Ap HUG - Culture
Culture
Definition: The shared set of beliefs, values, practices, and material objects that characterize a group of people and are transmitted from one generation to the next.
Components of Culture:
Material Culture: Tangible artifacts that a group possesses and leaves behind (e.g., tools, clothing, buildings, art, food).
Nonmaterial Culture: Beliefs, values, ideas, knowledge, and customs (e.g., religion, language, education, political systems).
Culture Traits: Individual elements of culture (e.g., specific belief, custom, skill).
Culture Complex: A collection of interrelated traits functioning together (e.g., how Texans' material culture of rugged clothing, pickup trucks, and BBQ combines with nonmaterial culture of independence and hospitality to form a 'Texas culture complex').
Culture Region: An area within which a particular culture system prevails.
Culture Realm: A larger area that includes several culture regions, unified by a broader culture (e.g., Anglo-America).
Cultural Hearths
Definition: The specific areas where cultural traits originated.
Examples: Mesopotamia (writing, urbanization), Nile River Valley (architecture, government), Indus River Valley, Wei-Huang Valley, Mesoamerica, Andean America.
Characteristics: Usually in areas with fertile land, mild climate, and access to resources, allowing for agricultural surplus and population growth, which fosters innovation.
Cultural Diffusion
Definition: The process by which cultural traits spread from a hearth to other areas.
Types of Diffusion:
Relocation Diffusion: Spread of culture through the physical movement of people from one place to another. As migrants move, they carry their cultural traits with them.
Example: Italian immigrants bringing pasta to the U.S.
Expansion Diffusion: Spread of culture from one place to another in such a way that the number of people and places influenced grows continuously.
Contagious Diffusion: Rapid, widespread diffusion of a characteristic throughout the population by person-to-person contact. Like a wave.
Example: A viral video or disease spread.
Hierarchical Diffusion: Spread of an idea from persons or nodes of authority or power to other persons or places. Follows a hierarchy.
Example: Fashion trends originating in major cities then spreading to smaller towns.
Stimulus Diffusion: Underlying principle or idea diffuses, but the specific form or characteristic fails to spread. The idea stimulates adoption of an adapted form.
Example: India adopting fast-food but localizing McDonald's menu (e.g., Maharaja Mac).
Acculturation, Assimilation, Transculturation, and Multiculturalism
Acculturation: The process by which one cultural group adopts some of the traits of another while retaining its distinct identity.
Example: Immigrants learning the dominant language of a new country but still speaking their native language at home.
Assimilation: The process by which a less dominant culture loses its distinctive traits over time and fully adopts the traits of the dominant culture.
Example: Grandchildren of immigrants adopting the mainstream culture entirely and losing ties to their ancestral culture.
Transculturation: A two-way exchange of cultural traits between two equally powerful cultures, resulting in a new cultural blend.
Example: The blending of Spanish and indigenous cultures in Latin America to create unique new cultural forms.
Multiculturalism: The presence of, or support for the presence of, several distinct cultural or ethnic groups within a society.
Example: Canada's official policy of encouraging diverse cultural groups to maintain their distinct identities while participating in Canadian society.
Folk Culture vs. Popular Culture
Folk Culture:
Origin: Anonymous hearths, often rural and isolated, originating at multiple unknown dates.
Diffusion: Slowly, primarily through relocation diffusion.
Distribution: Spatially isolated, local scale, homogeneous groups.
Characteristics: Traditional, stable, resistant to change, often tied to local environment, unique practices.
Examples: Amish traditions, traditional clothing (e.g., saris in India), specific regional foods (e.g., clam chowder in New England).
Popular Culture:
Origin: Specific, identifiable hearths, often in MDCs (More Developed Countries), through commercialization and industrialization.
Diffusion: Rapidly and extensively through hierarchical and contagious diffusion, often via mass media (internet, TV).
Distribution: Widespread, global scale, heterogeneous groups.
Characteristics: Dynamic, constantly changing, uniform, often driven by consumerism and media.
Examples: Global fashion trends, pop music, fast food chains (e.g., McDonald's), professional sports.
Language
Definition: A system of communication through speech, a collection of sounds understood by a group of people to have the same meaning.
Language Family: A collection of languages related through a common ancestral language that existed long before recorded history.
Example: Indo-European (largest), Sino-Tibetan.
Language Branch: A collection of languages within a family related through a common ancestral language that existed several thousand years ago.
Example: Germanic, Romance, Slavic (within Indo-European).
Language Group: A collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past and display relatively few differences in grammar and vocabulary.
Example: West Germanic (including English, German, Dutch).
Dialect: A regional variation of a language distinguished by distinctive vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation.
Example: British English vs. American English.
Isogloss: A geographic boundary within which a particular linguistic feature occurs.
Lingua Franca: A language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages.
Example: English globally, Swahili in East Africa.
Pidgin Language: A simplified language created by combining elements of two or more languages, often used for communication between speakers of different languages.
Creole Language: A language that results from the mixing of a colonizer's language with the indigenous language of the people being dominated and has been fully developed with complex grammar and vocabulary.
Language Extinction: Occurs when a language is no longer spoken by anyone as their native language.
Religion
Definition: A system of beliefs and practices that attempts to order life in terms of culturally perceived ultimate priorities.
Types of Religions:
Universalizing Religions: Attempt to be global, to appeal to all people, wherever they may live, not just to one culture or location.
Characteristics: Often have a specific founder, holy books, proselytizing (actively seeking converts).
Examples: Christianity (largest), Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism.
Diffusion: Extensive, often through missionaries and conquest (relocation, contagious, hierarchical).
Ethnic Religions: Appeal primarily to one group of people living in one place.
Characteristics: Often have unknown or multiple origins, closely tied to physical geography and a specific ethnicity, not proselytizing.
Examples: Hinduism (largest), Judaism, Shintoism, Folk Religions.
Diffusion: Limited, primarily through relocation diffusion (migration of followers).
Branches, Denominations, Sects:
Branch: A large and fundamental division within a religion (e.g., Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy within Christianity).
Denomination: A division of a branch that unites a number of local congregations in a single legal and administrative body.
Sect: A relatively small group that has broken away from an established denomination.
Religious Landscapes: Sacred spaces, burial practices, religious architecture and monuments, place names.
Ethnicity and Race
Ethnicity: Identity with a group of people who share the cultural traditions of a particular homeland or hearth.
Characteristics: Shared heritage, language, religion, customs, history.
Example: Hispanic, African American, Chinese American.
Race: Identity with a group of people descended from a biological ancestor.
Characteristics: Social construct, often based on perceived physical characteristics like skin color.
Important Note: Geographers emphasize ethnicity over race because ethnicity reflects cultural identity, while race often leads to social stratification and discrimination.
Ethnic Enclave: A place with a high concentration of an ethnic group that is distinct from those in the surrounding area (e.g., 'Chinatowns', 'Little Italys').
Ethnoburb: A suburban ethnic enclave that is home to a relatively affluent immigrant population.
Cultural Landscapes and Identity
Cultural Landscape: The visible imprint of human activity on the landscape. It represents the ways in which human societies transform the natural environment into a cultural environment.
Examples: Agricultural fields, buildings, roads, religious sites, monuments, cemeteries.
Sequent Occupance: The notion that successive societies leave their cultural imprints on a place, each contributing to the cumulative cultural landscape.
Example: New Orleans showing layers of French, Spanish, African, and American influences.
Identity: How people make sense of themselves and their position in society.
Placelessness: The loss of uniqueness of place in the cultural landscape to the point that one place looks like the next (often associated with globalization and popular culture).
Sense of Place: The feeling evoked by people as a result of the experiences and memories they associate with a place, and the symbolic meanings they attach to it.