GEOG 130 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Folklore, Division Of Labour, Cultural Globalization
Cultures, Landscapes, and Identities
Culture Components
Culture and Society
Culture: complex term typically referring to the way pf life of the members of a
society
Dynamic, changes over time - allows us to adapt to varying physical
environments
○
Once in place, often difficult to change until a new set of values emerges
○
What is supposed to unite also results in barriers and conflict between peoples
○
-
"the specialized behavioural patterns, understandings, adaptions, and social
systems that summarize a group of people's way of life" shared, passed down
○
Material vs. non-material culture
Non-material
Mentifacts: attitudinal elements and values like language and religion
§
Sociofacts: norms involved in group formation (e.g., rules about family
structure)
§
○
Material
Artifacts: all human-made physical objects and elements related to
peoples' lives and livelihoods
§
○
-
Components of culture
Culture traits
Igloos vs. tepees
○
Units of learned behavior, such as an artifact, language, a belief or a technique
○
What cultural traits are shared in Saskatoon; what attributes are not shared
○
-
Culture complex
Individual cultural traits that are functionally interrelated (e.g., the bison
hunting culture)
○
"car culture"
○
-
Culture system
A larger set of shared traits that link two or more cultural complexes, that may
have some other traits not in common
○
E.g., "American culture," despite linguistic, religious, and other differences
○
-
Culture region
Cultural regions: areas in which there is a degree of homogeneity in cultural
○
Delimitation requires decisions on at least four basic points:
Criteria for inclusion (e.g., defining characteristic)
§
Date or time period
§
Spatial scale
§
Boundary lines
§
○
Example: Mormon culture in the US
○
-
Top 10 U.S. States with Most Latter-day Saints, 1990
Sate Percent of state population
Utah 71.76%
Idaho 26.63
Wyoming 10.10
Nevada 7.41
Arizona 5.45
Montana 3.58
Hawaii 3.46
Oregon 3.15
Washington 3.10
Alaska 2.86
Core (Utah) vs. Domain (surrounding states) vs. Sphere (outer fringe)
Elements of the early Mormon landscape (Utah)
Town settlements based on a standard layout the emphasized:
Communal irrigation for crops
Grid pattern if wide streets
Large lots
Central church, education and administration area
Farms based on crops, irrigation ditches
Unpainted fences and barns
Is there a standard layout for towns on the Canadian Prairie? What does this
signify about the local culture/economy?
Culture realm
A set of related culture regions which combine to cover a large part of the
Earth's surface
○
Culture regions as "steroids"
○
Tend to ignore diversity within the identified boundaries in order to define a
common geographic area
○
-
Globalization (a process and a state?)
A growing integration and interdependence of world communities through a
vast network of trade and communication (increasing interconnectedness)
○
Associated with a wide range of technological, cultural, and economic
outcomes affecting our daily lives
○
Response to two major forces
Technology change
§
Global capitalism
§
○
-
System attributes
Informational globalization - increases to geographically remote locations
Increases in information flows
§
○
Industrial globalization (alias trans nationalization) - rise and expansion of
multinational enterprises
○
Financial globalization - emergence of worldwide financial markets and better
access to financing
○
Political globalization - spread of political sphere of interests to the regions and
countries outside the neighborhood of political (state and non-state) actors
○
Cultural globalization - growth of cross-cultural contacts
○
Does not necessarily mean "homogenization"
Local cultures tend to "domesticate," "indigenize," or "tame" imported
consumer culture - giving it a local flavor (*hybridization)
○
Many countries promote a consumer nationalism that encourages local goods
over "foreign" goods
○
Still, some "homogenizing"
○
Key concepts: region, scale
Purpose? To help us understand the infinite complexity of human societies
Roots of culture
Hunter-gatherers: pre-agricultural (Paleolithic) peoples with limited toolsets
who relied on animals and plants for their sustenance
○
Were culturally simple, and similar with some differences attributable to
different food sources and climate
○
Were able to expand throughout much of the world
○
Low population densities and relatively isolated
○
Paleolithic (old stone age): 5-10 million worldwide, 400-500 in what is present-
day Great Britain
○
-
Early cultural development
Language and tool-making 2.5 million years before present
○
Use of fire 2.5 million years before present
○
Language expansion 400000 years before present
○
Early groups were small (20-30 people) and kinship based (similar to subarctic
first nations groups in the past)
○
Subsistence based on hunter-gatherer economies
○
Very little specialization of activity (no sep. priest, artisan, warrior classes)
○
Cultural adaptation (adjusting behaviours, technology, beliefs to local
environmental conditions) led to variation in local cultures
○
-
Seeds of change
Mesolithic
Cultural divergence (variable ca. 10000-11000 BP) - enables exceeding
previous carrying capacity by transition towards agriculture
§
○
Carrying capacity: "the number of persons supportable within a given area by
the technologies at their disposal"
○
Driven by glacial retreat (end of the ice age) and environmental warming:
increase food and cultural complexity
○
-
Mesolithic innovation
Domestication of the dog
§
Domestication of grains (barley first)
§
More sophisticated tool-making
§
Beginning sedentary village life (100 people)
§
Occurred at different times in different regions (earlier in middle east,
later in the Americas)
§
○
Neolithic (variable beginning ca. 12000 BP-in middle east): new tools,
technologies and social structures developed among sedentary populations:
food gathering to food production is complete: farming
○
Control environment in order to produce more food (irrigation, land
reclamation, fertilizer)
○
The domestication of sheep, pig and cow
○
Creation of larger and more complex settlements
○
Centres of plant and animal domestication
Culture hearths
Early culture hearths: early urban centers of innovation that cultural traits
spread from - civilizations: characterized by writing, trade, metalwork and
more
○
Multilinear evolution: cultural innovations occurred independently in parallel
ecological regions
○
Diffusionism: cultural traits appeared in a few hearths, spreading over time to
other societies
○
Cultural convergence: unique aspects of culture are shared and adopted by
more and more groups around the world
○
-
Early cultural hearths and diffusion: eight early urban civilizations
Earliest hearth: Mesopotamia (followed later by Egypt)
"The cradle of civilization"
Early urban civilization
Name Date (approximate)
Mesopotamia (Iraq, parts of Syria, Turkey and Iran) Ca. 5,500 BP
China *Ca. 4,000 BP
Sumer and Gilgamesh Ca. 5,000 BP
Egypt Ca. 5,300 BP
Indus Valley (India) Ca. 4,300 BP
8 Characteristics of emerging civilization
Highly organized and very productive local agriculture, producing large
amounts of surplus food
1)
Stratified society and labour specialization, fed by the farmers, with artisan,
merchant, warrior, priest and other classes
2)
Each developed astronomical and mathematical knowledge and the calendar
(necessary for taxation, festivals, and measuring wealth)
3)
Each exported its culture far beyond its hearth (diffusion)4)
Each developed monumental public works (hanging gardens of Babylon,
pyramids, etc.)
5)
Long distance trade supported each economy6)
Each developed a system of writing7)
Each developed a state organization 8)
Popular and local culture
Cultural hierarchy
Folk/local culture
Ethnic culture
Popular culture
Mass culture
The passing of US folk cultural regionalism: The 20th century, a national culture
Urban - rural contrasts: by 20th C. eastern and mid-western urban society leaving folk
culture behind
-
Factors: immigration, economic unification, impact of industrialization, new
construction, increased communications (RR)
Rural society: initially folk culture still thriving, still differences between regions -
subsequently, erosion homogenization due to adoption of technology and
communication
-
Factors: (1910-20s on) automobile, radio, movies, newspapers
3 Ms: mechanization, mass production, mass distribution
-
Folk culture and popular culture
Traditional folk cultures survive mostly in rural landscapes; tend to resist change -
urban culture embraces change
Folk culture characterized by a rural setting and strong sense of place
○
Example: Amish, Mennonites
○
-
Folk culture = small scale, coherent, rural, resistant to change
Popular culture - new attitudes and behaviors diffuse rapidly
Domain of popular culture is a key area in which subordinate groups can
contest their domination (popular culture as resistance)
○
Landscapes: malls, sports, gardens, commercial strips, sports
○
-
What is popular culture?
A wide-ranging group of heterogeneous people, who stretch across identities
and across the world, and who embrace cultural traits such as music, dance,
clothing, and food preference that change frequently and are ubiquitous on the
cultural landscapes
○
-
Popular culture = large, messy, urban, rapidly changing
Patterns of popular culture
Widespread cultural adoption by mass groups that transcends folk and ethnic
divisions - most of the population
○
Often urban and changing frequently
○
Emerges out of national, now international centres of influence (the Duck
Dress)
○
A means of patching over ethnic differences in multicultural society (shared
culture - e.g., Hip Hop or Anime)
○
May also be differentiated from "Mass Culture," passive and solitary behaviors
(centred on television and mass media), beginning in the 1950s, which showed
greater homogeneity
○
Success and widespread adoption of certain elements of folk and ethnic
cultural practices (e.g., sports, music, foods)
○
-
New origins for popular culture?
Has long been generated through the intervention of major companies
motivated by profit: partly bottom up, but mainly top down (MTV generation)
○
Diffusion of new popular culture may have been hierarchical: from major
centres to middle centres to lesser centres of cultural innovation
○
Generation of popular culture now seems much more complex, democratic,
due to the intervention of the internet
○
Diffusion now through social networks, and networks of interest, rather than
through spatial processes?
○
Where do you get your culture? Who are the "tastemakers"?
○
-
Local Culture
A group of people in a particular place who see themselves as a collective or a
community, who share experiences, customs, and traits and customs in order to
claim uniqueness and to distinguish themselves from others
-
Refining and redefining in order to remain unique
Local cultures and sustained by maintaining customs
-
Custom: a practice that a group of people routinely follows
Local cultures have two goals:
Keeping other cultures out (e.g., create a boundary around itself)1)
Keeping their own culture in (e.g., avoid cultural appropriation)2)
Cultural appropriation: process where other cultures adopt customs and knowledge
and use them for their own benefit
What role does place play in maintaining customs?
-
By defining a place (a town or a neighborhood) or a space for a short amount of time
(an annual festival) as representing a culture and its values, members of a local
culture can maintain (or re-establish) its customs and reinforce its beliefs
Rural local cultures
Migration into rural areas is less frequent (e.g., Hutterites, Amish, and Mennonites)
-
Can better separate their culture from others and from popular culture
-
Can define their own space
-
Daily life my be defined by a shared economic activity (e.g., farming or hunting
animals)
-
Why did the Makah reinstate the whale hunt? (Makah - Neah Bay, Washington)
To reinvigorate the local culture
Why did the residents of Lindsborg define it as a Swedish place? (Little Sweden, USA -
Lindsborg, KS)
Dala Horse
Neolocalism: seeking out the regional culture and reinvigorating it in response to the
uncertainty of the modern world
Urban local cultures
Can create ethnic neighborhoods within cities
-
Creates a space to practice customs
-
Can cluster businesses, houses of worship, schools to support local culture
-
Migration into ethnic neighborhoods can quickly change an ethnic neighborhood
-
Example: Italian Americans - Williamsburg, NY, North End (Boston),Ma - Jewish
community, North End Winnipeg
-
Commodification: the process through which something is given monetary value
How are aspects of local culture (material, non-material, place) commodified?
-
Authenticity: claims of authenticity abound - how do consumers determine what
experience/place is "authentic" and what is not?
To gain an "authentic" sense of place, people need to experience the complexity of
the place - not from a single food, song, dance or piece of clothing
-
Cultures change over time and space - what is authentic?
-
How do cultures change?
Innovation: the changes due to new ideas generated within the culture (resistance to
innovation is cultural lag - internal)
-
Diffusion: adoption of external ideas/innovations which have moved across space
from other cultures
Expansion
○
Relocation
○
-
Assimilation, acculturation and multiculturalism
Ethnic migration typically followed by social isolation, sometimes within an ethnic
ghetto
-
Assimilation: process by which an ethnic group is absorbed into a larger society and
loses its own identity
-
Acculturation: process by which an ethnic individual or group is absorbed into a
larger society while retaining aspects of distinct identity
-
Rate determined in part by state policies e.g., multiculturalism vs. melting pot
-
Cultural Assimilation
Behavioral assimilation: common behavior pattern through shared experience,
language, intermarriage and history
1)
Structural assimilation: fusion of immigrant group with social systems and
occupations (adoption of values and attitudes)
2)
Spatial assimilation: the overlap and sharing of space between previously
separate groups (cf. ethnic enclaves, ghettos)
3)
-
Resistance to change
Culture rebound: the re-adoption by later generations of culture traits and identifies
associated with immigrant forebears or ancestral homelands
-
Xenophobia: the fear or aversion to strangers or foreigners, often manifest in itself in
the form of ethnophobia (fear of a particular ethnic group)
-
Ethnocentrism: conviction of the evident superiority of ones own ethnic group
-
Identities and Landscapes
Imposing dominant identities onto minority groups has led to landscapes of
resistance
-
Built landscapes are often a reflection of the dominant culture and groups
-
Intrusion into these landscapes by other groups results in controversy
-
A need to examine microcultures - small groups of people within a larger culture
-
Culture (week 3 & 4 pt. 1/ pages 1-62)
Cultures, Landscapes, and Identities
Culture Components
Culture and Society
Culture: complex term typically referring to the way pf life of the members of a
society
Dynamic, changes over time - allows us to adapt to varying physical
environments
○
Once in place, often difficult to change until a new set of values emerges
○
What is supposed to unite also results in barriers and conflict between peoples
○
-
"the specialized behavioural patterns, understandings, adaptions, and social
systems that summarize a group of people's way of life" shared, passed down
○
Material vs. non-material culture
Non-material
Mentifacts: attitudinal elements and values like language and religion
§
Sociofacts: norms involved in group formation (e.g., rules about family
structure)
§
○
Material
Artifacts: all human-made physical objects and elements related to
peoples' lives and livelihoods
§
○
-
Components of culture
Culture traits
Igloos vs. tepees
○
Units of learned behavior, such as an artifact, language, a belief or a technique
○
What cultural traits are shared in Saskatoon; what attributes are not shared
○
-
Culture complex
Individual cultural traits that are functionally interrelated (e.g., the bison
hunting culture)
○
"car culture"
○
-
Culture system
A larger set of shared traits that link two or more cultural complexes, that may
have some other traits not in common
○
E.g., "American culture," despite linguistic, religious, and other differences
○
-
Culture region
Cultural regions: areas in which there is a degree of homogeneity in cultural
○
Delimitation requires decisions on at least four basic points:
Criteria for inclusion (e.g., defining characteristic)
§
Date or time period
§
Spatial scale
§
Boundary lines
§
○
Example: Mormon culture in the US
○
-
Top 10 U.S. States with Most Latter-day Saints, 1990
Sate
Percent of state population
Utah
71.76%
Idaho
26.63
Wyoming
10.10
Nevada
7.41
Arizona
5.45
Montana
3.58
Hawaii
3.46
Oregon
3.15
Washington
3.10
Alaska
2.86
Core (Utah) vs. Domain (surrounding states) vs. Sphere (outer fringe)
Elements of the early Mormon landscape (Utah)
Town settlements based on a standard layout the emphasized:
Communal irrigation for crops
Grid pattern if wide streets
Large lots
Central church, education and administration area
Farms based on crops, irrigation ditches
Unpainted fences and barns
Is there a standard layout for towns on the Canadian Prairie? What does this
signify about the local culture/economy?
Culture realm
A set of related culture regions which combine to cover a large part of the
Earth's surface
○
Culture regions as "steroids"
○
Tend to ignore diversity within the identified boundaries in order to define a
common geographic area
○
-
Globalization (a process and a state?)
A growing integration and interdependence of world communities through a
vast network of trade and communication (increasing interconnectedness)
○
Associated with a wide range of technological, cultural, and economic
outcomes affecting our daily lives
○
Response to two major forces
Technology change
§
Global capitalism
§
○
-
System attributes
Informational globalization - increases to geographically remote locations
Increases in information flows
§
○
Industrial globalization (alias trans nationalization) - rise and expansion of
multinational enterprises
○
Financial globalization - emergence of worldwide financial markets and better
access to financing
○
Political globalization - spread of political sphere of interests to the regions and
countries outside the neighborhood of political (state and non-state) actors
○
Cultural globalization - growth of cross-cultural contacts
○
Does not necessarily mean "homogenization"
Local cultures tend to "domesticate," "indigenize," or "tame" imported
consumer culture - giving it a local flavor (*hybridization)
○
Many countries promote a consumer nationalism that encourages local goods
over "foreign" goods
○
Still, some "homogenizing"
○
Key concepts: region, scale
Purpose? To help us understand the infinite complexity of human societies
Roots of culture
Hunter-gatherers: pre-agricultural (Paleolithic) peoples with limited toolsets
who relied on animals and plants for their sustenance
○
Were culturally simple, and similar with some differences attributable to
different food sources and climate
○
Were able to expand throughout much of the world
○
Low population densities and relatively isolated
○
Paleolithic (old stone age): 5-10 million worldwide, 400-500 in what is present-
day Great Britain
○
-
Early cultural development
Language and tool-making 2.5 million years before present
○
Use of fire 2.5 million years before present
○
Language expansion 400000 years before present
○
Early groups were small (20-30 people) and kinship based (similar to subarctic
first nations groups in the past)
○
Subsistence based on hunter-gatherer economies
○
Very little specialization of activity (no sep. priest, artisan, warrior classes)
○
Cultural adaptation (adjusting behaviours, technology, beliefs to local
environmental conditions) led to variation in local cultures
○
-
Seeds of change
Mesolithic
Cultural divergence (variable ca. 10000-11000 BP) - enables exceeding
previous carrying capacity by transition towards agriculture
§
○
Carrying capacity: "the number of persons supportable within a given area by
the technologies at their disposal"
○
Driven by glacial retreat (end of the ice age) and environmental warming:
increase food and cultural complexity
○
-
Mesolithic innovation
Domestication of the dog
§
Domestication of grains (barley first)
§
More sophisticated tool-making
§
Beginning sedentary village life (100 people)
§
Occurred at different times in different regions (earlier in middle east,
later in the Americas)
§
○
Neolithic (variable beginning ca. 12000 BP-in middle east): new tools,
technologies and social structures developed among sedentary populations:
food gathering to food production is complete: farming
○
Control environment in order to produce more food (irrigation, land
reclamation, fertilizer)
○
The domestication of sheep, pig and cow
○
Creation of larger and more complex settlements
○
Centres of plant and animal domestication
Culture hearths
Early culture hearths: early urban centers of innovation that cultural traits
spread from - civilizations: characterized by writing, trade, metalwork and
more
○
Multilinear evolution: cultural innovations occurred independently in parallel
ecological regions
○
Diffusionism: cultural traits appeared in a few hearths, spreading over time to
other societies
○
Cultural convergence: unique aspects of culture are shared and adopted by
more and more groups around the world
○
-
Early cultural hearths and diffusion: eight early urban civilizations
Earliest hearth: Mesopotamia (followed later by Egypt)
"The cradle of civilization"
Early urban civilization
Name Date (approximate)
Mesopotamia (Iraq, parts of Syria, Turkey and Iran) Ca. 5,500 BP
China *Ca. 4,000 BP
Sumer and Gilgamesh Ca. 5,000 BP
Egypt Ca. 5,300 BP
Indus Valley (India) Ca. 4,300 BP
8 Characteristics of emerging civilization
Highly organized and very productive local agriculture, producing large
amounts of surplus food
1)
Stratified society and labour specialization, fed by the farmers, with artisan,
merchant, warrior, priest and other classes
2)
Each developed astronomical and mathematical knowledge and the calendar
(necessary for taxation, festivals, and measuring wealth)
3)
Each exported its culture far beyond its hearth (diffusion)4)
Each developed monumental public works (hanging gardens of Babylon,
pyramids, etc.)
5)
Long distance trade supported each economy6)
Each developed a system of writing7)
Each developed a state organization 8)
Popular and local culture
Cultural hierarchy
Folk/local culture
Ethnic culture
Popular culture
Mass culture
The passing of US folk cultural regionalism: The 20th century, a national culture
Urban - rural contrasts: by 20th C. eastern and mid-western urban society leaving folk
culture behind
-
Factors: immigration, economic unification, impact of industrialization, new
construction, increased communications (RR)
Rural society: initially folk culture still thriving, still differences between regions -
subsequently, erosion homogenization due to adoption of technology and
communication
-
Factors: (1910-20s on) automobile, radio, movies, newspapers
3 Ms: mechanization, mass production, mass distribution
-
Folk culture and popular culture
Traditional folk cultures survive mostly in rural landscapes; tend to resist change -
urban culture embraces change
Folk culture characterized by a rural setting and strong sense of place
○
Example: Amish, Mennonites
○
-
Folk culture = small scale, coherent, rural, resistant to change
Popular culture - new attitudes and behaviors diffuse rapidly
Domain of popular culture is a key area in which subordinate groups can
contest their domination (popular culture as resistance)
○
Landscapes: malls, sports, gardens, commercial strips, sports
○
-
What is popular culture?
A wide-ranging group of heterogeneous people, who stretch across identities
and across the world, and who embrace cultural traits such as music, dance,
clothing, and food preference that change frequently and are ubiquitous on the
cultural landscapes
○
-
Popular culture = large, messy, urban, rapidly changing
Patterns of popular culture
Widespread cultural adoption by mass groups that transcends folk and ethnic
divisions - most of the population
○
Often urban and changing frequently
○
Emerges out of national, now international centres of influence (the Duck
Dress)
○
A means of patching over ethnic differences in multicultural society (shared
culture - e.g., Hip Hop or Anime)
○
May also be differentiated from "Mass Culture," passive and solitary behaviors
(centred on television and mass media), beginning in the 1950s, which showed
greater homogeneity
○
Success and widespread adoption of certain elements of folk and ethnic
cultural practices (e.g., sports, music, foods)
○
-
New origins for popular culture?
Has long been generated through the intervention of major companies
motivated by profit: partly bottom up, but mainly top down (MTV generation)
○
Diffusion of new popular culture may have been hierarchical: from major
centres to middle centres to lesser centres of cultural innovation
○
Generation of popular culture now seems much more complex, democratic,
due to the intervention of the internet
○
Diffusion now through social networks, and networks of interest, rather than
through spatial processes?
○
Where do you get your culture? Who are the "tastemakers"?
○
-
Local Culture
A group of people in a particular place who see themselves as a collective or a
community, who share experiences, customs, and traits and customs in order to
claim uniqueness and to distinguish themselves from others
-
Refining and redefining in order to remain unique
Local cultures and sustained by maintaining customs
-
Custom: a practice that a group of people routinely follows
Local cultures have two goals:
Keeping other cultures out (e.g., create a boundary around itself)1)
Keeping their own culture in (e.g., avoid cultural appropriation)2)
Cultural appropriation: process where other cultures adopt customs and knowledge
and use them for their own benefit
What role does place play in maintaining customs?
-
By defining a place (a town or a neighborhood) or a space for a short amount of time
(an annual festival) as representing a culture and its values, members of a local
culture can maintain (or re-establish) its customs and reinforce its beliefs
Rural local cultures
Migration into rural areas is less frequent (e.g., Hutterites, Amish, and Mennonites)
-
Can better separate their culture from others and from popular culture
-
Can define their own space
-
Daily life my be defined by a shared economic activity (e.g., farming or hunting
animals)
-
Why did the Makah reinstate the whale hunt? (Makah - Neah Bay, Washington)
To reinvigorate the local culture
Why did the residents of Lindsborg define it as a Swedish place? (Little Sweden, USA -
Lindsborg, KS)
Dala Horse
Neolocalism: seeking out the regional culture and reinvigorating it in response to the
uncertainty of the modern world
Urban local cultures
Can create ethnic neighborhoods within cities
-
Creates a space to practice customs
-
Can cluster businesses, houses of worship, schools to support local culture
-
Migration into ethnic neighborhoods can quickly change an ethnic neighborhood
-
Example: Italian Americans - Williamsburg, NY, North End (Boston),Ma - Jewish
community, North End Winnipeg
-
Commodification: the process through which something is given monetary value
How are aspects of local culture (material, non-material, place) commodified?
-
Authenticity: claims of authenticity abound - how do consumers determine what
experience/place is "authentic" and what is not?
To gain an "authentic" sense of place, people need to experience the complexity of
the place - not from a single food, song, dance or piece of clothing
-
Cultures change over time and space - what is authentic?
-
How do cultures change?
Innovation: the changes due to new ideas generated within the culture (resistance to
innovation is cultural lag - internal)
-
Diffusion: adoption of external ideas/innovations which have moved across space
from other cultures
Expansion
○
Relocation
○
-
Assimilation, acculturation and multiculturalism
Ethnic migration typically followed by social isolation, sometimes within an ethnic
ghetto
-
Assimilation: process by which an ethnic group is absorbed into a larger society and
loses its own identity
-
Acculturation: process by which an ethnic individual or group is absorbed into a
larger society while retaining aspects of distinct identity
-
Rate determined in part by state policies e.g., multiculturalism vs. melting pot
-
Cultural Assimilation
Behavioral assimilation: common behavior pattern through shared experience,
language, intermarriage and history
1)
Structural assimilation: fusion of immigrant group with social systems and
occupations (adoption of values and attitudes)
2)
Spatial assimilation: the overlap and sharing of space between previously
separate groups (cf. ethnic enclaves, ghettos)
3)
-
Resistance to change
Culture rebound: the re-adoption by later generations of culture traits and identifies
associated with immigrant forebears or ancestral homelands
-
Xenophobia: the fear or aversion to strangers or foreigners, often manifest in itself in
the form of ethnophobia (fear of a particular ethnic group)
-
Ethnocentrism: conviction of the evident superiority of ones own ethnic group
-
Identities and Landscapes
Imposing dominant identities onto minority groups has led to landscapes of
resistance
-
Built landscapes are often a reflection of the dominant culture and groups
-
Intrusion into these landscapes by other groups results in controversy
-
A need to examine microcultures - small groups of people within a larger culture
-
Culture (week 3 & 4 pt. 1/ pages 1-62)
Cultures, Landscapes, and Identities
Culture Components
Culture and Society
Culture: complex term typically referring to the way pf life of the members of a
society
Dynamic, changes over time - allows us to adapt to varying physical
environments
○
Once in place, often difficult to change until a new set of values emerges
○
What is supposed to unite also results in barriers and conflict between peoples
○
-
"the specialized behavioural patterns, understandings, adaptions, and social
systems that summarize a group of people's way of life" shared, passed down
○
Material vs. non-material culture
Non-material
Mentifacts: attitudinal elements and values like language and religion
§
Sociofacts: norms involved in group formation (e.g., rules about family
structure)
§
○
Material
Artifacts: all human-made physical objects and elements related to
peoples' lives and livelihoods
§
○
-
Components of culture
Culture traits
Igloos vs. tepees
○
Units of learned behavior, such as an artifact, language, a belief or a technique
○
What cultural traits are shared in Saskatoon; what attributes are not shared
○
-
Culture complex
Individual cultural traits that are functionally interrelated (e.g., the bison
hunting culture)
○
"car culture"
○
-
Culture system
A larger set of shared traits that link two or more cultural complexes, that may
have some other traits not in common
○
E.g., "American culture," despite linguistic, religious, and other differences
○
-
Culture region
Cultural regions: areas in which there is a degree of homogeneity in cultural
○
Delimitation requires decisions on at least four basic points:
Criteria for inclusion (e.g., defining characteristic)
§
Date or time period
§
Spatial scale
§
Boundary lines
§
○
Example: Mormon culture in the US
○
-
Top 10 U.S. States with Most Latter-day Saints, 1990
Sate Percent of state population
Utah 71.76%
Idaho 26.63
Wyoming 10.10
Nevada 7.41
Arizona 5.45
Montana 3.58
Hawaii 3.46
Oregon 3.15
Washington 3.10
Alaska 2.86
Core (Utah) vs. Domain (surrounding states) vs. Sphere (outer fringe)
Elements of the early Mormon landscape (Utah)
Town settlements based on a standard layout the emphasized:
Communal irrigation for crops
Grid pattern if wide streets
Large lots
Central church, education and administration area
Farms based on crops, irrigation ditches
Unpainted fences and barns
Is there a standard layout for towns on the Canadian Prairie? What does this
signify about the local culture/economy?
Culture realm
A set of related culture regions which combine to cover a large part of the
Earth's surface
○
Culture regions as "steroids"
○
Tend to ignore diversity within the identified boundaries in order to define a
common geographic area
○
-
Globalization (a process and a state?)
A growing integration and interdependence of world communities through a
vast network of trade and communication (increasing interconnectedness)
○
Associated with a wide range of technological, cultural, and economic
outcomes affecting our daily lives
○
Response to two major forces
Technology change
§
Global capitalism
§
○
-
System attributes
Informational globalization - increases to geographically remote locations
Increases in information flows
§
○
Industrial globalization (alias trans nationalization) - rise and expansion of
multinational enterprises
○
Financial globalization - emergence of worldwide financial markets and better
access to financing
○
Political globalization - spread of political sphere of interests to the regions and
countries outside the neighborhood of political (state and non-state) actors
○
Cultural globalization - growth of cross-cultural contacts
○
Does not necessarily mean "homogenization"
Local cultures tend to "domesticate," "indigenize," or "tame" imported
consumer culture - giving it a local flavor (*hybridization)
○
Many countries promote a consumer nationalism that encourages local goods
over "foreign" goods
○
Still, some "homogenizing"
○
Key concepts: region, scale
Purpose? To help us understand the infinite complexity of human societies
Roots of culture
Hunter-gatherers: pre-agricultural (Paleolithic) peoples with limited toolsets
who relied on animals and plants for their sustenance
○
Were culturally simple, and similar with some differences attributable to
different food sources and climate
○
Were able to expand throughout much of the world
○
Low population densities and relatively isolated
○
Paleolithic (old stone age): 5-10 million worldwide, 400-500 in what is present-
day Great Britain
○
-
Early cultural development
Language and tool-making 2.5 million years before present
○
Use of fire 2.5 million years before present
○
Language expansion 400000 years before present
○
Early groups were small (20-30 people) and kinship based (similar to subarctic
first nations groups in the past)
○
Subsistence based on hunter-gatherer economies
○
Very little specialization of activity (no sep. priest, artisan, warrior classes)
○
Cultural adaptation (adjusting behaviours, technology, beliefs to local
environmental conditions) led to variation in local cultures
○
-
Seeds of change
Mesolithic
Cultural divergence (variable ca. 10000-11000 BP) - enables exceeding
previous carrying capacity by transition towards agriculture
§
○
Carrying capacity: "the number of persons supportable within a given area by
the technologies at their disposal"
○
Driven by glacial retreat (end of the ice age) and environmental warming:
increase food and cultural complexity
○
-
Mesolithic innovation
Domestication of the dog
§
Domestication of grains (barley first)
§
More sophisticated tool-making
§
Beginning sedentary village life (100 people)
§
Occurred at different times in different regions (earlier in middle east,
later in the Americas)
§
○
Neolithic (variable beginning ca. 12000 BP-in middle east): new tools,
technologies and social structures developed among sedentary populations:
food gathering to food production is complete: farming
○
Control environment in order to produce more food (irrigation, land
reclamation, fertilizer)
○
The domestication of sheep, pig and cow
○
Creation of larger and more complex settlements
○
Centres of plant and animal domestication
Culture hearths
Early culture hearths: early urban centers of innovation that cultural traits
spread from - civilizations: characterized by writing, trade, metalwork and
more
○
Multilinear evolution: cultural innovations occurred independently in parallel
ecological regions
○
Diffusionism: cultural traits appeared in a few hearths, spreading over time to
other societies
○
Cultural convergence: unique aspects of culture are shared and adopted by
more and more groups around the world
○
-
Early cultural hearths and diffusion: eight early urban civilizations
Earliest hearth: Mesopotamia (followed later by Egypt)
"The cradle of civilization"
Early urban civilization
Name Date (approximate)
Mesopotamia (Iraq, parts of Syria, Turkey and Iran) Ca. 5,500 BP
China *Ca. 4,000 BP
Sumer and Gilgamesh Ca. 5,000 BP
Egypt Ca. 5,300 BP
Indus Valley (India) Ca. 4,300 BP
8 Characteristics of emerging civilization
Highly organized and very productive local agriculture, producing large
amounts of surplus food
1)
Stratified society and labour specialization, fed by the farmers, with artisan,
merchant, warrior, priest and other classes
2)
Each developed astronomical and mathematical knowledge and the calendar
(necessary for taxation, festivals, and measuring wealth)
3)
Each exported its culture far beyond its hearth (diffusion)4)
Each developed monumental public works (hanging gardens of Babylon,
pyramids, etc.)
5)
Long distance trade supported each economy6)
Each developed a system of writing7)
Each developed a state organization 8)
Popular and local culture
Cultural hierarchy
Folk/local culture
Ethnic culture
Popular culture
Mass culture
The passing of US folk cultural regionalism: The 20th century, a national culture
Urban - rural contrasts: by 20th C. eastern and mid-western urban society leaving folk
culture behind
-
Factors: immigration, economic unification, impact of industrialization, new
construction, increased communications (RR)
Rural society: initially folk culture still thriving, still differences between regions -
subsequently, erosion homogenization due to adoption of technology and
communication
-
Factors: (1910-20s on) automobile, radio, movies, newspapers
3 Ms: mechanization, mass production, mass distribution
-
Folk culture and popular culture
Traditional folk cultures survive mostly in rural landscapes; tend to resist change -
urban culture embraces change
Folk culture characterized by a rural setting and strong sense of place
○
Example: Amish, Mennonites
○
-
Folk culture = small scale, coherent, rural, resistant to change
Popular culture - new attitudes and behaviors diffuse rapidly
Domain of popular culture is a key area in which subordinate groups can
contest their domination (popular culture as resistance)
○
Landscapes: malls, sports, gardens, commercial strips, sports
○
-
What is popular culture?
A wide-ranging group of heterogeneous people, who stretch across identities
and across the world, and who embrace cultural traits such as music, dance,
clothing, and food preference that change frequently and are ubiquitous on the
cultural landscapes
○
-
Popular culture = large, messy, urban, rapidly changing
Patterns of popular culture
Widespread cultural adoption by mass groups that transcends folk and ethnic
divisions - most of the population
○
Often urban and changing frequently
○
Emerges out of national, now international centres of influence (the Duck
Dress)
○
A means of patching over ethnic differences in multicultural society (shared
culture - e.g., Hip Hop or Anime)
○
May also be differentiated from "Mass Culture," passive and solitary behaviors
(centred on television and mass media), beginning in the 1950s, which showed
greater homogeneity
○
Success and widespread adoption of certain elements of folk and ethnic
cultural practices (e.g., sports, music, foods)
○
-
New origins for popular culture?
Has long been generated through the intervention of major companies
motivated by profit: partly bottom up, but mainly top down (MTV generation)
○
Diffusion of new popular culture may have been hierarchical: from major
centres to middle centres to lesser centres of cultural innovation
○
Generation of popular culture now seems much more complex, democratic,
due to the intervention of the internet
○
Diffusion now through social networks, and networks of interest, rather than
through spatial processes?
○
Where do you get your culture? Who are the "tastemakers"?
○
-
Local Culture
A group of people in a particular place who see themselves as a collective or a
community, who share experiences, customs, and traits and customs in order to
claim uniqueness and to distinguish themselves from others
-
Refining and redefining in order to remain unique
Local cultures and sustained by maintaining customs
-
Custom: a practice that a group of people routinely follows
Local cultures have two goals:
Keeping other cultures out (e.g., create a boundary around itself)1)
Keeping their own culture in (e.g., avoid cultural appropriation)2)
Cultural appropriation: process where other cultures adopt customs and knowledge
and use them for their own benefit
What role does place play in maintaining customs?
-
By defining a place (a town or a neighborhood) or a space for a short amount of time
(an annual festival) as representing a culture and its values, members of a local
culture can maintain (or re-establish) its customs and reinforce its beliefs
Rural local cultures
Migration into rural areas is less frequent (e.g., Hutterites, Amish, and Mennonites)
-
Can better separate their culture from others and from popular culture
-
Can define their own space
-
Daily life my be defined by a shared economic activity (e.g., farming or hunting
animals)
-
Why did the Makah reinstate the whale hunt? (Makah - Neah Bay, Washington)
To reinvigorate the local culture
Why did the residents of Lindsborg define it as a Swedish place? (Little Sweden, USA -
Lindsborg, KS)
Dala Horse
Neolocalism: seeking out the regional culture and reinvigorating it in response to the
uncertainty of the modern world
Urban local cultures
Can create ethnic neighborhoods within cities
-
Creates a space to practice customs
-
Can cluster businesses, houses of worship, schools to support local culture
-
Migration into ethnic neighborhoods can quickly change an ethnic neighborhood
-
Example: Italian Americans - Williamsburg, NY, North End (Boston),Ma - Jewish
community, North End Winnipeg
-
Commodification: the process through which something is given monetary value
How are aspects of local culture (material, non-material, place) commodified?
-
Authenticity: claims of authenticity abound - how do consumers determine what
experience/place is "authentic" and what is not?
To gain an "authentic" sense of place, people need to experience the complexity of
the place - not from a single food, song, dance or piece of clothing
-
Cultures change over time and space - what is authentic?
-
How do cultures change?
Innovation: the changes due to new ideas generated within the culture (resistance to
innovation is cultural lag - internal)
-
Diffusion: adoption of external ideas/innovations which have moved across space
from other cultures
Expansion
○
Relocation
○
-
Assimilation, acculturation and multiculturalism
Ethnic migration typically followed by social isolation, sometimes within an ethnic
ghetto
-
Assimilation: process by which an ethnic group is absorbed into a larger society and
loses its own identity
-
Acculturation: process by which an ethnic individual or group is absorbed into a
larger society while retaining aspects of distinct identity
-
Rate determined in part by state policies e.g., multiculturalism vs. melting pot
-
Cultural Assimilation
Behavioral assimilation: common behavior pattern through shared experience,
language, intermarriage and history
1)
Structural assimilation: fusion of immigrant group with social systems and
occupations (adoption of values and attitudes)
2)
Spatial assimilation: the overlap and sharing of space between previously
separate groups (cf. ethnic enclaves, ghettos)
3)
-
Resistance to change
Culture rebound: the re-adoption by later generations of culture traits and identifies
associated with immigrant forebears or ancestral homelands
-
Xenophobia: the fear or aversion to strangers or foreigners, often manifest in itself in
the form of ethnophobia (fear of a particular ethnic group)
-
Ethnocentrism: conviction of the evident superiority of ones own ethnic group
-
Identities and Landscapes
Imposing dominant identities onto minority groups has led to landscapes of
resistance
-
Built landscapes are often a reflection of the dominant culture and groups
-
Intrusion into these landscapes by other groups results in controversy
-
A need to examine microcultures - small groups of people within a larger culture
-
Culture (week 3 & 4 pt. 1/ pages 1-62)
Document Summary
Culture: complex term typically referring to the way pf life of the members of a society. Dynamic, changes over time - allows us to adapt to varying physical environments. Once in place, often difficult to change until a new set of values emerges. What is supposed to unite also results in barriers and conflict between peoples. "the specialized behavioural patterns, understandings, adaptions, and social systems that summarize a group of people"s way of life" shared, passed down. Mentifacts: attitudinal elements and values like language and religion. Sociofacts: norms involved in group formation (e. g. , rules about family structure) Artifacts: all human-made physical objects and elements related to peoples" lives and livelihoods. Units of learned behavior, such as an artifact, language, a belief or a technique. What cultural traits are shared in saskatoon; what attributes are not shared. Individual cultural traits that are functionally interrelated (e. g. , the bison hunting culture)
