Chapter 16

Culture Change and Globalization

What We Will Learn

• How do cultures change?• What are some obstacles to cultural change?• In what ways do civilization and

industrialization threaten the cultures of Indigenous populations?

• Do planned programs of economic development always benefit the local people?

• What is globalization, and how does it affect the cultures of the world?

Cultural Change

• No culture remains unchanged. • Cultures change in two ways:

• Internally - through the processes of invention and innovation

• Externally through the process of diffusion.

Cultural Change

Inventors and Innovators

• Inventors and innovators tend to be marginal people living on the fringes of society.

• Marginal people are non-mainstream people who are at the fringes of their own culture.

• Not bound by tradition or convention, these people see problems and their solutions with a fresh perspective.

Diffusion

• The spreading of a thing, an idea, or a behavior pattern from one culture to another.

• If every culture had to rely solely on its own inventions, human progress over the centuries would indeed be slow.

• Cultures have been able to develop rapidly because the process of diffusion has enabled humans to pool their creative/inventive resources.

Cultural Diffusion: Selectivity

• The adoption of an innovation by a culture and the speed with which it is adopted depends on the following:• Is it seen as superior to what already exists?• Is it consistent with existing cultural patterns?• Is it easily understood?• Can it be tested on a trial basis?• Are the benefits clearly visible?

Cultural Diffusion: Reciprocity• Diffusion is a two-way process.• While Europeans introduced their culture to

native Americans, they received cultural features in return:• Clothing - ponchos, parkas, and moccasins.• Medicines - quinine, pain relievers, and

laxatives.• Food - corn, beans, tomatoes, squash,

yams, avocados, and the so-called Irish potato.

Cultural Diffusion: Modification

• Once a cultural element is accepted in a new culture, it may change in form or function.• The Masai of Kenya and Tanzania pierce

their earlobes and enlarge the hole by inserting increasingly larger round pieces of wood until a loop of skin is formed.

• One group of Masai was observed using Eveready flashlight batteries obtained from the U.S.

Diffusion

• The pizza pie has made a number of changes in form as it diffused from Italy to the Americas in the early 1900s.

Cultural Diffusion: Likelihood

• Some parts of culture are more likely to be diffused than others.

• Material culture is more likely to be diffused than ideas or behavior patterns.

• A traditional farmer in Senegal is more likely understand the advantages of a bulldozer over a shovel than of substituting Buddhism for his form of ancestor worship.

Cultural Diffusion: Variables

• Diffusion is affected by:• Duration and intensity of contact.• Degree of cultural integration.• Similarities between the donor and

recipient cultures.

Question

• A/an ________ is any new thing, idea, or behavior pattern that emerges from within a society.

a) Creation

b) Innovation

c) Construct

d) invention

Answer: d

• An invention is any new thing, idea, or behavior pattern that emerges from within a society.

Question

• ________ is the spread of a thing, an idea, or a cultural pattern from one culture to another.

a) Diffusion

b) Enculturation

c) Innovation

d) Acculturation

Answer: a

• Diffusion is the spread of a thing, an idea, or a cultural pattern from one culture to another.

Acculturation

• Takes place as a result of sustained contact between two societies, one of which is subordinate to the other.

• Involves the widespread reorganization of one or both cultures over a short period of time.

• Both the dominant and subordinate culture experience changes, but the subordinate culture changes most dramatically.

Consequences of Acculturation

The subordinate culture could:• Become extinct• Be incorporated as a distinct subculture of

the dominant group• Be assimilated (blended) into the

dominant group

Acculturation

• The Skolt Lapps adopted snowmobiles in the 1960s to help them become more efficient reindeer herders.

Linked Changes• A single innovation may set off changes in other

parts of a culture.• Television

• Introduced during the 1950s.• Replaced the the radio as the major form of

electronic communication in U.S. Households.

• Had consequences for other parts of the culture, such as the family system, the political process, and religious institutions.

Linked Changes

• The increased use of cell phones by inattentive pedestrians on busy streets has led to a significant rise in auto accidents.

Question

• _______ is a special type of diffusion that takes place as a result of sustained contact between two societies, one of which is subordinate to the other.

a) Modificationb) Acculturationc) Reciprocityd) Enculturation

Answer: b

• Acculturation is a special type of diffusion that takes place as a result of sustained contact between two societies, one of which is subordinate to the other.

Cultural Boundaries

• Strengthen a culture’s traditions and discourage cultural borrowing:• Language• Eating habits• Clothing• Folklore• Humor

Indigenous Populations

Refers to a group of people who are:• Original inhabitants of a region.• Identify with a specific, small-scale cultural

heritage.• Have no significant role in the government.• Examples: the small-scale cultures in Asia,

Africa, and the Americas that came under the influence of the colonial powers during the past several centuries.

Indigenous Populations

• If the Shasta Dam, located in Northern California, is elevated by 18 feet (as proposed), the last remaining sacred sites of the Winnemem Wintu Indians will be destroyed.

Change And Development

• Today’s world can be roughly divided into two broad categories of countries: the haves and the have-nots.

• In terms of comparative income, Canada’s per capita income is 170 times higher than Mozambique’s, and the average U.S. citizen earns approximately 178 times more money as the average Ethiopian.

Economic Disparity

• The income of the average Canadian is 170 times greater than that of this man from Mozambique, Africa.

Modernization Theory

• The theory that explains economic development in terms of the inherent sociocultural differences between the rich and the poor.

• Includes many of the assumptions as the Culture of poverty view, an interpretation of poverty that suggests that poor people pass certain cultural features on to their children that tend to reinforce and perpetuate poverty.

World Systems Theory

• An attempt to explain levels of economic development in terms of the exploitation of the poor by the rich nations of the world, rather than in terms of innate socioeconomic characteristics of each.

• Economic development occurs when one group purposefully increases its own wealth at the expense of others.

Neocolonialism

• The economic, political, and military influence that developed nations continue to exert over less developed countries, even though the official period of colonization ended in the 1960s.

Question• According to the ________ theory, the wealthy

countries of the world achieved high levels of development by exploiting other regions, plundering their resources, using their people as cheap sources of labor, and dominating their markets.

a) colonialismb) voluntaristicc) world systemsd) modernization

Answer: c

• According to the world systems theory, the wealthy countries of the world achieved high levels of development by exploiting other regions, plundering their resources, using their people as cheap sources of labor, and dominating their markets.

Less Developed Countries (Ldcs)

• Countries that have a relatively low gross national product (GNP) and low annual family income.

Multinational Corporations

• Large corporations that have economic operations in a number of different countries throughout the world.

Multinational Corporations• Vietnamese Buddhist

monks walk past an inflatable Pepsi can in Ho Chi Minh City.

• Multinational corporations have more assets than the countries in which they operate, giving them enormous control over governments and economies.

Factors in the the Rise of Globalization

• Revolution in computer technology made communication faster and cheaper for a growing segment of the world’s population.

• Methods of investing money has changed, today it is, to a large degree, in the hands of individuals.

• There has been a fundamental change in the flow of information all over the world.

Globalization

• The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the symbolic beginning of our present period of globalization.

Globalization• As yet one more

leading indicator of rapid globalization, more than half of all U.S.-based franchises are now located in other parts of the world, as is this KFC restaurant in Shanghai, China.

Globalization• Examples of Global Interconnectedness:

• Major league baseball and football teams have their preseason games in Europe and Japan.

• In 2003, 56% of U.S. franchise operators were in markets outside the United States as compared to 46% three years earlier.

• Coca-Cola sells more of its products in Japan than it sells in the U.S., even though Japan has half the population of the U.S.

Multiculturalism

• A public policy philosophy that recognizes the legitimacy and equality of all cultures represented in a society.