UNIT 3 – CULTURAL PATTERNS AND PROCESSES

PART 1: CONCEPTS OF CULTURE AND DIFFUSION

ENDURING UNDERSTANDING (3.A)

• By the end of this section, you will understand that concepts of culture frame the shared behaviors of a society.

ENDURING UNDERSTANDING (3.A)

• Essential Question
• How do folk and popular cultures differ in the ways they help form a society’s overall culture?

LEARNING OBJECTIVE (3.A.1)

• By the end of this section, you will be able to explain the concept of culture and identify cultural traits
• Culture is comprised of the shared practices, technologies, attitudes, and behaviors transmitted by a society.
• Cultural traits are individual elements of culture and include such things as food preferences, architecture, and land use.

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CONCEPTS OF CULTURE AND DIFFUSION

“The Buffalo was part of us, his flesh and blood being absorbed by us until it became our own flesh and blood. Our clothing, our tipis, everything we needed for life came from the buffalo’s body. It was hard to say where the animals ended and the human began.”

– John (Fire) Lame Deer, Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions, 1972

CONCEPTS OF CULTURE AND DIFFUSION

• To the Lakota and other indigenous people on North America’s Great Plains, the bison was an essential part of their culture
• Provided meat for nutrition, a hide for clothing and shelter, bones for tools, and fat for soap
• Central to their religious beliefs
• When European settlers hunted the bison, Lakota culture suffered

ANALYZING CULTURE

• Culture includes all of a group’s learned behaviors, actions, beliefs, and objects
• Visible force seen in a group’s actions, possessions, and influence on the landscape
• Example: in a large city you can see people working in offices, factories, and stores, and living in high-rise apartments or suburban homes. You might observe them attending movies, concerts, or sports events

ANALYZING CULTURE

• Culture is also an invisible force guiding people through shared belief systems, customs, and traditions
• Visible + Invisible = cultural traits
• Example: a single cultural artifact, such as an automobile, may represent many different values
• These interrelated traits make up a cultural complex

3. What are the 2 kinds of culture traits?

1. Material Culture (Artifacts): products of technology; visible objects that people possess and leave for the future (Ch. 4) (Material World – Peter Menzel)

• food, clothes, houses, tools, weapons, vehicles, art, music, games
• Tangible evidence of human interaction with environment – cultural landscape; built environment

2. Non-material Culture (Mentifacts): values, ideas, ideologies, beliefs, knowledge, communication, abstract belief systems (Ch. 5&6)

• Language, religion, mythology, legends, literature, philosophy, folk wisdom (“old-wives tales”)
• Transmitted through the education and socialization process – children taught how to think and communicate within a society

ANALYZING CULTURE

• One generation passes its culture to the next in many ways
• Children learn in three basic ways
• Imitation: language – repeating sounds
• Informal instruction: a parent reminds a child to say please
• Formal instruction: a school teaches history

ORIGINS OF CULTURE

• Cultural hearth is the area in which a unique culture or a specific trait develops
• Examples
• Classical Greece for democracy more than 2,000 years ago
• New York City for rap music in the 1970s
• Geographers study how cultures develop in hearths and diffuse

ORIGINS OF CULTURE

• Taboos are behaviors heavily discouraged by a culture
• Examples
• Eating certain foods (pork or insects)
• Change over time – in the U.S., it was once taboo for Protestants to marry Catholics but is not widely opposed now

ORIGINS OF CULTURE

• Folk Cultures
• Small, homogenous groups of people
• Often live in rural areas
• Relatively isolated
• Slow to change

ORIGINS OF CULTURE

• Folk Cultures
• Demonstrate the diverse ways people have adapted to a physical environment
• Example: making shelter out of available resources (snow, mud bricks, wood, etc.)
• However, people use similar resources like wood differently
• Scandinavia – use entire logs to build cabins
• American Midwest – processed trees into boards, built a frame, and attached boards to it

ORIGINS OF CULTURE

• Folk Cultures
• Sometimes, people independently develop similar responses to similar environments
• Mongols in Central Asia and Plains Indians in North America
• Flat open land
• Extreme weather
• Portable, round shelters made of frames and animal skins

ORIGINS OF CULTURE

• The Spread of Cultures
• Folk cultures provide a unique sense of place and belonging through homogeneity
• Sense of place gives inhabitants ties to the area where they live, thus giving them a sense of ownership
• People, goods, and ideas move throughout the world and cultures spread spatially way beyond their hearths
• Example: kiwi was only found from China to New Zealand – now it can be found all over the world

LEARNING OBJECTIVE (3.A.3)

• By the end of this section, you will be able to explain how globalization is influencing cultural interactions and change.
• Communication technologies (e.g., the Internet) are reshaping and accelerating interactions among people and places and changing cultural practices (e.g., use of English, loss of indigenous languages).

GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURAL CHANGE

• As a result of the Industrial Revolution, improvements in transportation and communication have shortened the time required for movement, trade, or other forms of interaction between two places.
• Space-time compression has accelerated culture change around the world, including the spread of English
• Example
• 1817: freight shipment from Cincinnati to New York City took 52 days
• 1850: canals and railroads cut that time in half
• 1852: took 7 days
• Today: by airplane (a few hours) and digital information (seconds or less)

GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURAL CHANGE

• Globalization and Popular Culture
• Globalization is the process of intensified interaction among people, governments, and companies of different countries around the globe
• Popular culture consists of cultural traits (clothing, music, movies, businesses) that spread quickly across over a large area and are adopted by various groups
• Usually spreads via media, specifically internet
• Examples: European soccer, Indian Bollywood movies, Japanese anime
• Often promote uniformity in beliefs, values, and the cultural landscape across many cultures

LEARNING OBJECTIVE (3.B.5)

• By the end of this section, you will be able to compare and contrast popular and folk culture and the geographic patterns associated with each.
• Folk culture origins are usually anonymous and rooted in tradition and are often found in rural or isolated indigenous communities
• Popular culture origins are often urban, changeable, and influenced by media

GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURAL CHANGE

• Popular Culture vs. Folk Culture
• Pop culture emphasizes the new rather than preserving tradition
• Those who follow a folk culture often resist this change by preserving traditional languages, religions, values, and foods
• They may slow down the transition but rarely stop the traditional culture from changing, especially among the younger people

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ORIGIN

• Often anonymous origins
• Multiple hearths / independent invention
• Found in isolated, rural areas

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• Response to physical environment
• Local diversity due to diverse geography

Art, Food / Cuisine, Clothing, Shelter, Weapons

• Little to no change over time
• Unique identities of culture groups
• Sensitive to protection of environment

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DIFFUSION

• Relocation diffusion / migration
• Diffusion occurs slowly
• Music reflects events in daily life
• Music tells stories (ballads)
• Music conveys useful info

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DISTRIBUTION

• Small, homogeneous groups
• Narrowly distributed; clustered
• Found in isolated, rural areas
• Little to no spatial interaction
• Provincial
• Stage 1 & 2 DTM (LDCs)
• Varies from place to place at given time

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ORIGIN

• Products of specific artists
• Produced to make money (commercial)
• Broad appeal to all in all places
• Threatens local diversity
• Disregard for local environments
• Leads to uniformity of cultural landscape
• Influenced by elements of folk culture, but for broader market appeal; forms of recreation and entertainment become commercialized businesses
• Folk culture often transforms into Popular Culture

Soccer / rugby / football, Lacrosse (“bum hips”), Ice hockey / Curling / skiing, Baseball, Basketball

DIFFUSION

• Expansion / Hierarchical diffusion
• Diffusion occurs rapidly thru modern communications (tv, radio, internet)
• Music is mass produced for commercial uses
• Constant, rapid interaction
• Rapid, constant change (fads & trends)

DISTRIBUTION

• Widely distributed; dispersed
• Large, heterogeneous societies
• Found in urban areas
• Cosmopolitan
• Stage 3 & 4 DTM (MDCs)
• Varies from time to time at a given place

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FOLK CULTURE

POPULAR CULTURE

• Small, homogeneous groups
• Narrowly distributed; clustered
• Found in isolated, rural areas
• Little to no spatial interaction
• Provincial
• Little to no change over time
• Varies from place to place at given time
• Unique identities of culture groups
• Sensitive to protection of environment
• Often anonymous origins
• Multiple hearths / independent invention
• Response to physical environment
• Local diversity due to diverse geography

Art, Food / Cuisine, Clothing, Shelter,Weapons

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• Stage 1 & 2 DTM (LDCs)
• Relocation diffusion / migration
• Diffusion occurs slowly
• Music reflects events in daily life
• Music tells stories (ballads)
• Music conveys useful info
• Often transform into Popular Culture
• Soccer / rugby / football
• Lacrosse (“bum hips”)
• Ice hockey / Curling / skiing
• Baseball
• Golf

• Large, heterogeneous societies
• Widely distributed; dispersed
• Found in urban areas
• Constant, rapid interaction
• Cosmopolitan
• Rapid, constant change (fads & trends)
• Varies from time to time at a given place
• Threatens local diversity
• Disregard for local environments
• Products of specific artists
• Produced to make money (commercial)
• Broad appeal to all in all places
• Leads to uniformity of cultural landscape

• Stage 3 & 4 DTM (MDCs)
• Expansion / Hierarchical diffusion
• Diffusion occurs rapidly thru modern communications (tv, radio, internet)
• Music is mass produced for commercial uses
• Influenced by elements of folk culture, but for broader market appeal; forms of recreation and entertainment become commercialized businesses
• World Cup Soccer
• Olympic Games
• World Baseball Games
• The Open Championship

FOLK CULTURE

POPULAR CULTURE

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GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURAL CHANGE

GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURAL CHANGE

• Popular Culture vs. Folk Culture
• Example: Brazil
• As the population expands to the interior of the rain forest, many indigenous people are being exposed to outside groups
• Many young people continue to integrate into the larger Brazilian society which threatens the existence of their folk culture

GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURAL CHANGE

GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURAL CHANGE

GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURAL CHANGE

• Geography of Gender
• In folk cultures, people often have clearly defined gender-specific roles
• Women – work in the household
• Men - work outside the house to earn money and serve as religious and political leaders

GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURAL CHANGE

• Geography of Gender
• In popular culture, gender-specific roles are diminishing
• Women – have more access to economic resources, more opportunity to work outside the home, and more chances to serve as leaders

GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURAL CHANGE

• Geography of Gender
• Throughout history, in many cultures, certain behaviors have been acceptable for only one gender, and often only in certain places
• Men have operated more freely than women in public spaces while certain private spaces have been reserved for women

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GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURAL CHANGE

• Resistance to Globalization
• The spreading of popular culture has created tension between globalization and local diversity.
• Some cultures with strict gender roles often resent the gender equality often seen in Hollywood movies
• Workers in the U.S. resist the transfer of their jobs to overseas locations
• Speakers of endangered languages resist the spread of English

List of Hollywood Movies Banned in Other Countries

LEARNING OBJECTIVE (3.B.2.A)

• By the end of this section, you will be able to explain the diffusion of culture and cultural traits through time and space.
• Types of diffusion include expansion and relocation

DIFFUSION OF CULTURE

• Cultural hearths are the original sources of culture yet many cultures have spread beyond their hearths
• The spreading of information, ideas, behaviors, and other aspects of culture over wider areas is known as diffusion
• The two major forms of cultural diffusion come through cultural exchanges by migration and by more indirect means

ORIGIN

• Often anonymous origins
• Multiple hearths / independent invention
• Found in isolated, rural areas

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• Response to physical environment
• Local diversity due to diverse geography

Art, Food / Cuisine, Clothing, Shelter, Weapons

• Little to no change over time
• Unique identities of culture groups
• Sensitive to protection of environment

​

DIFFUSION

• Relocation diffusion / migration
• Diffusion occurs slowly
• Music reflects events in daily life
• Music tells stories (ballads)
• Music conveys useful info

​

DISTRIBUTION

• Small, homogeneous groups
• Narrowly distributed; clustered
• Found in isolated, rural areas
• Little to no spatial interaction
• Provincial
• Stage 1 & 2 DTM (LDCs)
• Varies from place to place at given time

​

ORIGIN

• Products of specific artists
• Produced to make money (commercial)
• Broad appeal to all in all places
• Threatens local diversity
• Disregard for local environments
• Leads to uniformity of cultural landscape
• Influenced by elements of folk culture, but for broader market appeal; forms of recreation and entertainment become commercialized businesses
• Folk culture often transforms into Popular Culture

Soccer / rugby / football, Lacrosse (“bum hips”), Ice hockey / Curling / skiing, Baseball, Basketball

DIFFUSION

• Expansion / Hierarchical diffusion
• Diffusion occurs rapidly thru modern communications (tv, radio, internet)
• Music is mass produced for commercial uses
• Constant, rapid interaction
• Rapid, constant change (fads & trends)

DISTRIBUTION

• Widely distributed; dispersed
• Large, heterogeneous societies
• Found in urban areas
• Cosmopolitan
• Stage 3 & 4 DTM (MDCs)
• Varies from time to time at a given place

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FOLK CULTURE

POPULAR CULTURE

DIFFUSION OF CULTURE - RELOCATION

• Relocation diffusion is the spread of a cultural trait by people who migrate and carry their cultural traits with them.
• Small scale example: pizza (brought to the U.S. by Italian immigrants in the late 1800s)
• Large scale example: European culture (spread around the world starting in the 1500s)

DIFFUSION OF CULTURE - RELOCATION

• Sometimes, the areas where migrants settle continue a trait even after it has lost its influence in its hearth.
• Example: Disco music evolved in the U.S. in the 1970s but remained popular in Egypt long after it faded in the U.S.
• Example: Most people who pronounce English most like Shakespeare live, not in England, but in Appalachia.

Local Preferences affected by availability

What basic principle of diffusion is illustrated by the 2 maps in Figure 4-12 of the diffusion of Canadian whiskey and tequila?

• Canadian whiskey is most popular near Canada
• distance decay AND contagious diffusion
• Tequila is most popular near Mexico
• distance decay AND relocation diffusion

DIFFUSION OF CULTURE - EXPANSION

• Expansion Diffusion is the spread of cultural traits through direct or indirect exchange without migration.
• Contagious
• Hierarchical
• Reverse hierarchical
• Stimulus

DIFFUSION OF CULTURE - CONTAGIOUS

• Contagious Diffusion occurs when a cultural traits spreads continuously outward from its hearth through contact among people
• Example: Blues music
• Hearth – southern United States
• As musicians outside the hearth heard the music, they began to play it themselves
• Slowly spread northward and eventually reached major cities such as St. Louis, Chicago, and New York

DIFFUSION OF CULTURE - HIERARCHICAL

• Hierarchical Diffusion is the spread of culture outward from the most interconnected places or from centers of wealth and importance.
• First from one important person, city, or powerful class to another important person, city, or social class.
• Eventually, the trait is shared with other people, smaller cities, social classes, or less developed countries.
• Unlike contagious diffusion, hierarchical diffusion may skip some places while moving on to others.
• Most popular culture (music, fashion, fads) follows this path.

DIFFUSION OF CULTURE

• Example: cell phone technology
• 1980s – expensive and mostly owned by wealthy people in large cities in more developed countries (MDCs)
• As cell phone networks grew and cell phones became more mass produced, they eventually spread to a wider market
• Today, cell phones have diffused throughout the world

DIFFUSION OF CULTURE – REVERSE HIERARCHICAL

• Reverse Hierarchical Diffusion is the processes in which a trait diffuses from a lower class to a higher class.
• Example: tattoos
• 1940-1960, tattoos were a symbol of low social status and were associated with three types of places: seaport towns (dockworkers and sailors), military bases, and prisons.
• 1970s – the custom has diffused throughout many segments of society and geographic areas
• Example: Walmart – from rural Arkansas to nearly every U.S. city

DIFFUSION OF CULTURE - STIMULUS

• Stimulus Diffusion occurs when people in a culture adopt an underlying idea or process from another culture, but modify it because they reject one trait of it.
• Example: Hindus in India adopted the practice of eating fast food but rejected eating beef because it would violate their Hindu beliefs. They adapted by making vegetarian and other non-beef burgers.
• Example: Europeans adopted the use of lightweight, beautiful porcelain dishes from China but rejected the high cost of importing them. So when Germans found the right type of clay to make their own, they modified the process of obtaining porcelain by making it in Europe.

CONTACT BETWEEN CULTURES

• Diffusion describes the ways cultures spread.
• As they spread, they come into contact with other cultures.
• This interaction is one of the driving forces in human history and it can have several types of results:
• Acculturation
• Assimilation
• Multiculturalism
• Nativism

CONTACT BETWEEN CULTURES

• Acculturation occurs when an ethnic or immigrant group moving to a new area adopts the values and practices of the larger group that has received them, while still maintaining major elements of their own culture.
• Example: In the 1880’s, a family migrated from Denmark to a Danish enclave in Iowa. They gave most of their 10 children traditional Danish names, such as Inger and Niels and ate Danish foods. Within three generations, their descendants still ate Danish foods but had names common in U.S. culture, such as Susan, Dave, and Jim.

CONTACT BETWEEN CULTURES

• Example: the grandchildren of immigrants from India might no longer speak Hindi or eat traditional Indian food daily, but they might still practice their Hindi faith. Often, third or fourth generations will display a resurgence of pride and organize festivals, learn the ethnic language, and revitalize ethnic neighborhoods.

• Assimilation happens when an ethnic group can no longer be distinguished from the receiving group.
• The ethnic groups become more affluent and leave their ethnic areas.
• However, complete assimilation is rare as at least one trait usually persists – most commonly religion

CONTACT BETWEEN CULTURES

• Multiculturalism is the coexistence of several cultures in one society, with the ideal of all cultures being valued and worthy of study.
• It is believed that the interaction of cultures enriches the lives of all.
• Can bring conflicts, as people and groups with different values, beliefs, and customs often clash.
• Minority groups face prejudice and discrimination – Syrian refugees fleeing civil war in 2011 faced opposition from some Americans who feared that some refugees could be terrorists.

CONTACT BETWEEN CULTURES

• Syncretism the blending of cultural traits from two different cultures into a new trait. In religions, the combining of different beliefs, while blending practices of various schools of thought.
• Ex: Tex-Mex, Mexican immigrants brought with them their traditional foods, such as tortillas, beans, and chili peppers. These ingredients were then combined with Anglo-American staples, such as beef, cheese, and sour cream, to create a new type of food.
• Rastafarianism, in which Christian religion is blended with Pan-African ethnic identity and Caribbean slave religious practices.

CONTACT BETWEEN CULTURES

• Some conflicts between two cultures become harsh
• Nativist, or anti-immigrant, attitudes may form among the cultural majority, sometimes bringing violence or government actions against the immigrant or minority group
• Can be toward one particular group or a general dislike of people from other countries (xenophobia)
• Examples: opposition in the U.S. to Roman Catholic immigrants in the 1800s and early 1900s.

GEOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVES

• The Diffusion of Deadly Diseases
• 1918 Influenza Epidemic (contagious diffusion)
• Immediately after World War I and killed three times more people than the war itself
• Source of outbreak is unclear – Kansas, Great Britain, or France
• East coast American cities quickly became hubs for diffusion as soldiers returning home carried the virus or contracted it at the port. Then, traveling home by train, spread it throughout the country
• Recent Epidemics
• Ebola in West Africa (2013)
• Zika virus in South America (2015)

Is Globalization good or bad?

• Crash Course Globalization Part II
• Negative outcomes of Cultural Globalization
• Threat to sustainability of Folk Culture
• Loss of Traditional Values – popular culture is an enemy of cultural traditions
• The Amish: Preserving Cultural Identity
• A threatened cultureA threatened culture (long versionA threatened culture (long version) (Breaking Amish)
• Marriage in India: Challenging Cultural Values
• Change in Traditional Role of Women in Traditional Countries
• Arranged marriages and dowries (India, Africa)
• Child Brides
• The Taliban
• Malala Yousafzai
• Jon Stewart and Malala
• Diffusion of popular culture improves the lives of women, but…9/11
• folk cultures are “endangered”…and some of them are fighting back

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Sustainability Challenges for Popular Culture

• Environmental Impact of Popular Culture
• Pollution of the landscape
• Depletion of scarce natural resources
• Landscape pollution
• Global diffusion of Uniform Landscapes; Why?
• Fast-food Restaurants, gas stations
• McDonaldsization
• Diffusion of Golf: folk or popular?
• Negative Environmental Impact of Golf
• Increased Demand for Natural Resources
• Pollution
• Anti-Trump Voices Grow Louder In Scotland After Development Rift

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Ch. 1 Key Issue #4 – Why Are Some Human Actions Not Sustainable?

• Sustainability – using the earth’s resources (renewable and non-renewable) in ways that ensure the availability for future generations
• 3 Pillars of sustainability:
• Environmentally friendly – “green”
• Economically viable – feed profit incentive
• Socially responsible – promotes high quality of life for all
• What can you do to BE sustainable?
• Reduce, reuse, recycle
• Conserve scarce resources
• Consume alternative energy
• Be a “new American consumer”

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