Unit 3: Cultural Patterns and Processes

Key Concepts and Components

  1. Culture and Cultural Traits:

    • Culture: The shared learned behaviors, beliefs, institutions, and values of a group of people.

    • Cultural Traits: Individual components of a culture, such as language, religion, food preferences, artistic styles, and clothing.

  2. Cultural Relativism vs. Ethnocentrism:

    • Cultural Relativism: The practice of judging a culture by its own standards.

    • Ethnocentrism: The belief in the superiority of one's own ethnic group or culture, often leading to the view that other cultures are inferior.

  3. Cultural Landscape and Sequent Occupance:

    • Cultural Landscape: The visible imprint of human activity on the natural environment. This includes buildings, roads, agricultural fields, and other modifications.

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

  4. Patterns of Culture: Folk vs. Popular Culture:

    • Folk Culture: Traditionally practiced by small, homogenous, rural groups living in relative isolation. It often has a strong connection to local environment and tradition.

      • Examples: Amish communities, indigenous tribes, specific regional cuisines.

    • Popular Culture: Found in large, heterogeneous societies that share certain habits despite differences in other personal characteristics. It diffuses rapidly and is often driven by media and globalization.

      • Examples: Global fashion trends, pop music, fast food chains.

  5. Language:

    • Language Families: Groups of languages that share a common ancestral origin (e.g., Indo-European).

    • Dialects: Regional variations of a language distinguished by vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation.

    • Lingua Franca: A language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages (e.g., English in international business).

    • Toponymy: The study of place names, which often reveal cultural and historical insights.

  6. Religion:

    • Universalizing Religions: Religions that attempt to appeal to all people, not just those living in a particular location (e.g., Christianity, Islam, Buddhism).

      • Diffusion: Often through missionary efforts, conquest, and trade.

    • Ethnic Religions: Religions that appeal primarily to one group of people living in one place (e.g., Hinduism, Judaism, Shintoism).

      • Diffusion: Typically through relocation diffusion (migration).

    • Sacred Space: Areas recognized by an individual or group as worthy of special attention because they are the settings for religious experiences or events.

  7. Ethnicity and Race:

    • Ethnicity: Identity with a group of people who share the cultural traditions of a particular homeland or hearth.

    • Race: Identity with a group of people who are perceived to share a physiological trait, such as skin color.

    • Centripetal Forces: Forces that tend to unite people and enhance support for a state (e.g., shared language, national identity, common religion).

    • Centrifugal Forces: Forces that tend to divide a state (e.g., ethnic separatism, religious differences, political disunity).

Important Themes to Master

  • Diffusion: Understand the different types of diffusion (relocation, expansion - hierarchical, contagious, stimulus) and how they apply to the spread of cultural traits like language, religion, and popular culture.

  • Globalization's Impact: Analyze how globalization affects folk and popular culture, often leading to cultural homogenization or glocalization.

  • Cultural Conflicts: Examine how differences in language, religion, and ethnicity can lead to conflict and political instability.

  • Cultural Adaptation: Understand how humans adapt their culture to different environments and how environment can influence culture.


Major World Religions and Their Characteristics

1. Universalizing Religions

Universalizing religions actively seek to convert people to their faith, have a global appeal, and are often diffused widely from their hearths through various mechanisms.

  • Christianity:

    • Hearth: Eastern Mediterranean (Jerusalem).

    • Diffusion: Hierarchical diffusion (Roman Empire adoption), relocation diffusion (missionaries, colonization), and contagious diffusion today.

    • Branches: Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy.

    • Sacred Spaces: Churches, Jerusalem, Bethlehem.

    • Cultural Landscape: Prominent churches, cemeteries, crosses.

  • Islam:

    • Hearth: Mecca, Saudi Arabia (Arabian Peninsula).

    • Diffusion: Contagious diffusion (military conquest, trade), relocation diffusion (pilgrimages like Hajj).

    • Branches: Sunni (majority), Shia.

    • Sacred Spaces: Mosques, Mecca (Kaaba), Medina, Jerusalem (Dome of the Rock).

    • Cultural Landscape: Mosques with minarets, crescents, calligraphic art.

  • Buddhism:

    • Hearth: Northern India/Nepal (Lumbini).

    • Diffusion: Contagious diffusion (Mauryan Empire, missionaries), relocation diffusion along trade routes.

    • Branches: Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana.

    • Sacred Spaces: Stupas, pagodas, temples, Bodh Gaya.

    • Cultural Landscape: Pagodas, stupas, statues of Buddha, monasteries.

  • Sikhism:

    • Hearth: Punjab region of India.

    • Diffusion: Primarily relocation diffusion, strong community ties.

    • Sacred Spaces: Gurdwaras (e.g., Golden Temple in Amritsar).

    • Cultural Landscape: Gurdwaras, turbans (for men).

2. Ethnic Religions

Ethnic religions are typically associated with a particular ethnic group and do not actively seek converts. Their diffusion is usually limited to the migration of their adherents.

  • Hinduism:

    • Hearth: Indus River Valley (present-day Pakistan).

    • Diffusion: Primarily relocation diffusion within India and to other parts of the world with Indian diaspora.

    • Key Beliefs: Reincarnation, karma, dharma, polytheistic (or henotheistic perception of various deities).

    • Sacred Spaces: Temples, rivers (especially Ganges), mountains.

    • Cultural Landscape: Elaborate temples, shrines, cows roaming freely in some areas, sacred rivers.

  • Judaism:

    • Hearth: Eastern Mediterranean (Jerusalem).

    • Diffusion: Forced relocation (diaspora) throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, later to Americas and back to Israel.

    • Branches: Orthodox, Conservative, Reform.

    • Sacred Spaces: Synagogues, Western Wall in Jerusalem.

    • Cultural Landscape: Synagogues, cemeteries, menorahs, Stars of David.