Unit 3: Cultural Patterns & Processes Flashcards
Culture
a group’s learned behaviors, actions, beliefs, and objects.
Visible Culture
seen in groups’ actions, possessions, and influence on the landscape.
Invisible Culture
guiding people through shared belief systems, customs, and traditions.
Cultural Traits
types of visible/invisible elements i.e. language, religion, ethnicity, social institutions.
Cultural Complex
a set of interconnected cultural traits i.e. the process of greeting someone in a different culture.
Taboos
behaviours heavily discouraged by cultures.
Traditional Culture
used to encompass traditional, folk, and indigenous cultures; all three share the function of passing down long-held beliefs, values, and practices.
Folk Culture
beliefs and practices of small, homogenous groups of people (often living in rural areas that are isolated and slow to change). They demonstrate how humans adapt to their physical environment.
Indigenous Culture
when members live in their ancestral lands and possess unique cultural traits (i.e. exclusive language); many have been displaced from their original lands.
Globalization
refers to the increased integration of the world economy since the 1970’s, and has had profound impacts on culture.
Popular Culture
when cultural traits (i.e. clothes, music) spread over a large area very quickly; usually are short-living and also begins in an urban area and diffuses from there.
Horizontal Diversity
own, distinct languages and customs yet people in the group are homogenous i.e. traditional cultures.
Vertical Diversity
multiethnic neighborhoods exist and people in the area are heterogenous; usually in urban areas i.e. popular cultures.
Artifacts/Material Culture
tangible things that can be perceived by the senses i.e. food, sports.
Mentifact/Nonmaterial Culture
intangible concepts such as beliefs and values.
Sociofacts
the ways people organize societies and their relation; embodied through family, govt., etc.
Placelessness
phenomenon when modern cultural landscapes exhibit homogeneity i.e. similarity between Chicago and LA.
Cultural Landscape
the visible reflection of culture i.e. China’s houses are different than Germany’s.
Traditional Architecture
style that reflects a local culture’s history, beliefs, values, and community adaptations to the environment i.e. Spanish adobe houses.
Contemporary Architecture
style that uses multiple advancements to curve, rotate, and stretch the limits of size/height of buildings.
Ethnicity
membership within a group of people who have common experiences and share similar characteristics such as ancestry, language, or history.
Ethnic Enclaves
clusters of people of the same ethnicity in an urban area.
Gendered Spaces
areas in which particular genders of people, and particular types of gender expression, are considered welcome or appropriate, and other types are unwelcome or inappropriate i.e. women’s restrooms.
Cultural Regions
regions that are usually determined based on characteristics such as religion, language, and ethnicity.
Sacred Places
specific places/natural locations that have religious significance i.e. Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
Christian Landscape
churches (cross, original architecture: Mediterranean dome shapes or steep-pitched roofs), bury the dead underground.
Hindu Landscape
temples (complex sculptures of deities/characters, located near rivers as they are considered holy), cremation (burning of the dead).
Buddhist Landscape
meditation/harmonizing with nature (represented in stupas), pagodas (used as temples), usually cremate.
Jewish Landscape
synagogues/temples, which vary in size based on how many Jews are in the area, bury the dead.
Diaspora
scattering of a group of people because of persecution or oppression.
Islamic Landscape
mosque (dome architecture with complex Islamic writing), burial of the dead.
Shinto Landscape
cultural hearth lies in Japan and emphasizes relation between one and nature, torii (gateway from outside world to sacred space).
Charter Group
first group to establish cultural/religious customs in a space i.e. Native Americans in North America.
Ethnic Islands (Rural)
ethnic concentrations in rural areas, maintain strong sense of cohesion.
Ethnic Islands (Urban)
occupied by migrants who settle in a charter group’s former space.
Sequence Occupancy
ethnic groups moving in and out of neighborhoods which creates new cultural imprints on the landscape.
Neolocalism
process of re-embracing the uniqueness of a place i.e. neighborhood hosts festival to celebrate food, history, etc.
Cultural Patterns
consist of related sets of cultural traits and complexes that create similar behaviors across space.
Culture Hearth
where a religion/ethnicity starts.
Regional Religious Patterns in the U.S.
Congregationalists are still strong New England; Baptists/Methodists are most common in the Southeast; Lutherans live mostly in the Midwest; Mormons live in Utah; Roman Catholics are common in the Northeast/Southwest; Jews, Muslims, & Hindus live in urban areas.
Nationality
based on people’s connection with a country.
Centripetal Forces
forces that unify a group of people or a region i.e. common heritage, common language, etc.
Centrifugal Forces
forces that divide a group of people or a region i.e. different languages, separate pasts, dictatorship, etc.
Sharia
the legal framework of a country derived from Islamic edicts taken from the Qur’an.
Blue Laws
laws that restrict certain things on Sundays i.e. the restriction of selling of alcohol on Sunday.
Food Taboos
prohibitions against eating certain things i.e. many Hindus don’t eat beef, and many Jews/Muslims don’t eat pork.
Fundamentalism
an attempt to follow a literal interpretation of a religious faith; believe that people should live traditional lives based on the holy book.
Theocracies
countries whose governments are run by religious leaders through the use of religious laws i.e. Iran.
Ethnocentric
belief that their own cultural group is more important and superior to others’ culture; don’t seek to understand different cultures.
Cultural Relativism
the concept that a person’s or group’s beliefs, values, norms, and practices should be understood from the other group’s perspective.
Cultural Appropriation
action of adopting traits, icons, or other elements of another culture i.e. dressing up as an inaccurate Indigenous costume for Halloween.
Diffusion
spread of information, ideas, behaviours, and other aspects of culture from their hearths to wider areas.
Relocation Diffusion
the spread of culture/cultural traits by people who migrate and carry their culture with them.
Expansion Diffusion
spread of cultural traits outwards through exchange without migration.
Contagious Diffusion
cultural trait spreads continuously out from its hearth through contact among people.
Hierarchical Diffusion
spread of culture outward from the most interconnected places or from centers of wealth/influence.
Reverse Hierarchical Diffusion
cultural traits diffused from a group of lower status to a group of higher status.
Stimulus Diffusion
when an underlying idea from the hearth is adopted by another culture but the adopting culture modifies/rejects one trait.
Imperialism
includes variety of ways of influencing another country or group of people by direct conquest, economic control, or cultural dominance.
Colonialism
type of imperialism where people move and settle into the land of another country.
Animism
the belief that non-living objects, like mountains and rivers, possess spirits.
Native Speakers
those who use the language they learned from birth.
Lingua Franca
a common language used by people who don’t share the same native language.
Slang
words used informally by a segment of the population.
Pidgin Language
a simplified mixture of two languages.
Creole Language
two languages that have culminated and developed more structured rules, so they are no longer a pidgin language.
Social Constructs
ideas, concepts, and perceptions that have been created and accepted by people in a society or social group and are not created by nature.
Time-Space Convergence
greater interconnection between places because of improved transportation.
Cultural Convergence
cultures becoming similar to each other and sharing more cultural traits, ideas, and beliefs.
Cultural Divergence
idea that a culture may change over time as the elements of distance, time, physical separation, and modern technology create divisions and changes.
Linguists
scientists who study languages.
Language Tree
shows relationship between languages.
Indo-European Language Family
large group of languages that descended from a language spoken around 6,000 years ago i.e. Hindi, Russian, English, Welsh, French.
Romance Languages
unifying language of Latin splitting into multiple languages i.e. Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, French, Romanian.
Isoglosses
boundaries between variations in pronunciations or word usage.
Dialects
regional variations of a language; can create subregions.
Adages
sayings that attempt to express a truth about life.
Toponyms
names of places.
Official Language
a language designated by law to be the language of government.
Homogenous
made up of similar ethnic groups i.e. Slovenia, Japan.
Adherents
believers in their faith.
Ethnic Religions
belief traditions that emphasize strong cultural characteristics among their followers i.e. Hinduism and Judaism.
Universal Religions
actively seeks converts to its faith regardless of their ethnic background i.e. Christianity and Islam.
Hinduism
polytheistic; believe in karma; worked closely with caste system; reincarnation.
Polytheistic
having many gods.
Monotheistic
having one god.
Karma
idea that behaviours have consequences in the present or future life.
Caste System
rigid class structure that helped shape Indian society.
Buddhism
grew out of the teachings of Siddhartha (Buddha); accepted Hindu beliefs but rejected caste system; 4 Noble Truths sought to eliminate suffering through Eightfold Path; goal is nirvana.
Four Noble Truths
summary of Buddha’s doctrines (sought to eliminate suffering through Eightfold Path).
Eightfold Path
8 steps to achieve nirvana and stop suffering.
Sikhism
founded by Guru Nanak in Punjab; stresses serving others and hard work; Singh and Kaur to create more equal society; gurdwara.
Gurdwara
Sikh place of worship; required to have a food kitchen that serves people of all faith.
Judaism
first monotheistic religion; Torah expresses divine will; used to live in North Africa and Middle East but started to find new home and began migration to U.S.; Holocaust.
Torah
Jew holy book that expresses divine will.
Holocaust
large persecution and genocide of Jews during World War 2 by Nazi Germany; 6 million Jews were killed.
Christianity
began with teachings of Jesus; emphasized love and faith; spread from Middle East to Europe and the Americas and even Africa; 3 types (Protestant, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox).
Islam
believe that Allah revealed teachings through a series of prophets (Muhammad was final prophet); Muhammad shared them through Qur’an; 5 pillars; Sharia; 2 subdivisions (Sunni and Shia).
Five Pillars
ritual prayer 5 times a day. belief in only Allah, haj (travel to Mecca once in your life); almsgiving, and fasting during Ramadan.
Sunni
subdivision of Islam; 90% of adherents.
Shia
subdivision of Islam; 10% of adherents; Pakistan, India, Iran, Iraq, Yemen.
Pilgrimage
religious journey taken by a person to a sacred place of their religion.
Acculturation
when ethnic or immigrant group moving to a new area adopts the values and practices of the larger group that has received them, while still maintaining their own culture.
Assimilation
when ethnic group cannot be distinguished from receiving group.
Syncretism
fusion of two cultural traits to create a new cultural trait.
Multiculturalism
the coexistence of several cultures in one place with the idea that all cultures are worth studying.
Nativist
anti-immigrant.
