

sense of place

sense of place

people’s perception of a place shaped by cultural landscape and patterns (more distinct = stronger sense of place)

how can sense of place be used?

it can be used as a cultural or economic asset in tourism (ex. Parisian architecture in Montmatre draws lots of tourists)

placemaking

efforts to design/use public places to better serve residents, foster community, generate spending, and improve morale

how can placemaking be controversial?

people fight for control over the messages the landscape provides (ex. people arguing that a monument doesn’t reflect the full history)

centripetal force

(usually commonalities) that bring people together, leading to less conflict and tension

how can religion be a centripetal force?

people pull together around it (ex. Pakistan was designated as a Muslim country, so officials have used it to keep citizens culturally and politically unified)

how can language be a centripetal force?

places that have many ethnicities living together can feel united around a common language (ex. in Europe)

how can ethnicity be a centripetal force?

ethnic groups are bounded by cultural traits and shared language, so displaying ethnic identity with restaurants, signs, music, etc. strengthens bonds in ethnic neighborhoods

centrifugal forces

(usually differences) that pull people apart or drive a wedge between different segments of society

how can religion be a centrifugal force?

2 religious groups live in the same place (ex. political conflict in Yemen due to Sunni vs Shi’a Islam)

tradition/religion vs newer secular practices

secularization

when religion influences daily life less (often a driving force for new cultural values in MDC’s)

how can language be a centrifugal force?

different languages causes difficulty interacting, so places develop with different cultures (ex. collapse of Soviet Union led to political unrest bcs political borders didn’t line up with linguistic borders)

how can ethnicity be a centrifugal force?

it can be centripetal or centrifugal based on scale of analysis (ex. local scale → Chinese ethnicity brings Chinatowns together (centripetal), but regional scale → marginalization caused the ethnic enclaves to form (centrifugal))