Notes
Culture and cultural landscapes
- Culture includes beliefs, practices, language and material objects. Folk culture is traditional and local; popular culture spreads quickly and widely.
- The cultural landscape is the visible human imprint on the land (architecture, signs, land use). Sequent occupance is the layering of different groups' cultural marks over time.
- Centripetal forces unite a society (shared language, national holidays); centrifugal forces divide it.
- Attitudes about gender, ethnicity and identity shape spaces (ethnic neighborhoods, sacred sites).
Diffusion
- Relocation diffusion: spreads as people move (immigrants bringing food traditions).
- Expansion diffusion: spreads outward while staying strong at the origin:
- Contagious: spreads person to person (viral videos).
- Hierarchical: spreads from powerful or connected people or places first (fashion trends from big cities).
- Stimulus: the idea spreads but is changed to fit local culture (McDonald's vegetarian menus in India).
- Acculturation (adopting some traits of another culture), assimilation (adopting the dominant culture fully), syncretism (blending, like Tex-Mex food), and multiculturalism.
- Globalization and the internet speed diffusion and can lead to cultural convergence, while some groups resist and protect traditions.
Language
- Language families: Indo-European is the largest (including English, Spanish and Hindi). Others include Sino-Tibetan and Afro-Asiatic.
- Lingua franca: a common language for trade (English today, Swahili in East Africa). Creoles and pidgins form from mixing languages. Some languages are endangered.
Religion
- Universalizing religions seek converts worldwide: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Sikhism.
- Ethnic religions are tied to a particular group or place: Hinduism and Judaism.
- Hearths: Christianity (Bethlehem and Jerusalem), Islam (Mecca), Buddhism (northern India). Christianity spread through missionaries and colonialism; Islam through trade and conquest; Buddhism along trade routes.
Practice
It moves from larger, more connected places first.
The idea is adapted to local culture.
It seeks followers beyond one ethnic group.
It includes English, Spanish, Hindi and Russian.
English plays this role in business today.
The culture moves with people.
They pull a society together.
It blends Mexican and American traditions.
Free response
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Free-response question
Answer (a), (b) and (c).
(a) Define hierarchical diffusion.
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The spread of a cultural trait from people or places of power or influence (like major cities or celebrities) down to smaller places or other people.
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(b) Explain how social media has changed the diffusion of popular culture.
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It speeds contagious diffusion, letting trends spread person to person around the world in days, and lets people in small places start trends.
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(c) Explain ONE way a local culture might respond to the spread of global popular culture.
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Communities may protect their traditions, for example by passing laws to protect their language (like Quebec's French language laws) or by reviving local festivals.
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