AP Human Geography: Unit 3 Chapter 6 - Notes (Concepts of Culture)

Part 1: The Anatomy of Culture (Section 6.1)

At its core, Culture refers to the collection of beliefs, values, practices, behaviors, and technologies shared by a society and passed down from generation to generation. It’s not inherited like race; it is a learned way of life, transferred through teaching and imitation.

The Cultural Iceberg 🧊

A fantastic way to visualize culture is like an iceberg. What you see above the water is just the tip!

• Above the Water (Visible Culture): This is the stuff you can easily observe.

  • Explicit Rules of Behavior: How people greet each other (a handshake, a bow).

  • Easily Visible Cultural Traits: Language, clothing, food, music, art, architecture, and land-use patterns.

  • Emotional Level: Relatively low.

• Below the Water (Invisible Culture): This is the massive, submerged part of the iceberg that influences everything on the surface.

  • Deep Culture: Hidden rules of behavior, partially visible cultural traits like values and attitudes (e.g., concepts of time, personal space). Emotional level is high.

  • Unconscious Culture: Unconscious rules of behavior, core beliefs, and values that are hard to identify from the outside. Emotional level is intense. For example, American individualism vs. Japanese communalism are deep, unconscious cultural values that explain many visible behaviors.

Cultural Traits: The Building Blocks

Every culture is made up of individual Cultural Traits, which are specific customs or characteristics. Geographers categorize these traits into three types:

• Artifacts: The visible, tangible objects and technologies a culture creates. These are the most easily observable and tend to change most readily.

  • Examples: Clothing (like a hijab or a quinceañera dress), tools, houses, buildings, toys, food, and even land-use practices like terraced rice paddies.

• Sociofacts: The structures and organizations that influence social behavior. They define how people act and establish rules. They are slower to change than artifacts.

  • Examples: Family structures, governments, educational systems, religious organizations, and social norms.

• Mentifacts: The central, enduring elements of a culture that reflect its shared ideas, values, knowledge, and beliefs. These are the slowest to change and are the core of a culture's identity.

  • Examples: Religious beliefs, language, worldview, and philosophy.

Memory Drill: Think A-S-M to remember the three "facts":

• Artifacts = All the Stuff (the physical objects).

• Sociofacts = Social Structures (the organizations).

• Mentifacts = Mental Concepts (the ideas and beliefs).

Cultural Dynamics: Traditional vs. Popular Culture

Cultures are dynamic and change over time. We can broadly categorize them into two types:

Today, indigenous and folk cultures are often at risk of being replaced by the global spread of popular culture. This is why some groups resist modern technology, as it tends to promote pop culture.

Attitudes Towards Culture

When different cultures interact, people often adopt one of two attitudes:

1. Cultural Relativism 🤗: The evaluation of another culture by that culture's own standards. This means putting aside your own cultural biases to understand the context behind another culture's practices. It's about understanding, not judging. Think of it as a warm, cultural hug.

2. Ethnocentrism 😠: The evaluation of another culture by your own culture's standards. This often includes the belief that one's own culture is superior. It can lead to prejudice, discrimination, and a fear of foreigners known as xenophobia. Think of it as a punch to the cultural kidneys.

Practice Question #1: The traditional quinceañera celebration in Latino communities marks a 15-year-old girl's transition to womanhood. Identify an artifact, a sociofact, and a mentifact associated with this cultural tradition.

Answer:

• Artifact: The elaborate dress the girl wears.

• Sociofact: The family and community structure that organizes and participates in the celebration.

• Mentifact: The underlying belief in the significance of the transition from girlhood to womanhood at age 15.

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Part 2: Reading the Landscape (Section 6.2)

The Cultural Landscape is the human imprint on the natural environment. Geographer Carl Sauer famously stated, "The cultural landscape is fashioned from a natural landscape by a culture group. Culture is the agent, the natural area is the medium, and the cultural landscape is the result." By "reading" the landscape, we can learn about a culture's values, beliefs, and history.

Sequent Occupance: Layers of History 📜

Sequent Occupance is the idea that successive societies leave their cultural imprints on a place, each contributing to the cumulative cultural landscape.

• Prime Example: New Orleans, Louisiana. The landscape of New Orleans reflects its history of occupation by American Indians, the French, the Spanish, and African Americans. Each group left its mark, from architecture to music (jazz was born in the African-American Treme neighborhood).

Imprints of Culture on the Landscape 🗺

1. Ethnic Neighborhoods: These are areas within a city containing members of the same ethnic background. They are distinct cultural landscapes.

   • Example: Goutte d'Or ("Little Africa") in Paris. Settled by immigrants from French-speaking West African countries, the neighborhood's markets, restaurants, and textile shops create a vibrant West African cultural imprint in the heart of Paris.

   • Example: Tehrangeles in Los Angeles. The largest community of Iranians outside Iran, this neighborhood features Farsi language on signs, traditional Iranian restaurants, and media, reflecting the culture of those who fled Iran after the 1979 revolution.

2. Architecture: Building styles are powerful reflections of culture.

1. Religion's Mark: Religion is a powerful mentifact that leaves tangible marks on the landscape.

   • Sacred Sites: Places with deep religious symbolism or significance.

   • Places of Worship: Churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples are built with distinct architectural styles reflecting their faith. Example: The Kaaba in Mecca is the most sacred Islamic shrine, and Muslims worldwide orient their prayers and burials toward it.

   • Pilgrimage: A journey to a holy place for spiritual reasons, like the Hajj to Mecca, physically connects believers to a sacred landscape.

2. Language's Legacy: Language is a carrier of culture and is visible everywhere.

   • Toponyms: Place names. They provide clues about a region's history, geography, or culture.

     • Historical: Battle Creek, Michigan (history).

     • Commemorative: Avenue Charles de Gaulle (famous person).

     • Descriptive: Rocky Mountains (geographic features).

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Part 3: Identity and Space (Section 6.3)

Our identity—how we make sense of ourselves and how we wish to be viewed—is shaped by culture, ethnicity, and gender. This identity, in turn, influences how we use and shape space.

How Identity Shapes the Landscape

• Landscape Features: People use landscapes to communicate beliefs. A Catholic home might display a cross or a statue of Mary. A Buddhist garden reflects principles of peace and serenity. Czech immigrants in Texas built "Painted Churches" that are plain on the outside but vividly decorated inside, reflecting their cultural heritage.

• Land and Resource Use: How a group uses the land reflects its core values.

  • The Amish: Their distinct agricultural landscapes, with horse-drawn plows and no electricity, reflect values of simple living, hard work, community cooperation, and stewardship of the land.

  • The Iñupiat of Alaska: Their subsistence hunting of the bowhead whale is not just for food but is a central part of their cultural identity, a way to pass on tribal knowledge and reinforce community sharing.

Gendered Spaces

These are spaces designed or understood to be for a specific gender. They can be supportive or restrictive.

• Restrictive Examples: In rural Kenya, traditional property rights pass from father to son, meaning women run the farms but men own the land. Until 2019, restaurants in Saudi Arabia required separate entrances for men and women.

• Supportive/Safe Examples: In response to safety concerns, Mexico City introduced women-and-children-only buses. The Zenana Bagh ("women's park") in Delhi, India, provides a safe space for women to gather and speak freely.

LGBTQIA+ Spaces

• Safe Spaces: Places of acceptance for people who are sometimes marginalized by society. These can be community centers, school groups, or entire neighborhoods.

• Ethnic Neighborhoods to LGBTQIA+ Hubs: Urban neighborhoods like Boystown in Chicago became safe havens free from discrimination.

• Gentrification: As these neighborhoods become popular, renovations and rising costs can drive out the less affluent LGBTQIA+ populations who originally made the neighborhood what it is, changing the cultural landscape once again.

• Third Place: A term for a communal space separate from home (first place) or work (second place), like a coffee shop or bookstore. These are crucial for building community and are especially important for marginalized groups.

Practice Question #2: Using the Iñupiat as an example, explain how a culture's use of natural resources is connected to its identity.

Answer: The Iñupiat's use of the bowhead whale goes beyond simple sustenance. The thousand-year-old tradition of subsistence whaling is a core part of their cultural identity. It serves as a vehicle for passing down tribal knowledge from elders to children, reinforces the valued tradition of sharing resources throughout the community, and connects them to their ancestral heritage, shaping their entire way of life on the North Slope of Alaska.

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Part 4: Cultural Patterns (Section 6.4)

Language, religion, and ethnicity create distinct patterns across the landscape, shaping how people feel about a place and how they unite or divide.

Sense of Place vs. Placemaking 💖

• Sense of Place: The subjective and emotional attachment people have to a location. It's what fills a geographic space with meaning, connecting it to memories and feelings.

• Placemaking: A community-driven process where people collaborate to create a place where they can live, work, and play. It is the active shaping of a landscape to reflect a community's identity and values.

Patterns of Language 🗣

• Dialects: A regional variation of a language distinguished by vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation. In the U.S., whether you say "pop" or "soda," or "y'all" vs. "you guys," reflects your regional dialect and contributes to a sense of place.

• Social and Class Dialects: Dialects can also be tied to social class. The "Boston Brahmin" dialect is associated with New England's historical upper class, while the traditional "pahk the cah" accent is linked to the working class.

• Language as an Anchor: For some groups, language is the primary symbol of their cultural identity. The Basque people of Spain and France speak Euskara, a language with no known relatives. Its preservation, helped by their geographic isolation in the Pyrenees Mountains, is central to their unique identity.

Patterns of Religion 🙏

Religions organize space and are often organized into smaller groups:

• Branch: A large, fundamental division within a religion (e.g., Protestantism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox are branches of Christianity).

• Denomination: A separate organization that unites a number of local congregations (e.g., Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran are denominations of Protestantism).

• Sect: A relatively small group that has separated from an established denomination.

• Adherents (followers) of different religions and denominations are not evenly distributed. In the U.S., White evangelical Protestants are concentrated in the South and Midwest, while Catholics are more numerous in the Northeast.

Patterns of Ethnicity 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

Ethnicity is deeply linked with language and religion.

• Case Study: Somalis in Minnesota: The largest Somali community in North America lives in Minneapolis. They have shaped the cultural landscape through placemaking. Mosques like Dar Al-Hijrah are not just places of worship but also community hubs with schools and gathering spaces, solidifying their cultural and religious identity in their new home.

• Historical Clusters: In the U.S., major ethnic groups historically formed regional clusters: Hispanics in the Southwest, African Americans in the Southeast, and Asian Americans in the West.

Forces of Unity and Division

Language, religion, and ethnicity can act as both centripetal forces (uniting people) and centrifugal forces (dividing people).

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Chapter 6 Glossary

• Adherent: A person who is loyal to a belief, religion, or organization.

• Artifact: A visible object or technology that a culture creates, such as clothing or tools.

• Centrifugal Force: A force that divides a group of people.

• Centripetal Force: A force that unites a group of people.

• Cultural Landscape: A natural landscape that has been modified by humans, reflecting their cultural beliefs and values.

• Cultural Norms: Shared standards and patterns that guide the behavior of a group of people.

• Cultural Relativism: The evaluation of a culture solely by its unique standards, without judgment from the perspective of one's own culture.

• Cultural Trait: A single attribute of a culture, such as a specific custom or practice.

• Culture: The beliefs, values, practices, behaviors, and technologies shared by a society and passed down from generation to generation.

• Denomination: A separate organization that unites a number of local congregations within a branch of a religion.

• Dialect: A variation of a standard language specific to a general area, distinguished by pronunciation, vocabulary, and spelling.

• Ethnic Neighborhood: A cultural landscape within a community of people outside their area of origin.

• Ethnicity: The state of belonging to a group of people who share common cultural characteristics.

• Ethnocentrism: The tendency to evaluate other groups according to preconceived ideas originating from one's own culture, often with a feeling of superiority.

• Gender Identity: One's innermost concept of self as male, female, a blend of both, or neither.

• Gendered Spaces: Spaces designed and deliberately incorporated into the landscape to accommodate gender roles.

• Gentrification: Renovations and improvements conforming to middle-class preferences, which can drive up housing costs in a neighborhood.

• Identity: How humans make sense of themselves and how they wish to be viewed by others.

• Language: The carrier of human thoughts and cultural identities; a system of communication.

• Mentifact: The central, enduring elements of a culture that reflect its shared ideas, values, knowledge, and beliefs.

• Pilgrimage: A journey to a holy place for spiritual reasons.

• Placemaking: A community-driven process in which people collaborate to create a place where they can live, work, play, and learn.

• Popular Culture: The widespread behaviors, beliefs, and practices of ordinary people in society at a given point in time, which tend to change quickly.

• Postmodern Architecture: An architectural style that emerged in the 1960s, valuing diversity in design and cultural expression.

• Religion: A system of spiritual beliefs that helps form cultural perceptions, attitudes, and values.

• Safe Spaces: Spaces of acceptance for people who are sometimes marginalized by society.

• Sect: A relatively small group that has separated from an established denomination.

• Sense of Place: The subjective and emotional attachment people have to a geographic location, imbued with meaning and feeling.

• Sequent Occupance: The notion that successive societies leave their cultural imprint on a place, contributing to the cumulative cultural landscape.

• Sociofact: A structure or organization that influences social behavior, such as family or government.

• Third Place: A communal space, separate from home or work, where people can relax and interact.

• Toponym: A place name.

• Traditional Architecture: Established building styles influenced by the environment and based on localized needs and materials.

• Traditional Culture (Folk Culture): Long-established behaviors, beliefs, and practices passed down through generations.