1. Unit Three: Cultural Patterns and Processes

2. Culture What is culture? How and why is culture diffused?
How is culture imprinted on landscape?
How is culture affected by globalization?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of globalization?
How can language, religion, ethnicity, race and gender be represented spatially?

3. Introduction to cultural processes

4. Culture as a Geographical Process
Cultural geography
Folk culture
Popular culture
Cultural practice called “gothic”

5. Sauer’s Cultural Landscape
This figure summarizes the ways the natural and cultural landscapes are transformed.

6. How do cultural traits diffuse?
Hearth: the point of origin of a cultural trait.
Contagious diffusion
Hierarchical diffusion

7. With Distance Decay, the likelihood of diffusion decreases as time and distance from the hearth increases.
With Time-Space Compression, the likelihood of diffusion depends upon the connectedness among places.
Which applies more to popular culture?

8. How are hearths of popular culture traits established?
Typically begins with an idea/good and contagious diffusion.
Companies can create/manufacture popular culture. (ie. MTV)
Individuals can create/manufacture popular culture. (ie. Tony Hawk)

9. Material and Nonmaterial Culture
The things a group of people construct, such as art, houses, clothing, sports, dance, and food.
Nonmaterial Culture
The beliefs, practices, aesthetics, and values of a group of people.

10. Folk Culture
spreads slowly, unchanging
isolated
promotes diversity

11. Popular culture: global wide-spread; ephemeral
tends toward homogeneity
many cultures

12. The sources and diffusion of U.S. rap
The Culture of Hip-Hop
The sources and diffusion of U.S. rap

13. U.S. Religious Population
Distribution by county, 2000

14. Origin of the world’s major religions >
Cultural Systems
A cultural system is a collection of interacting components that shape a group’s collective identity, and includes traits, territorial affiliation, and shared history.
Geography and Religion
Geography and Language
Culture and Society
Origin of the world’s major religions >

15. Cultural Landscape The visible human imprint on the landscape.
How have people changed the landscape?
What buildings, statues, and so forth have they erected?
How do landscapes reflect the values of a culture?

16. Placelessness: the loss of uniqueness in a cultural landscape – one place looks like the next.

17. Convergence of Cultural Landscapes:
The widespread distribution
of businesses and products
creates distinctive landscape
stamps around the world.

18. Convergence of Cultural Landscapes:
Borrowing of idealized
landscape images blurs
place distinctiveness.

19. House Types Kniffen’s traditional American house types: New England
Mid-Atlantic
Southern Tidewater

21. Language
Language – a set of sounds, combinations of sounds, and symbols that are used for communication.

22. Language and National Identity
Standard Language
a language that is published, widely distributed, and purposefully taught.
Government usually plays a big role in standardizing a language.

23. Language and Political Conflict
Belgium:
Flanders (Flemish language)
Wallonia (French language)

24. Percent of People 5 Years and Older Who Speak a Language other than English at Home

26. Dialect variants of a standard language along regional or ethnic lines - vocabulary -syntax - pronunciation - cadence - pace of speech
Isogloss
A geographic boundary within which a particular linguistic feature occurs

27. Mutual Intelligibility
Means two people can understand each other when speaking.
Problems:
Cannot measure mutual intelligibility
Many “languages” fail the test of mutual intelligibility
Standard languages and governments impact what is a “language” and what is a “dialect”

28. Distribution of Major Languages
Classifying languages by family and mapping their occurrence across the globe provide insights about human geography.

29. World Language Families

30. Indo-European Language
The Indo-European language blossomed in northeast central Europe in the fifth millennium B.C.

31. Extinct or threatened languages in Africa
Language Maps
Extinct or threatened languages in Africa
India’s linguistic landscape is complex with hundreds of distinct languages in use

32. Languages & Dialects of France
1789
On the eve of the French Revolution, language diversity in France was not so dissimilar from other European regions that were consolidating into states.

33. How are Languages Formed?
Can find linkages among languages by examining sound shifts – a slight change in a word across languages over time.
eg. Milk = lacte in Latin
latta in Italian
leche in Spanish
lait in French

34. How are Languages Formed?
Language divergence –
when a lack of spatial interaction among speakers of a language breaks the language into dialects and then new languages.
Language convergence –
when peoples with different languages have consistent spatial interaction and their languages collapse into one.

35. How do Linguists Study Historical Languages?
Backward reconstruction – tracking sound shifts and the hardening of consonants backward to reveal an “original” language.
Can deduce the vocabulary of an extinct language.
Can recreate ancient languages (deep reconstruction)

36. Historical Linkages among Languages
Indo-European language family
Proto-Indo-European language
Nostratic Language

37. Renfrew Hypothesis:
Proto-Indo-European began in the Fertile Crescent, and then:
From Anatolia diffused Europe’s languages
From the Western Arc of Fertile Crescent diffused North
Africa and Arabia’s languages
From the Eastern Arc of Fertile Crescent diffused Southwest
Asia and South Asia’s languages.

38. Agriculture Theory
With increased food supply and increased population, speakers
from the hearth of Indo-European languages migrated into Europe.

39. Dispersal Hypothesis
Indo-European languages first moved from the hearth eastward into present-day Iran and then around the Caspian and into Europe.

40. The Languages of Europe
Romance languages
Germanic languages
Slavic languages

41. Nigeria more than 400 different languages.

42. How do Languages Diffuse?
human interaction
print distribution
migration
trade
rise of nation-states
colonialism

43. Spatial Interaction helps create:
Lingua franca –
A language used among speakers of different languages for the purposes of trade and commerce.
Pidgin language –
a language created when people combine parts of two or more languages into a simplified structure and vocabulary.
Creole language –
a pidgin language that has developed a more complex structure and vocabulary and has become the native language of a group of people.

44. Global Language Is a global language the principle language people use around the world in their day-to-day activities? OR Is a global language a common language for trade and commerce used around the world?

45. Place
Place – the uniqueness of a location, what people do in a location, what they create, how they impart a certain character, a certain imprint on the location by making it unique.

46. Toponym Toponym – a place name A toponym:
Imparts a certain character on a place
Reflects the social processes in a place
Can give us a glimpse of the history of a place

47. Changing Toponyms
When people change the toponym of a place, they have the power to “wipe out the past and call forth the new.”
- Yi-Fu Tuan

48. Religion
“a system of beliefs and practices that attempts to order life in terms of culturally perceived ultimate priorities.”
- Stoddard and Prorak
“perceived ultimate priorities” often translate into a list of things a follower “should” do and ways a follower “should” behave.

49. Classifications of Religions
Monotheistic religions – worship a single deity.
Polytheistic religions – worship more than one deity, even thousands.
Animistic religions – belief that inanimate objects posses spirits and should be revered.

50. Classifications of Religions
Universalizing religions – religions that actively seek converts because members believe they offer belief systems of universal appropriateness and appeal.
Ethnic religions – religions whose adherents are born into the faith and whose members do not actively seek converts.

51. Religions of the World Where are universalizing religions located?
Where are ethnic religions located?

52. Hearths of Religion and Philosophy by 500 BCE

54. From the Hearth of South Asia
Hinduism –
originated in Indus River Valley over 4000 years ago.
* ritual bathing, karma, reincarnation
sacred text: Vedas
sacred sites: Ganges River
social manifestation: caste system
diffusion: through South Asia and into Southeast Asia

55. From the Hearth of South Asia
Buddhism –
splintered from Hinduism 2500 years ago. Originated in a region from Nepal south to the Ganges River area.
* anyone can achieve salvation, reach enlightenment
founder: Siddartha (the Buddha)
sacred sites: stupas
diffusion: most strongly into Tibet in the north and
into East Asia

56. From the Hearth of Huang He (Yellow) River Valley
Taoism –
originated in China more than 2500 years ago
* oneness of humanity and nature
founder: Lao-Tsu
sacred text: “Book of the Way”
social manifestation: Feng Shui
diffusion: East Asia

57. From the Hearth of Huang He (Yellow) River Valley
Confucianism –
originated in China about 2500 years ago
* real meaning of life lay in the present
founder: Confucius
sacred text: “Confucian Classics”
diffusion: East Asia, Southeast Asia

58. From the Hearth of the Eastern Mediterranean
Judaism –
originated in Southwest Asia about 4000 years ago.
* first major monotheistic religion, covenant between
God (one God) and Abraham (the chosen people)
sacred text: Torah
founder: Abraham
sacred sites: Jerusalem (Western Wall), land between
the Mediterranean and the Jordan River
social manifestation: Zionism
diffusion: into European cities during the diaspora,
into N. America during WWII, into Israel over
last 50 years

59. From the Hearth of the Eastern Mediterranean
Christianity –
originated in Southwest Asia about 2000 years ago.
* monotheistic religion, follow teachings of Jesus to
achieve eternal life
sacred text: Bible
founder: Jesus (son of God)
sacred sites: Bethlehem, Jerusalem
split in the church:
* split into Eastern Orthodox and Roman
Catholic churches in 1054
* Protestant sect split off in 1400s and 1500s
diffusion: into Western Europe, and then world wide
during colonialism and after.

60. First Split in Christianity, 1054 CE Western Roman empire = Roman Catholicism Eastern Roman empire = Eastern Orthodox

61. From the Hearth of the Eastern Mediterranean
Islam –
originated on Arabian peninsula about 1500 years ago.
* monotheistic religion, revelations Muhammad
received from Allah, Five Pillars.
sacred text: Qu’ran
founder: Muhammad
sacred sites: Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem split in the church:
* shortly after Muhammad’s death, split into Sunni Muslims (great majority)
Shi’ite Muslims (concentrated in Iran)
diffusion: across Arabian peninsula, across North
Africa, into Spain and also east into Southeast Asia

62. The Diffusion of Islam

63. Minaret (for call to prayer) stands on the Sabah State Mosque in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

64. Religions of the World Shamanism –
a community faith tradition in which people follow their shaman, a religious leader, teacher, healer, and visionary.

65. Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage
places or spaces people infuse with religious meaning.
Pilgrimage
purposeful travel to a religious site to pay respects or participate in a ritual at the site.

66. Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage
Vatican City
Pope John Paul II greeted pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square

67. Sacred Sites of Jerusalem
Jerusalem is sacred to three major religions:
Judaism (Western Wall)
Christianity (Church of the Holy Sepulchre)
Islam (Dome of the Rock)

68. Sacred Landscapes of Hinduism
Hinduism – pilgrimages follow prescribed routes, and rituals are followed by millions.
Varanasi, India on the
Ganges River where Hindus perform morning rituals.

69. Sacred Landscapes of Buddhism
Swedogon Pagodo in Yangon, Myanmar
Eight hairs of the Buddha are preserved under the dome (chedi)

70. The Hajj Pilgrims circle the holy Kaaba in the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia during the Hajj.

71. Conflicts along Religious Borders
Interfaith Boundaries
Boundaries between the world’s major faiths.
Intrafaith Boundaries
Boundaries within a single major faith.

72. Interfaith Boundary in Africa

73. Israel and Palestine

74. Landscapes of Settlements Israelis have had a policy of building settlements for Jews in the Occupied Territories

75. Landscape of the Gaza Strip, 2005 In 2005, the Israeli government pulled out of the Gaza Strip, burning down Jewish settlements and handing control over to Palestinians.

76. The West Bank with a the proposed security wall, parts of which the Israeli government has already built.

77. The Horn of Africa
Amharic (Coptic) Christianity is in central Ethiopia
Islam diffused into the Horn of Africa
Indigenous religions remain in pockets ,

78. The Former Yugoslavia
Genocide
Ethnic Cleansing

79. Northern Ireland Identities are tied to Religion, but are deepened by:
Economics
colonial experiences
activity spaces (segregation)

80. Religious Fundamentalism and Extremism
a return to the basics of their faith.
found in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam
Religious extremism –
fundamentalism carried to the point of violence.

81. Islamic Extremists and Jihad an Islamic holy war against the West

82. Rise of Secularism Secularism –
indifference to or rejection of organized religious affiliations and ideas.
- Where is secularism on the rise and why?