1. Globalization and Cultural Geography
Intro to Human Geography

2. Objectives After covering this section, you should be able to:
Define globalization.
Describe the characteristics of contemporary globalization.
Identify and explain the three theories about cultural change resulting from globalization.

3. Globalization So what is globalization, anyway? Is globalization new?
How is globalization today different from the past?
Horizontal expansion
Vertical expansion

4. Major Shipping Routes in the Colonial Era
Data source: Climatological Database for the World’s Oceans (James Cheshire)
Via

5. Facebook Users Worldwide

7. Flights Around the World

8. Globalization
Contemporary globalization is characterized by stronger and larger number of connections between places than in the past.
What factors enable globalization?

9. Cultural Impacts of Globalization
Homogenization – globalization makes cultures more similar.
Placelessness – places lose their uniqueness
McDonaldization – standardization of eating habits
Americanization – diffusion of American culture throughout the world
Is globalization a one-way street?
Wikimedia - IDuke

10. Cultural Impacts of Globalization
Polarization -- globalization makes cultural identities stronger, causing fragmentation.
Neolocalism – a renewed interest in promoting the uniqueness of places
Wikimedia.org

11. Cultural Impacts of Globalization
Glocalization – global and local forces interact, changing both. So, a business or brand may diffuse to a new place, but is changed to fit local preferences.
McDonalds
Pop Culture in
The Islamic World
Recrimisi.blogspot.com

12. Commodification of Culture
Commodification means that something that wasn’t available to buy is now available to buy and own.

13. Commodification
Heritage Industry – Organizations that manage or sell the past.
Often has to be simplified
World heritage – sites that have value for the whole of humanity.
World Heritage List – Created by UNESCO
UNESCO World Heritage Map
What are the positives and negatives of cultural commodification?
Steppes & Lakes of Northern Kazakstan – UNESCO

14. Local vs. Popular Culture
Practiced by small, homogenous groups, covers a small scale
Anonymous hearths, people, unclear time of origin
Varies Between Places at a Given Time
Diffuses through relocation, limited contagious diffusion
Popular
Large, heterogeneous large scale
Well-known hearths, developers, and dates
Varies over time at a given place
Diffuses hierarchically and contagiously
Inuit Wisdom Video

15. Local vs. Popular Culture

16. Local vs. Popular Culture

17. Local Knowledge – Always Valued?
Rationality doctrine – idea that Europeans were rational and non-Europeans irrational
Influenced colonization.
Led to diffusionism – idea that diffusion of Western knowledge and technology would allow non-Westerners to develop.
Ignored value of local knowledge.
Today, more appreciation is given to the value of local knowledge.
Inuit Wisdom Video

18. Traditional vs. Allopathic Medicine
Geography for maternal and newborn health
The traditional birth attendant: linking communities and health services
The Tuk Tuk Nurse Midwife Reducing Maternal Mortality
Reducing fear of birth in U.S. culture

19. Traditional vs. Allopathic Medicine
mortality-rate-infographic_n_ html

20. Review
What is globalization? How is it different from historical globalization?
What is distance decay?
What factors enable contemporary globalization?
Why do connections between places develop? What are complementarity, transferability, and intervening obstacles?
What is diffusion? Identify and explain the different types.
What are the three types of cultural change from globalization? Describe them, and the various terms associated with them. (Ex. Americanization and McDonaldization are associated with globalization).
What is cultural commodification? Examples of it?
What is the World Heritage List and some of the criticisms/benefits associated with it?
How have Western perspectives of local knowledge changed over time? What is diffusionism, the rationality doctrine, and sustainable development?