Cultural Evolution vs.

Cultural Diffusion
Behavioral Geography
Culture Realms
Global Diffusion of Western Culture

CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY
WHAT IS CULTURE? (IN SOCIOLOGY)
 Knowledge
 Language

 Values

 Customs

 Material objects

*Also called Cultural Traits or

Elements
NOTES ON CULTURAL
 Learned.  The process of
learning one’s culture is called
“enculturation.”  Culture is not
merely passively absorbed, but
rather taught and learned by
agentive individuals with
differing levels of power.
 Shared.  Members of a particular
society have their culture in
common.
 Patterned.  People in a given
society live and think in
distinctive and describable ways.
 Mutually constructed.  By means
of constant and ongoing social
interaction, individuals create,
recreate, and change the nature of a
particular culture.
 Symbolic.  Those within a
particular culture possess a shared
understanding of meaning.
 Arbitrary.  Culture is not based on
natural laws but rather is created by
human beings.
 Internalized.  Culture is habitual,
taken for granted, and perceived as
natural.
KEEP IT GOING
 Each is passed person to
person in the society
 Also from one generation to
the next
 CREATING CULTURAL LANDSCAPES
The earth’s surface as modified by human action
CULTURES CHANGE IN TWO WAYS:
Evolutionism Diffusionism

 Cultures change  Cultures change externally by

internally borrowing of cultural elements
 Technology plays an from one society by members
important role of another
 Cultural diffusion – process of
spreading
 Acculturation – process of
adopting
THEORIES OF CULTURAL
EVOLUTION
How might cultures change through internal measures?
VARRO’S THEORY OF HUMAN STAGES
 Stages of Development
 Stage 1 – Hunters & Gatherers
 Stage 2 – Pastoral Nomadism (domestication)
 Stage 3 – Settled agriculture (Subsistence agriculture)
 Stage 4 – Commercial Agriculture
 Stage 5 – Urbanization & Industry

 Challenges
 Not every culture passes through the same stages
 Not true of all societies
 “Some ahead and some behind”
 Used to dominate other cultures
MARX’S HISTORICAL MATERIALISM
 Looks for the causes of developments and
changes in human societies
 Technology is the key to change!

 Technology determines economic systems

which determines politics and society
 Cornucopian

 Goods would be distributed based on need

since technology would help produce
surplus.

* Malthusians believe that there is no

guarantee that technology will continue to
provide rising standards of living as
population increases.
ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINISM
 View that the physical environment, rather than social
conditions, determines culture.
 Societies adapt to natural landscape

 Climate (major control)

 Challenge-Response Theory
 People need the challenge of a difficult environment
 Weather of the middle latitudes led to more determined and driven
work ethics
 Possibilism
 Theory that the environment sets certain constraints or limitations,
but culture is otherwise determined by man's actions
Environmental
Determinism Debate
CULTURAL DIFFUSION
How might cultures change through external measures?
CULTURAL DIFFUSION
 Overwhelms Cultural Evolution
 Does not explain all distribution

 Diffusion is affected by a number of important variables:

 duration and intensity of contact
 degree of cultural integration
 similarities between the donor and recipient cultures
 built in cultural resistance

 Cultural Hearth – place of origin of culture elements

 Problem: Same phenomenon occurs spontaneously at two or
more places
ACCULTURATION
 Exchange of cultural features
that results when groups come
into continuous firsthand contact
 Immigrants adapt to cultural
change resulting from contact
with the dominant group by
using one of four strategies:
 Assimilation (adopting)
 Integration (multicultural)
 Separation (separate)
 Marginalization (alienation)
CULTURAL RESISTANCE
 France bids Adieu to “E-mail”

PARIS, July 18, 2003-- Goodbye "e-mail," the

French government says, and hello "courriel" — the
term that linguistically sensitive France is now using
to refer to electronic mail in official documents. The
Culture Ministry has announced a ban on the use of
"e-mail" in all government ministries, documents,
publications or websites, the latest step to stem an
incursion of English words into the French lexicon.
FOLK CULTURE
 Made up of people who maintain the traditional
 Describes people who live in an old-fashioned
way-simpler life-style
 Rural, cohesive, conservative, largely self-
sufficient group, homogeneous in custom
 Strong family or clan structure and highly
developed rituals
 Tradition is paramount — change comes
infrequently and slowly
FOLK CULTURE
Amish Appalachia
POPULAR CULTURE
 Consists of large masses of people who conform to and
prescribe to ever-changing norms
 Large heterogeneous groups
 Often highly individualistic and groups are constantly
changing
 Pronounced division of labor leading to establishment of
specialized professions
 Police and army take the place of religion and family in
maintaining order
 Money based economy prevails
 Replacing folk culture in industrialized countries and
many developing nations
GROUPING HUMANS IN
CULTURE
How are humans groups defined?
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RACE AND
ETHNICITY
 Race: attitudes formed in
consequence of being a
minority or majority
member (via privilege). –
Not assumed to be
biological
 Ethnicity: attitudes
formed associating with
the traditions and values
of particular ethnic group.
 Sociologist Max Weber once
remarked that:
"The whole conception of
ethnic groups is so complex
and so vague that it might be
good to abandon it
altogether.“
 Examples: Polish, Arab,
Chinese, Japanese, Mexican,
& French
 GROUPS
Culture Groups Ethnic Groups
 Defined by a variety of  “Ethno” – Gr. for people
characteristics or just one:  Ambiguous term
 Language/Literature
 May depend on:
 Religion/Values/Traditions
 Biology
 Politics/Beliefs
 Culture
 Food/Manners
 Allegiance
 Subjective
 Historic background
 Subculture – smaller bundle of
attributes shared by a smaller
 Ethnocentrism - judge other
group cultures by own standards
ARE YOU TABOO?
 Do you eat pork?
 Have you ever kissed in public?

 Should you have more than one wife or

husband?
 Do you eat with your left hand?

 Do you compliment physical features?

 Do you eat fertilized duck eggs?

 Do you wear shoes in the house?

 Have you ever talked back to an adult?

BEHAVIORAL GEOGRAPHY
 Approach to Human Geography that examines human
behavior
 Studies perceptions of the world and how perceptions
influence behavior.
 “Pictures in our heads” – Mental Maps

 People make decisions on their mental maps

 Cultural differences in perceptions

 Proxemics (cross-cultural study of the use of space)

 Territoriality
CULTURE REGIONS/ CULTURE
REALMS
WHAT CRITERIA IS USED TO DEFINE
1. Is it consistent?
THE CULTURE REGION? 2. Is it meaningful?
WHAT ARE THE MOST OBVIOUS FACTORS
OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY?
 Language
 Religion

 Ethnicity

 Architecture

 Statues & Monuments

 Clothing/Style
SETTLEMENT PATTERNS
 Cluster Housing
 Live together, work together
 Family or Religious bonds
 Common security
 Europe, Latin America, Asia,
Africa, & Middle East
 Isolated Housing
 Peace & security
 Agricultural colonization
 Anglo-America, Australia, New
Zealand, South Africa
FORCES THAT STABILIZE CULTURE
REALMS
 Despite diffusion, cultures remain fixed
 Inertia – term for the force that keeps things stable

 Historical Geography
 Studies the past and how geographic distributions have changed
 How people have interacted with their environment, and created
the cultural landscape.
 Fixed Assets (Infrastructure)
 Historical Consciousness (self reflection on history)

 Values - Preserve key aspects of culture

 Passed down from generation to generation

TRADE & CULTURAL DIFFUSION
 Diminishes isolation
 Triggers change - Important force of
diffusion
 Trade, economy, and culture
intertwined
 Part of Economic Geography
 Study of how various people make a
living, how economies develop, and
trade
 Export surplus, Import Luxuries
TRENDS IN TRADE
 More Trade, More Diffusion
 Nearly all parts of the world are affected

 Friction of Distance is less (costs down)

 Felt needs are created (think you need)

 Activities relocate freely – footloose

 Communication advances trades/ideas

 Electronic
highway
 Cyberspace

 Possible clash of “Civilizations”

GLOBAL DIFFUSION OF
EUROPEAN CULTURE
NOTES ON EUROPEAN CULTURE
 Widespread (through conquest)
 Massive Impact

 Progress or unwanted
acculturation???
 Illustrates all types, paths, and
processes of diffusion

Prince Henry “the Navigator”

CULTURAL IMPERIALISM
 European ways are superior
 Christianity a major catalyst
(conversion)
 Economic & military
superiority
 Methods
 Force
 Training/schooling
 Reference Group Behavior
(desire to belong)
 Rewarding
 Degrading
WESTERNIZATION TODAY
 Diffusion continues  U.S. Influence
 Wealthy buy Western  Very strong
products  9/11 Ripple Effect
 Young adopt western styles
 Negative views of
 Media & TV increase rate
American policies
of diffusion
 “Drugs”
 Tourism
 “Peace-Keeping”
 Non-Western Professionals
 Spreadof U.S. Culture
(Europe & U.S.)
 Economic Power
 Transforming traditional
cultures/folk cultures
UGLY AMERICAN
 Used to describe boorish people from the U.S.
insensitive to those in other countries
 Bothers fans of the 1958 novel The Ugly American,
whose title character was actually sensitive and
thoughtful—he just looked ugly

Are Americans truly ugly?

“The Great Satan” – 1979 Ayatollah

Khomeini
 47 nations surveyed
PEW GLOBAL ATTITUDES PROJECT
(6/2006)
 America's Image Slips  In Japan, barely a quarter of
 Spain,India, Russia, respondents (26%) now favor
Indonesia, & Turkey the U.S.-led war on terror
 U.S.-led war on terror  War in Iraq has made the world
draws majority support in a more dangerous place
just two countries - India  33 of the 47 countries polled
and Russia expressed a dislike of American
 United States as the worst ideas about democracy, with the
culprit in “hurting the hostility highest in three allies:
world’s environment.” Turkey, France and Pakistan.
WHAT ARE AMERICAN VALUES?
 Equal Opportunity  Progress (move forward)
 Achievement & Success  Science
(competition)  Democracy and Free
 Material Comfort enterprise (individual rights
 Activity and Work have significant value)
(action)  Freedom (individual over

 Practicality and the group)

efficiency  Racism and group
superiority