AP Human Geography Unit 3: Culture

**3.1 Intro to Culture

3.1 Define the characteristics, attitudes, and traits that influence geographers when they study culture.

  • Culture comprises the shared practices, technologies, attitudes, behaviors transmitted by a society.
  • Cultural traits include such things as food preferences, architecture, and land use.
  • Cultural relativism and ethnocentrism are different attitudes towards cultural difference.

**3.2 Cultural Landscape

3.2.1 Describe the characteristics of cultural landscapes.

  • Cultural landscapes are combinations of physical features, agricultural and industrial practices, religious and linguistic characteristics, evidence of sequent occupancy, and other expressions of culture including traditional and postmodern architecture and land-use patterns.

3.2.2 Explain how landscape features and land and resource use reflect cultural beliefs and identities.

  • Attitudes toward ethnicity and gender, including the role of women in the workforce; ethnic neighborhoods, and indigenous communities and lands help shape the use of space in a given

Cultural Landscape

Symbiosis between humans and their culture, how human culture affects landscape, and how the landscape affects human culture. Think Great Wall of China, Egyptian Pyramids vs Sudanese Pyramids. They encompass religious values, agricultural practices, land-use patterns, and more.

Sequent Occupancy

The idea that societies or cultural groups leave their cultural imprints when they live in a place, like Egyptian Pyramids, Roman Cities

Attitudes towards ethnicity and gender, including the

  • Role of women
  • Gendered spaces
  • Ethnic neighborhoods

help shape the use of space in a given society.

Ethnicity:

A sense of belonging or identity within a group of people bound by common ancestry and culture. This is different from race which is based on physical characteristics.

  • Ethnic Neighborhoods are neighborhoods of people with the same ethnicity and similar cultures in a specific location, like Chinatown or Harlem, New York.
  • Ethnic Patterns is the predictable distribution of ethnicities

Role of Women

  • Traditionally, women in many cultures are primarily to birth children
  • As countries economically and socially develop, women gain more access to education and workforce.
  • Gendered Spaces are areas specifically accommodating to men or women (buses or trains for women in Mexico and Dubai to prevent sexual assault)

Land-use Patterns

  • Geographers study land-use patterns as seen on the cultural landscape which reflect the cultural values of the people living there.
  • Traditional Architecture is influenced by environmental resources, reflected from culture and climate
  • Post-modern Architecture is reflective of popular culture and business

**3.3 Cultural Patterns

3.3 Explain patterns and landscapes of language, religion, ethnicity, and gender.

  • Regional patterns of language, religion and ethnicity contribute to a sense of place, enhance placemaking, & shape the global cultural landscape.
  • Language, ethnicity and religion are factors in creating centripetal and centrifugal forces.

Regional Patterns

Regional patterns of language, religion and ethnicity contribute to a sense of place, enhance placemaking, & shape the global cultural landscape.

  • Sense of Place is unique attributes of a specific location- cultural influences and feeling evoked by people in a place
  • Cultural Realm are areas of the world that share cultural traits such as language families, religious traditions, food preferences, architecture, and/or a shared history. These cultural traits comprise a similar cultural landscape (although not the exact same) in each cultural realm.

Centripetal Forces - Centrifugal Forces

Unify, stabilize Divide, unrest

**3.4 Cultural Diffusion

3.4 Define the types of diffusion.

  • Relocation and expansion - including contagious, hierarchical, and stimulus expansion - are types of diffusion.

A cultural hearth is the geographic origin of a culture or cultural trait. Traits first diffuse from the cultural hearth.

Diffusion is the movement or spread of cultural traits knowledge, ideas, trends from hearths to other geographic areas. Two major categories are relocation and expansion. As people migrate, people take their cultural traits with them.

Contagious Diffusion is a cultural trait spreads rapidly, widely, and continuously from its hearth through close contact between people- like a viral video.

Hierarchical Diffusion is the spread of cultural traits from the most interconnected, powerful, wealthy people/organizations down to others, like cars only being owned by the elite to general public.

Reverse Hierarchical Diffusion is the spread of cultural traits from the least interconnected, wealthy, or powerful people/organizations outwards, like the spread of hip-hop.

Stimulus Diffusion is the idea that as cultural traits spread they are altered/modified due to a cultural barrier, taboo, or difference.

**3.5 Historical Causes of Diffusion

3.5 Explain how historical processes impact current cultural patterns.

  • Interactions between and among cultural traits and larger global forces can lead to new forms of cultural expression; for example, creolization and lingua franca.
  • Colonialism, imperialism, and trade helped to shape patterns and practices of culture.

What causes cultural diffusion?

  • IMPERIALISM: The dominance of one country over another country through diplomacy or force.
  • COLONIALISM: When a powerful country established settlements in a less powerful country for economic and or political gain.
  • NEOCOLONIALISM: “New” colonialism - term to describe how in more modern times, imperialism can be pursued through the assertion of political, economic and cultural influence rather than occupation.
  • TRADE: People interact in order to buy and sell goods - interaction results in the exchange of culture and ideas.

What new forms of interaction developed?

  • 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 combines language with native speakers. Frequently developed through settings of colonization or slavery.
  • LINGUA FRANCA: The 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: Used by the government of a country for laws, reports, signs, public objects, money, stamps.

**3.6 Contemporary Causes of Diffusion

3.6 Explain how contemporary processes impact current cultural patterns.

  • Cultural ideas and practices are socially constructed and change through both small-scale and large-scale processes such as urbanization and globalization. These processes come to bear on culture through media, technological change, politics, economics, and social relationships.
  • Communication technologies, such as the internet and time-space convergence, are reshaping and accelerating interactions among people; changing cultural practices, as in the increasing use of English and the loss of indigenous languages; and creating cultural convergence and divergence.

Historically, due to distance decay and friction of distance closer groups of people were more alike than groups that were further from each other.

\n Friction of Distance: As a cultural trait diffuses, the people who adopt it might alter it- think of telephone. Things change over distance and time.

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

Through what methods does popular culture diffuse?

  • Internet & Technology
  • Social Media & Relationships
  • Media (TV/Streaming/Movies/Radio/ Podcasts)
  • Politics
  • The Economy
  • Urbanization

What are the consequences?

Genocide, laws permitting the practice of culture, pressure to globalize

Cultural Convergence: The process of two or more cultures coming into contact

Loss of Indigenous cultures and languages- 5,000-6,000 languages exist today, half will exist in 100 years.

Cultural Divergence: Cultures become less alike because of cultural and physical barriers

**3.7 Diffusion of Language and Religion

Language

3.7 Explain what factors lead to the diffusion of language.

  • Language families, languages, dialects… diffuse from cultural hearths.
  • Diffusion of language families, including Indo-European…and distributions can be visually represented on maps, in charts and toponyms, and in other representations.

Linguistic geographers study the hearths and diffusion of languages as well as their distribution and relationships between one another.

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

  • Indo-European is the largest language family with about 3.2 billion speakers distributed across the world.
  • Sino-Tibetan is the second largest with 1.4 billion speakers mostly concentrated in East and Southeast Asia.

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.

  • Romance Branch: Includes languages like Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and Romanian.
  • Germanic Branch: Includes languages such as German, English, and Dutch.

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

Dialects: Variation of a standard language distinguished by differences in vocabulary and word choice, pronunciation, speed, and spelling. Smallest amount of speakers- develop due to migrations and isolation from original language.

Isogloss: A geographic boundary within which a particular linguistic feature occurs. Lines that divide dialects \n

How do they diffuse?

  1. Colonialism/Imperialism
  2. Military Conquest
  3. Trade
  4. Migration

Kurgan Warrior Theory: Indo-European language first diffused from a hearth located in modern Russia/Ukraine around 1,000 B.C.E. The Krugans, who were nomadic warriors conquered their way through Europe and South Asia and spread language.

Anatolian Farmer Theory: The adoption of the Indo-European language was facilitated through successful agricultural practices. As agriculture became more successful, surplus foods were available and the population began to increase. As population increased, people migrated out of the hearth and throughout the Europe and Asian continents. \n

Religion

3.7 Explain what factors lead to the diffusion of universalizing and ethnic religions.

  • Religions have distinct places of origin from which they diffused to other locations through different processes. Practices and belief systems impacted how widespread the religion diffused.
  • Universalizing religions, including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Sikhism, are spread through expansion and relocation diffusion.
  • Ethnic religions, including Hinduism and Judaism, are generally found near the hearth or spread through relocation diffusion.

A geographer’s viewpoint on religion…

  1. Spatial Distribution of Religion

    1. Hearths
    2. Diffusion
    3. Distribution

  2. Impact on the Cultural Landscape

    1. Architecture
    2. Symbols
    3. Pilgrimages & Holy Sites
    4. Burial Practices

The Big Four: 77% of the world’s people

  • Christianity - 2.4 billion
  • Islam - 1.9 billion
  • Hinduism - 1 billion
  • Unaffiliated - 1.2 Billion
  • Buddhism - 500 million

Universalizing vs. Ethnic

Widely diffused from the hearth Smaller diffusion and overall

through both expansion and distribution from hearth. Restricted

relocation diffusion. to relocation diffusion.

Not confined to a specific location. Tied to a specific location and/or

ethnic group.

Missionary - attempt to convert Does NOT recruit new adherents.

people to join.

Examples: Christianity, Islam, Examples: Hinduism, Judaism,

Buddhism, Sikhism Shintoism, traditional religions

Christianity -  Contagious

  • Hearth: The West Bank, present day Israel
  • Small group of followers of Jesus Christ traveled through the Mediterranean & spread Christianity.
    • Disciples - Today, missionaries perform a similar process of traveling to spread the religion and convert new adherents.

Christianity - Hierarchical

  • Emperor Theodosius declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire
  • The Crusades in which Christians fought Muslims in order to gain control of Israel and gain followers
  • Spanish Inquisition in which non-Christians were forced to convert or faced harsh torture, punishments, and/or death.

Christianity - Relocation, Contagious AND hierarchical.

  • Imperialism and colonization facilitated the spread Christianity through a combination of missionary activity as well as colonizers from Europe that influenced rulers in Africa and Southeast Asia to convert their people

**3.8 Effects of Diffusion

3.8 Explain how the process of diffusion results in changes to the cultural landscape.

  • Acculturation, assimilation, syncretism, and multiculturalism are effects of the diffusion of culture.

Acculturation

  • Prolonged contact between two or more cultures may result in acculturation which is when people within open culture adopt some traits from the other culture
    • Example: An immigrant from Guatemala may choose to continue speaking Spanish in their home, however they will also learn English to use in public.
    • Subtype of acculturation in which one culture abandons their original culture and adopts another culture
    • Sometimes a voluntary choice, other times it is forced.
    • Example: Native American Boarding Schools - NAs were forced to learn English, cut their hair, change their clothing, were given new names, and abused in order to become more “American.”

Multiculturalism

  • The acceptance and tolerance of many different cultures which exist in close proximity to one another. Openness, acceptance, diversity
  • Example: In 1971, the government of Canada established that multiculturalism is a fundamental right of all citizens and it is important for people to maintain their cultural identities.

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
  • Very common type is religious syncretism.
    • Example: The hearth of Santeria is in Cuba and was developed through the influence of African Yoruban and Roman Catholicism as a result of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.