Culture and Cultural Landscapes Flashcards

Flashcards on Culture and Cultural Landscapes

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, such as artifacts, sociofacts, and mentifacts.

Artifacts

Visible, physical objects created by a culture (e.g., houses, clothing, architecture, tools).

Sociofacts

The ways in which a society behaves and organizes institutions (e.g., family, school, government, religion).

Mentifacts

The ideas, beliefs, values, and knowledge of a culture (e.g., religious beliefs, language, food preferences).

Local/Traditional Culture

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

Global/Popular Culture

Large, heterogeneous groups of people, often living in urban areas, that are interconnected through globalization and the internet/social media; quick to change.

Sense of Place

Unique attributes of a specific location - cultural influences and feelings evoked by people in a place; distinctiveness.

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; made up of combinations of agricultural and industrial practices, religious and linguistic characteristics, evidence of sequent occupancy, traditional and postmodern architecture, and 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.

Ethnicity

A sense of belonging or identity within a group of people bound by common ancestry and culture.

Ethnic Neighborhood

Areas where people of the same ethnicity cluster together in a specific location, typically within a major city.

Gendered Spaces

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

Cultural Realm

Areas of the world that share cultural traits such as language families, religious traditions, food preferences, architecture, and/or a shared history.

Centripetal Forces

Characteristics that unify a country and provide stability (e.g., common language, ethnicity, religion).

Centrifugal Forces

Characteristics that divide a country and create instability, conflict, and violence (e.g., multiple competing ethnicities, languages, or religions).

Diffusion

The movement or spread of cultural traits, knowledge, ideas, trends from hearths to other geographic areas.

Relocation Diffusion

The spread of a cultural trait through the migration of people.

Expansion Diffusion

The spread of a cultural trait through the interaction between people.

Contagious Diffusion

A cultural trait spreads rapidly, widely, and continuously from its hearth through close contact between people.

Hierarchical Diffusion

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

Reverse Hierarchical Diffusion

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

Stimulus Diffusion

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

Colonialism

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

Imperialism

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

Neocolonialism

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

Pidgin Language

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

Creole Language

A pidgin language that develops into a new combined language with native speakers.

Lingua Franca

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

Dialects

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

Official Language

A language used by the government of a country for laws, reports, signs, public objects, money, and stamps.

Globalization

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

Time-space Compression/Convergence

The shrinking of the world due to improvements in communication and transportation technologies.

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.

Cultural Divergence

Cultures become LESS alike due to both cultural and physical barriers; the process of a culture restricting contact with other cultures in an attempt to retain its originality.

Language Family

Largest group of related languages which are connected through a common, ancient ancestry and trace back to a common hearth.

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 now are distinctive although related.

Language Group

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

Isogloss

A geographic boundary within which a particular linguistic feature occurs.

Universalizing Religion

Widely diffused from the hearth through both expansion and relocation diffusion. Not confined to a specific location. Missionaries attempt to convert people to join.

Ethnic Religion

Smaller diffusion and overall distribution from hearth. Restricted to relocation diffusion. Tied to a specific location and/or ethnic group. Does NOT recruit new adherents.

Acculturation

Prolonged contact between two or more cultures may result in acculturation which is when people within one culture adopt some traits from the other culture.

Assimilation

Subtype of acculturation in which one culture abandons their original culture and adopts another culture. Sometimes a voluntary choice, other times it is forced.

Multiculturalism

The acceptance and tolerance of many different cultures which exist in close proximity to one another. Openness, acceptance, diversity.

Syncretism

When two culture’s traits blend together and form a new cultural trait. This can happen through contact between peoples such as imperialism, military conquest, immigration or intermarriage.