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PROCESSES OF CHANGE
CHAPTER 15
FALL 2011
Why do Cultures Change?
All cultures change at one time or another for a variety of reasons. Although people
may deliberately alter their ways in response to problems or challenges, much
change is unforeseen, unplanned, and undirected. Changes in existing values and
behaviors may also come about due to contact with other peoples who introduce
new ideas or tools. This sometimes involves the massive imposition of foreign ideas
and practices through conquest of one group by another. Through cultural change,
societies can adapt to altered conditions; however, not all change is positive or
adaptive.
What is Modernization?
Modernization is a problematic term referring to a process of change by which
traditional, nonindustrial societies acquire characteristics of technologically
complex societies. Accelerated modernization interconnecting all parts of the world
is known as globalization. Although commonly assumed to be a good thing,
modernization has also led to the destruction of treasured customs and values,
leaving many people unsettled, disoriented, and demoralized.
How Do Cultures Change?
The mechanisms of cultural change include innovation, diffusion, cultural loss, and
acculturation. Innovation is the discovery or creation of something that is then
accepted by fellow members in a society. Diffusion is the borrowing of something
from another group, and cultural loss is the abandonment of an existing practice or
trait, with or without replacement. Acculturation is a massive change that comes
about in a group due to intensive firsthand contact with another, usually more
powerful group. Typically, it occurs when dominant societies forcefully expand
their activities beyond their borders, pressuring other societies to abandon their
traditional culture and replace it with the foreign one.
Culture has become the primary medium through which the human species adapts
to change and solves the problems of existence. Various cultural institutions—such
as religion, kinship, marriage, and political and economic organization—mesh to
form an integrated cultural system. Because systems generally work to maintain
stability, cultures are often fairly steady and remain so unless there is a critical
change in one or more significant factors such as natural environment, technology,
population density—or in people’s perceptions of the various conditions to which
they are adapted.
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Archaeological studies revel how elements of a culture may persist for long periods.
In northeastern North America, for example, the cultures of indigenous inhabitants
remained relatively consistent over thousands of years because they successfully
adapted to relatively minor fluctuations in their social conditions and natural
environments, making changes from time to time in tools, utensils, and other
material support.
Although stability may be a striking feature of many traditional cultures, all cultures
are capable of adapting to changing conditions—climatic, economic, political, or
ideological. Adaptation is a consequence of change that happens to work
favorably for a population.
However, not all change is positive or adaptive, and not all cultures are equally well
equipped for making the necessary adjustments in a timely fashion. In a stable
society, change may occur gently and gradually, without altering in any fundamental
way the culture’s underlying structures, as was the case in much of North America
before the European invasion several centuries ago. Sometimes, though, the pace of
change may increase dramatically, to the point of destabilizing or even breaking up
a cultural system. The modern world is full of examples of such radical changes,
form the disintegration of the Soviet Union to the utter devastation of many
indigenous communities in the Amazon caused by state efforts to develop Indian
homelands and capitalize on the rainforest’s natural resources.
The causes of change are many, including accidental discoveries, deliberate
attempts to solve a perceived problem, and interaction with other peoples who
introduce—or force—new ideas or tools or ways of life. Sometimes change is cause
by the unexpected outcome of particular actions or events. For example, 500 years
ago, with the establishment of European colonies in the homelands of the
Algonquian—speaking people. Many people today believe the change came about
because the newcomers were more advanced however one could argue that it was
the reverse, for at the time these Indians had higher quality diets, enjoyed better
health, and experienced less violence in their lives than did most Europeans.
Because of displacements of small farmers in England, the English attempted to
establish oversees colonies. Early efforts failed, until an epidemic of unprecedented
scope resulted in the sudden death of 75-90 % of the indigenous inhabitants. They
were exposed to host of foreign diseases through contact with European fishermen
and traders.
They would not have been successful unless they had the political and military
techniques for dominating other peoples. They also came with the ideology of a just
war, which they believed justified disposing America’s indigenous peoples who
fought back in defense. Change imposed upon one group by another continues in
much of the world today as culture contact intensifies between societies unequal in
power. When those who have power , they refer it to progress. Progress is relative.
Not everyone benefits from changes. Many have become the victims of progress,
including foraging, herding, and peasant communities.
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One of the first individuals who focused on the historical impact of European
capitalist expansion was anthropologist Eric Wolf. See (anthropologist of Note
1923-1999)
Mechanisms of Change
Anthropologists ae not only interested in the structures of cultures as systems of
adaption, which help us understand how a population maintains itself in a certain
habitat, but also explains processes of cultural change.
Innovation
The ultimate source of all cultural change is innovation: any new idea, method, or
device that gains widespread acceptance in society. Primary innovation is the
creation, invention, or chance discovery of a completely new idea, method or
device. A secondary innovation is a deliberate application or modification of
an existing idea, method, or device.
Firing clay is an example of a primary innovation. This discovery took place 25,000
years ago. However, it was not until about 10,000 years ago that people later
recognized a highly practical application of fired clay and using it to make pottery
containers and cooking vessels—a secondary innovation. See discussion of pottery
on page 367.
Diffusion
The spread of certain ideas, customs, or practices from one culture to another
is known as diffusion. So common is cross culture borrowing that North American
anthropologist Ralph Linton suggested that it accounts for as much as 90% of any
culture’s content. People are creative about their borrowing, however, picking and
choosing form multiple possibilities and sources. Usually their selections are limited
to those compatible with the existing culture.
In Guatemala in the 1960s Maya Indians who then (as now) made up more than half
of the country’s population, would adopt Western ways if the practical advantage of
what they adopted was self-evident and did not conflict with their deeply rooted
traditional values and customs. The use of metal hoes, shovels, and machetes
became standard early on, for they were superior to stone tools and yet compatible
with the cultivation of corn in the traditional way by using hand tools. Yet, other
modern practices that might seem advantageous to Maya were resisted if they were
perceived to be in conflict with Indian tradition. Pursuing these practices could
make one an outcast. This happened to a young farmer who tried using chemical
fertilizers and pesticides to grow cash crops of vegetable not eaten by the Maya to
sell in the city. He found that he could not secure a “good” woman for a wife—a good
woman being one who had never had sex with another man and is hard working.
After abandoning his unorthodox ways, he regained acceptance in his community.
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Take corn, or maize, first cultivated in Mexican highlands about 7000 years ago, this
food crop diffused to much of the rest of North, Central, and South America over the
next few millennia. In 1493 Columbus returned to Spain with samples of maize.
First planted in kitchen gardens in Andalusia, in the course of several decades
spread to other parts of Spain and Portugal. From there it diffused southwest,
reaching France and Northern Italy by 1530s and in Southern Europe as cornmeal
cakes or porridge. Portuguese traders introduced it to western Africa and across the
Indian Ocean to South Asia from where it spread to China before the mid-1500s.
Maize diffused across the globe became a major stable food. Not only altered
people’s lives. Also can be attributed to enormous population growth since the 18th
century. Example of metric system diffusion.
Cultural Loss
Most look at at cultural change as an accumulation of innovations. Frequently,
however, the acceptance of a new innovation results in cultural loss—the
abandonment of an existing practice or trait. For example, wheeled vehicles
disappeared from Morocco to Afghanistan about 1500 years ago. They were
replaced by camels, not because of some reversion to the past, but used as a packed
animal worked better. Better suited to the region.
Repressive Change
Innovation, diffusion, and cultural loss all may take place among people who are free
to decide for themselves what changes they will or will not accept. Frequently,
changes they would not willingly make have been forced upon them by some group,
usually in the course of conquest and colonialism. A direct outcome in many cases is
repressive change to a culture, which anthropologists call acculturation. The most
radical form of change is ethnocide.
Acculturation is the massive culture change that occurs in a society when it
experiences intensive firsthand contact with a more powerful society. It always
involves an element of force, either directly as in conquests, or indirectly as in the
implicit or explicit threat of force will be used if people refuse to make the demands
changes. Other variables include degree of cultural differences, circumstances,
intensity, frequency, and hostility of contact; relative status of the agents of contact;
who is dominant and who is submissive; and whether the nature of the flow is
reciprocal or nonreciprocal. Merger or fusion occurs when two cultures lose their
separate identities and form a single culture, as historically expressed by the
melting pot ideology of English-speaking, Protestant Euramerican culture in the
United States. Sometimes thought, one of the cultures loses its autonomy but
retains its identity as a subculture in the form of a caste, or ethnic group. This is
typical of conquest or slavery situations, and the United States has examples of this
despite its melting pot ideology—we need to look no further than the nearest
American Indian reservation. Under the sway of powerful outsiders—and—unable
to effectively resist imposed changes and obstructed in carrying out many of their
own social, religious, and economic activities—subordinated groups are forced into
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new social and culture practices that tend to isolate individuals and destroy the
integrity of their traditional communities.
Ethnocide, the violent eradication of an ethnic group’s collective cultural identity as
a distinctive people, occurs when a dominant society deliberately sets out to destroy
another’s society’s cultural heritage. Typically includes forbidding a subjugated
nation’s ancestral language, criminalizing their traditional customs, destroying their
religion and demolishing sacred places and practices. Breaking up their social
organizations and dispossessing or removing their survivors from their
homelands—in essences, stopping short of physical extermination while removing
all traces of their unique culture. Tibet is an example of this. Invaded by Chinese in
1950, the government has initiated its ethnocidal policies by means of systematic
attacks against traditional Tibetan culture. Seeking to stamp out deeply rooted
religious beliefs and practices, it order the demolition of most Buddhist temples and
monasteries. Following a mass uprising, hundred of thousands of Tibetans were
killed or forced into exile abroad. Examples of violence in Amazon. Page 372.
Directed Change
One byproduct of colonial dealings with indigenous peoples have been the growth of
applied anthropology. Scope and intent expanded. Franz Boas, influenced
immigration stats on skull and other related studies. He changed popular race
theories of the day. Today, are in the field of international development. Known
today as action anthropology, concern with community based research and action in
collaboration and solidarity with indigenous societies.
Reaction to Repressive Change
Indigenous peoples fight through nonviolent means to retain their identities by
maintaining cultural boundaries such as holding on to traditional language, festive
ceremonies, customary dress, ritual songs and dances, unique food, and so on.
Syncretism
When people are able to hold on to some of their traditions in the face of powerful
outside domination, the results may be syncretism—the creative blending of
indigenous and foreign beliefs and practices into new cultural forms. For Trobriand
they used changed their practices around cricket using these as a means of
celebration.
Revitalization Movements
Another common reaction to repressive change is revitalization. This is in response
to widespread social disruption and collective feelings of anxiety and despair. 1960s
movement of middle and upper class young people advocating free love, joining
hippie communes, celebrating new forms of rock and folk music, using mindaltering drugs, challenging authority, growing hair long, and wearing
unconventional clothes. The 1980s saw the rise of religious right.
Rebellion and Revolution
When the scale of discontent within a society reaches a certain level, the
possibilities are high for rebellion—organized armed resistance to an establish
government or authority in power. Many peasant rebellions around the world in
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the course of history. One such example is the Zapatista Maya Indian uprising in
southern Mexico which began in the mid- 1990s and has not been resolved. In
contrast to rebellion, which his rather limited objectives, Revolution—a radical
change in a society or culture—involves a more dramatic transformation.
Revolution occur when the level of discontent in a society is very high. It is clear
that the colonial polices of countries like Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, and the
United States during the 19th and 20th centuries have created a worldwide situation
in which revolution is nearly inevitable. One of the most important facts of our time
is that the vast majority of the distinct peoples of the world have never consented to
rule by the governments of states within which they find themselves living.
Modernization
The process of political and socioeconomic change, whereby developing societies
acquire some of the cultural characteristics of Western industrial societies.
Technological development
Agricultural development
Urbanization
Industrialization
Telecommunication
Self Determination
Saami Herders: The snowmobile revolution and its un-intended
consequences.
Shuar Indians and Cattle in Amazon
Globalization in the Underdeveloped World.
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