U3: Cultural Patterns and Processes

Culture

Culture shapes the relationships between humans and the environment.

Culture: lifestyle, beliefs, and values; it is transferred through imitation/teaching, and it is not inherited like race

Cultural Diffusion

● The movement of people, ideas, and goods

● Relocation diffusion: diffusion of culture through physical movement of people and goods

○ The original hearth for horses was in Spain, but through relocation diffusion, they are now all over the world

○ Immigrants bring their culture with them

● Expansion diffusion: more easily widespread diffusion method

○ Hierarchical diffusion: spreads from a node to the common people (like fashion from models to everyone else)

○ Contagious diffusion: spreads without barriers (like a disease)

○ Stimulus diffusion: diffuses to other places and slight changes occur (like McDonald’s in India does not sell beef); these changes can happen because of religious changes, political changes, etc.

More Culture Terms

Acculturation: the adopting of another culture; when the culture moves to another place, it may be adjusted

Transculturation: the equal exchange of culture between two cultures

Assimilation: the dominant culture absorbs the less dominant one; this causes loss of culture

Cultural appropriation: adoption or the use of elements of one culture by the members of another culture

Syncretism: a birth of a new culture from the blending of two cultures

Cultural hearth: the area where the thoughts and ideas of a culture originated

Cultural landscape: the landscape as changed by the different human cultures

Sacred sites: these are places of religious symbolism or significance

Gendered spaces: different areas where a gender is considered welcome and other gender types are inappropriate

Cultural trait: a characteristic of human action that is acquired socially and transmitted through different ways of communication

Ethnic religion: a religion is associated with a particular ethnic group; does not actively look to convert others (ex: Hinduism)

Universalizing religion: a religion which actively seeks for converts from any group

World Religions

● Religions develop over time from the beliefs of the people and origins

● Hinduism

○ Monotheistic

○ Ethnic religion

○ Vedas, karma, reincarnation, Trimurti, etc.

○ Temples are places of worship

● Judaism

○ Monotheistic

○ Moses from Mesopotamia to Canaan, Abraham, Ten Commandments, etc.

○ Synagogues are places of worship

● Buddhism

○ The founder is Siddartha Gautama, who was a prince from Ancient India

○ He notices how humans suffer and he created ways to reduce that (he reached nirvana, which is Enlightenment, and became known as the Buddha)

○ Meditating, Eight-Fold Path to Enlightenment, monks and monasteries in isolation, etc.

● Christianity

○ Monotheistic

○ Same origin place as Judaism

○ Jesus is worshipped

○ There are different branches (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, etc.)

○ Churches are places of worship

● Islam

○ Monotheistic

○ Allah is worshipped

○ Quran, deep meanings, Muhammad was a prophet of Allah, etc.

○ Mosques are places of worship

○ Sunnis and Shiites conflicts

● Baha’i

○ Founded in Iran 1844 by Siyyid Ali Muhammad

○ Babi faith

○ Husayn Ali Nuri was prophet and messenger

○ Overcome disunity of religions and establish universal faith

○ No race, class, and religious prejudice

○ Houses of Worship

● Sikhism

○ Guru Nanak

○ Only God is perfect, but humans can improve

○ Amrit (Baptism) Sikhs declare faith upholdings

■ Ex: turban, uniform

○ Amritsar Golden Temple

● Confucianism

● Taoism

● Primal-Indigenous

● Juchte

● African traditional

● Animism

● Shamanism

● Spiritism

Globalization

Globalization occurs when most countries are interconnected socially, politically, economically, and by transportation. There is a higher chance of cultural identity loss, and that will lead to a more monocultural world (where one culture is most dominant)

Folk Culture

● Small traditional communities

● Ideas are not as widespread

● New ideas follow the customs

● Things don’t change for a while

● As popular culture rises, this tends to fade

Popular Culture

● Widespread diffusion

● Adopts from folk culture and adapts ideas to make it more universal and interesting

● Trends fade out and come back as tastes change in music, clothing, etc.

● This is overtaking folk culture

Both Folk and Pop

● Changes occur over time

● Influences many aspects of life, from what is eaten to what is worn

Language

● People migrated and tribes split up into smaller tribes, which means languages are like branches of a tree

○ The smaller tribes had different situations and that shaped different traditions/language

● Grammar, syntax, pronouns, and kinship are reliable in seeing the origins and patterns of languages

● Language tree: like a map of all the different languages

○ Language families → branches → groups → individual languages

● Languages change gradually because of new experiences and other changes

○ Ex: political conflict caused the Serbo-Croatian language to be split up into

Croatian, Serbian, etc.

Dialect: regional variation of a language

Dialects of English

● Emerged because of the dialects of different early settlers

○ Ex: Quakers, Scots, Irish, German, Dutch, etc. during colonial period

Isogloss: word usage boundary

Standard Language: the dialect that is well established for wider use in government, education, business, etc. 

● This is called received pronunciation in England (upper class and in Cambridge/Oxford University)

Creole: language that comes from mixing colonizer’s and indigenous languages

Isolated language: language not attached to any other language or language family

Extinct languages: languages which no one speaks anymore

Revived languages: languages which were pulled away from near extinction (ex: Hebrew; had to create words for modern use)

Endangered languages: (ex: Celtic) close to extinction

Lingua Franca: language which is used for international communication (English is a primary example)

Pidgin language: simplified form of a language

Ebonics: synonym for AAVE (African American Vernacular English)

Denglish: German + English

Ethnicity and Race

Ethnicity

● The identity of a group which shares a cultural tradition of a certain homeland

Race

● Identity of a group which shares a biological ancestor

Racism

● The belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities

● Racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

● A racist believes in the above statements

Ethnic clustering: people of a certain ethnicity are in certain areas of a state

Ethnic Distribution in the US as of 2018

● African American: 13%; mainly in Southeast

● Asian American: 5%; mainly near San Francisco, Alaska, and Hawaii

● Hispanic: 16%; near Northwest, but mainly in the South

● White: 72%; throughout US

Migration of African Americans

● Migration from Africa

○ Forced migration due to slavery (mainly in 18th century)

● Migration to the North

○ In the early half of the 20th century, they moved to the North for industrial jobs, away from sharecropping and labor in the rural South

● Migration within Cities

○ Ghettos: clusters of ethnic groups in cities

○ The ghettos were expanded due to white flight

Segregation (see Unit 4)

● Apartheid

● Blockbusting

Nationalities

● Nationality has to do with citizenship status in a country (unlike ethnicity which is ancestral)

Multinational states tend to either be balanced and accepting or in constant fighting.

Ethnic cleansing: trying to wipe out everyone of an ethnicity

Ex: happened in the Balkans, Yugoslavia split

Genocide: mass killing of a group to eliminate their existence

Sudan: South Sudan

● Problem: Black Christians and Animist ethnicities resisted government attempts to convert to Islam

● North and South Sudan fought

● South Sudan became an independent state in 2011 but fighting continues

Sudan: Darfur

● Problem: the Africans resented discrimination and neglect from the government

● Arab nomads and the Sudanese government crushed the black population of Darfur who starters the rebellions in 2003

● Many farmers died and many ended up in refugee camps

● Sudan’s leaders were charged with war crime because of murder and rape of civilians

Ethiopia

● Problem: Ethiopia dissolved Eritrea legislature and banned use of Tigrinya, Eritrea’s major local language

● Eritrea rebelled against Ethiopia (1961-1991)

● Rebels defeated the Ethiopian army and Eritrea is now an independent state

Somalia

● Problem: clan were having warfare. Islamic militias controlled much of Somalia from 2004-2006

● The US and Ethiopia were against Eritrea and Muslims in Somalia

● The US made Muslims withdraw, but they returned and there is conflict again