AP Human Geography Review Culture and Identity CULTURE

AP Human Geography Review: Culture and Identity

CULTURE A culture is a group of belief systems, norms, and values practiced by a people. A group of people who share common beliefs can be recognized as a culture in one of two ways 1. The people call themselves a culture 2. Other people can label a certain group as a culture.

Folk Culture Stable and close knit Usually a rural community Tradition controls Resistance to change Buildings erected without architect or blueprint using locally available building materials anonymous origins, diffuses slowly through migration. Develops over time. Clustered distributions: isolation/lack of interaction breed uniqueness and ties to physical environment.

Local Culture • Folk Culture can often be limiting because it requires us to create a list of traits and to look for cultures that meet those traits. • How the people define themselves is much more important than the list of traits that is used to categorize them. • A local culture is a group of people in a particular place who see themselves as a collective community. They share experiences, customs, traits, and work to preserve customs and traits in order to claim uniqueness and distinguish themselves from others.

Popular Culture Wide Distribution: differences from place to place uncommon, more likely differences at one place over time. Housing: only small regional variations, more generally there are trends over time Food: franchises, cargo planes, superhighways and freezer trucks have eliminated much local variation. Limited variations in choice regionally, esp. with alcohol and snacks. Substantial variations by ethnicity.

Popular Culture Clothing: Jeans, for example, and have become valuable status symbols in many regions including Asia and Russia despite longstanding folk traditions.

Diffusion: When a cultural trait is introduced and spreads to other areas. Often times a cultural trait can be traced to a specific place or time, other cultural traits develop simultaneously in different areas as Independent invention. Expansion Diffusion: When an innovation or ideas develops in a hearth and remains strong there while also spreading outward contagious hierarchical Stimulus

Diffusion: Relocation Unlike expansion diffusion where the idea or innovation moves, Relocation diffusion occurs when people who have adopted the innovation or idea physically move to a new location where they then disseminate it

Cultural Hearths The seven original culture hearths are: 1) The Nile River Valley 2) The Indus River Valley 3) The Wei-Huang Valley 4) The Ganges River Valley 5) Mesopotamia 6) Mesoamerica 7) West Africa

Popular Culture Effects on Landscape: creates homogenous, “placeless” (Relph, 1976), landscape Complex network of roads and highways · Commercial Structures tend towards ‘boxes’ · Dwellings may be aesthetically suggestive of older folk traditions Planned and Gated Communities more and more common ·

Problems with the Globalization of Popular Culture Western Media Imperialism? · U. S. , Britain, and Japan dominate worldwide media. · Glorified consumerism, violence, sexuality, and militarism? · U. S. (Networks and CNN) and British (BBC) news media provide/control the dissemination of information worldwide. · These networks are unlikely to focus or provide third world perspective on issues important in the LDCs.

Environmental Problems with Cultural Globalization Accelerated Resource Use through Accelerated Consumption · · · Furs: minx, lynx, jaguar, kangaroo, whale, sea otters (18 th Century Russians) fed early fashion trends. Consumerism evident in most Western Media fashions, including hip hop and rock and roll. Inefficient over-consumption of Meats (10: 1), Poultry (3: 1), even Fish (fed other fish and chicken) by meat-eating pop cultures Mineral Extraction for Machines, Plastics and Fuel New larger housing desires and associated energy and water use. Golf courses use valuable water and destroy habitat worldwide. Pollution: waste from fuel generation and discarded products, plastics, marketing and packaging materials

What is ethnicity? How is it different than race? 1. identity with a group of people who share the cultural traditions of a particular homeland or hearth. Thus: customs, cultural characteristics, language, common history, homeland, etc. . . 2. a socially created system of rules about who belongs and who does not belong to a particular group based on actual or perceived commonality of origin, race, culture. This notion is clearly tied to place. Mongolian Japanese Kazakh Turkish Puerto Rican Thai Armenian Chinese