Download chapt07_lecture Getis 13e

Introduction to
Geography
Arthur Getis, Judith Getis, &
Jerome D. Fellmann
Cultural Geography
Chapter 7
Overview










Components of Culture
Interaction of People and Environment
Subsystems of Culture
Culture Change
Cultural Diversity
Language
Religion
Ethnicity
Gender and Culture
Other Aspects of Diversity
Components of Culture

Culture is learned, not biological


Through imitation, instruction, example
Culture is not homogenous
Components of Culture
Spatial Hierarchy of Cultural Geography
 Culture trait


Culture complex


Single distinguishing feature of a culture
Group of culture traits that are functionally interrelated
Culture system

Collection of interacting cultural traits and cultural
complexes that are shared by a group within a
particular territory
Components of Culture
Spatial Hierarchy of Cultural Geography
 Culture region


Portion of the earth’s surface occupied by people
sharing recognizable and distinctive cultural
characteristics
Culture realm

Collective of culture regions sharing related culture
complexes and landscapes
Interaction of People and
Environment

Cultural ecology


Study of the relationship between a culture group and
the natural environment it occupies
Environments as controls

Environmental determinism
 Peaked in popularity in late 19th - early 20th Centuries
 Taught that physical environment, in particular
climate, determined which cultures would become the
most advanced and economically developed
 However, cultural variations that occur around the
world are not determined by a society’s physical
surroundings
Interaction of People and
Environment

Environments as controls (continued)


Possibilism
 People, not environments, are the dynamic forces of
cultural development
 Physical environment offers a set of opportunities
and limitations
Human impacts on environment


Cultural landscape
 The earth’s surface as modified by human action
 Tangible physical record of a given culture
Relationship exists between technological
advancement and impact on the environment
Three Subsystems of Culture

Technological subsystem




Material objects and techniques people use to carry out
their productive activities
Cultural divergence
Cultural convergence
Technologically advanced countries
 Many people employed in manufacturing or services
 High per capita incomes, levels of education,
nutrition, life expectancies, medical services
 Economic and political power
Three Subsystems of Culture

Technological subsystem (continued)


Technologically less-advanced countries
 High percentage of people engaged in farming
 Lower GNI and per capita incomes, life
expectancies, literacy rates
Labels
 Advanced-less advanced
 Developed-underdeveloped
 Industrial-nonindustrial
 The North-The South
 Can be misinterpreted to mean “superior-inferior”
Three Subsystems of Culture

Sociological subsystem



Common patterns of interpersonal relations, behaviors
and interactions
 Regulate how the individual functions relative to the
group, whether it be family, church or state
Includes religious, political, educational and other
social institutions
Social institutions are closely related to the
technological subsystem
Three Subsystems of Culture

Ideological subsystem




Ideas, beliefs, knowledge and means of their
communication
Passed from one generation to the next
Changes in ideological subsystem may affect
sociological and technological subsystems
Cultural integration


Interlocking nature of all aspects of culture
Means that any cultural object or act may have a
number of meanings
Culture Change


Cultures are always in a state of flux
Change within cultures is induced by:



Innovation
Spatial diffusion
Acculturation
Culture Change: Innovation




Change results from ideas created within the
social group and adopted by it
Premodern and traditional societies typically
are slower to innovate and accept change
Cultural lag
Agricultural Revolution


Occurred independently in several areas
Affected every aspect of society
Culture Change: Innovation

Culture hearth



Area of innovation from which key culture elements
diffused to exert an influence on surrounding regions
Only a few produced the trappings of civilization
Innovation is common in modern societies
Culture Change:
Spatial Diffusion

Process by which a concept, a practice, an
innovation or a substance spreads from its point
of origin to new territories

Two processes are involved



People move to a new area and take culture with them
Or information about an innovation can spread
Parallel innovation
Culture Change:
Spatial Diffusion

Barriers to diffusion - Receiver culture may
selectively adopt some goods or ideas and reject
others

Syncretism is a major feature of culture change

Fusion of old and new culture elements
Culture Change: Acculturation

Process by which one culture group undergoes
major modification by adopting many
characteristics of another, usually dominant,
culture group



May involve changes in the original cultural patterns
or either or both of the two groups involved
May occur in a conquered or colonized region
May occur when a population relocates
Culture Change: Acculturation

Amalgamation theory




Multiethnic societies become a merger of the culture
traits of their member groups
“Melting pot”
“Salad bowl” or “lumpy stew”
Assimilation



Completion of integration process
Does not necessarily mean that consciousness of
original identity is reduced or lost
Competition theory
Cultural Diversity

Prominent differentiating culture traits of
societies and regions




Language
Religion
Ethnicity
Gender
Language

Organized system of speech by which people
communicate with each other with mutual
comprehension

Most important medium by which culture is
transmitted

Nearly 7000 different languages are spoken in
the world

Many languages are disappearing
Language

Language (linguistic) family



Group of languages thought to have descended from
a common ancestral tongue (proto-Indo-European)
E.g., Indo-European languages
 Spoken by about ½ the world’s peoples
Subfamilies exist within language family
 E.g., the Romance languages and the Germanic
languages
Language:
Language Spread and Change

Language spreads through dispersion of
speakers or acquisition of new speakers

Language spread may, through segregation
and isolation, give rise to mutually unintelligible
tongues

Language evolution may be gradual and
cumulative or it may be massive and abrupt
Language:
Language Spread and Change

Evolution and spread of English


Within ≈400 years developed from localized language
of 7 million islanders to international language
English today





≈ 400 million native speakers
≈ 600 million use it as a second language
Millions more have some competence in English as a
foreign language
Official language of 60 countries
Dominant language facilitating increased global
interaction
Language: Standard and
Variant Languages

A speech community usually possesses both a
standard language and a number of dialects



Standard language
 Comprises accepted community norms of syntax,
vocabulary, pronunciation
Dialect
 Ordinary speech of areal, social, professional or other
subdivisions of the general population
 Most dialects exhibit spatial patterns
Linguistic geography

Study of the character and spatial pattern of geographic,
or regional, dialects
Language: Standard and
Variant Languages

Pidgin




New auxiliary language which is an amalgam of
languages, usually a simplified form of one of them with
borrowings from another
 Simplified grammatical structure and reduced
vocabulary
Not the mother tongue of any of its speakers, second
language for all its users
Generally used for commerce, administration or work
supervision
If a pidgin becomes the first language of a group of
speakers, a creole has evolved
Language: Standard and
Variant Languages

Creole




Native tongue developed from a pidgin
Acquires more complex grammatical structure and
enhanced vocabulary
E.g., Swahili, Afrikaans, Haitian Creole and Bazaar
Malay
Lingua franca


Established language used habitually for
communication by people whose native tongues are
mutually incomprehensible
It is a second language for its users
Language:
Language and Culture

Language embodies the culture complex of a
people, reflecting both environment and
technology

Linguistic differences between the sexes

A common language fosters unity among people

Bilingualism or multilingualism complicates
national linguistic structure
Language:
Language and Culture

Toponyms


Place-names (language on the land)
 Record of past and present cultures
Toponymy


Study of place-names
Revealing tool of cultural geography
Religion

Cultural innovation

Value system that involves formal or informal
worship and faith in the sacred and divine

Joins adherents into a single moral community

May intimately affect all facets of a culture

Varies in its cultural role – dominating in some
societies, unimportant or even repressed in others
Religion:
Classification of Religions

Monotheism/Polytheism

Universalizing religions


Claim applicability to all persons and seek conversion
 Christianity, Islam, Buddhism
Ethnic religions

Identified with a particular ethnic group
 Judaism, Hinduism, Shinto
Religion:
Classification of Religions

Tribal (traditional) religions


Ethnic religions specific to small, preindustrial
cultures having close ties to nature
 Animism
 Shamanism
Secularism


Indifference to or rejection of religion and religious
belief
An increasing part of many modern societies
Religion:
Principal Religions

Judaism





Monotheism laid foundation for Christianity and Islam
Emerged 3000-3500 years ago in the Near East
Ethnic religion, determining factors of which are
descent from Israel, the Torah, Jewish traditions
Diaspora
State of Israel was a fulfillment of Zionism
Religion:
Principal Religions

Christianity






Jesus, a Jewish preacher, is believed to be the
messiah promised by God
The new covenant he preached was not a rejection of
traditional Judaism but a promise of salvation to all
humankind, rather than to just a chosen people
Universalizing religion
Division of Christianity, by dissolution of Roman
Empire, into Western Church and Eastern Church
Protestant Reformation of 15th and 16th Centuries
Catholic vs. Protestant cultural landscape
Religion:
Principal Religions

Islam






Mohammed revered as the prophet of Allah (God)
Koran contains rules of worship, details of doctrine and
instructions on the conduct of human affairs
Observance of “five pillars” and surrender to will of
Allah unites faithful into community that has no concern
with race, color or caste
Spread quickly outward from source region of Arabia
through Islamic political and military expansion
Disagreement over succession of leadership after
Mohammed led to division between Sunnis and Shi’ites
Cultural landscape - mosque
Religion:
Principal Religions

Hinduism




Oldest major religion (≈ 4000 or more years old)
 No founding event or initial prophet
Ethnic religion
Adherents may believe in one god or many or none
A Hindu is one born into a caste, a member of a
complex social, economic and religious community
Religion:
Principal Religions

Sikhism



Syncretism of Islam and Hinduism
Rejects formalism of both
Proclaims gospel of universal tolerance
Religion:
Principal Religions

Buddhism








Reform movement of Hinduism
Universalizing faith
Founded in 6th century B.C. in northern India
Moral philosophy taught by Siddhartha Gautama
Enlightenment and salvation lie in “four noble truths”
Spread to other parts of Asia
Today - Various schools of thought
Cultural landscape
 Stupa
 Temple or pagoda enshrining Buddha image or relic
 Monastery
Religion:
Principal Religions

East Asian ethnic religions influenced by
Buddhism



Confucianism
Taoism
Japanese Shinto
Ethnicity

Usually refers to the ancestry of people who
share common characteristics


Ethnocentrism


Feeling that one’s own ethnic group is superior
Territorial segregation


Language, religion, national origin, unique customs
Strong and sustaining trait of ethnic identity
Ethnic enclaves
Gender and Culture


Socially created distinctions between femininity and
masculinity
Gender relationships and role assignments differ
among societies

Influenced by economic development, religion, customs
 General egalitarianism in hunting and gathering cultures
 Agriculture altered the structure of gender roles
 Ideal Victorian woman
 Subordinate role of women changed only in the later
20th century in more-developed countries - Feminist
revolution
Gender and Culture

Mixed impact of economic globalization on female
participation in the paid labor force


On worldwide basis, increase in women’s share of paid
employment; however, has not necessarily reduced
gender discrimination
Distinct gender-specific regionalization has emerged
 Arab or Arab-influenced Muslim areas of western
Asia and North Africa – proportion of female
population that is economically active is low
 Sub-Saharan Africa – highly dependent on female
farm labor and market income
Gender and Culture

Mixed impact of economic globalization on female
participation in the paid labor force

Distinct gender-specific regionalization has emerged
(continued)
 Japan – Males nearly exclusively run the huge
industrial and political machinery
 Scandinavian countries – economic and social
equality is more advanced than perhaps any portion
of the industrialized world
Other Aspects of Diversity



Culture is the sum total of the way of life of a
society
Economic development levels, language,
religion, ethnicity and gender all are important
and common distinguishing culture traits, but
they only tell a partial story
Many other elements of culture exist, including:




Architectural styles
Music
Food
Games
Other Aspects of Diversity

Spatial interaction, another aspect of culture, is
the subject of chapter eight