Cultures, Environments, and Regions

Culture

Culture closely identified with anthropology– Has many definitions– An all-encompassing term

Identifies tangible lifestyle of a people and prevailing values and beliefs

– Examples of definitions??– Culture consists of components

Components of Culture

Culture region: – Area within which a particular culture system

prevails

Culture trait:– A single attribute of a culture

Culture complex:– Discrete combination of culture traits

Components of CultureCulture system:– Culture complexes grouped together because

they have culture traits in common

Geographic regions:– Term preferred by many geographers instead of

culture region

Culture realm:– Most highly generalized regionalization of culture

and geography

Cultural Geographies:Past and Present

Colonization and Europeanization (and Americanization?) of the world have obliterated much of the world's earlier cultural geography

Two Maps:– Indigenous North American cultures– “Modern” cultures in Africa

Cultural Homogenization???

Cultural Geographies:Past and Present

The world is made up of constantly changing, often overlapping mix of traditional and modern regions

The Cultural Landscape

A distinctive cultural environment

Composite of artificial features– Carl Sauer’s definition includes all identifiably human-

induced changes in the natural landscape

Sequent occupance– Cultural imprints of successive societies on a place,

contributing to the cultural landscape

Can the whole of a cultural landscape be represented on a map??

Map: U.S. CBD vs. Japanese city

Cultural Hearths

Sources of civilization

First large clusters of human population

Progress in farming techniques

Exploitation of local resources

Complex society = less subsistence time

New ideas, innovations, and ideologies spread

Cultural Hearths

Cultural Diffusion

The spreading of culture

Independent invention

Expansion diffusion

Relocation diffusion

Expansion Diffusion

Three “types” of ED:1. Contagious diffusion: nearly all adjacent

individuals are affected2. Hierarchical diffusion: main channel of

diffusion lies through some segment of those susceptible or adopting what is being diffused (leapfrog)

3. Stimulus diffusion: ideas may not be adopted but may result in local experimentation– Hamburger sales in India

Spatial flows of

A) Expansion diffusion

B) Hierarchical diffusion

Relocation Diffusion

Acculturation: less technologically-advanced culture is modified by contact with a technologically-superior culture

Transculturation: cultural “borrowing” when different cultures of (about) equal complexity and technology come into close contact

Assimilation: adoption of cultural elements so complete that the two cultures become one

Migrant diffusion

An innovation loses usage at its source but is adopted farther away

Forces that work against the diffusion process:– Time-distance decay– Cultural barriers

Cultural Perception

Perceptual Regions– Based on our knowledge about regions and

cultures– Sometimes difficult to put a culture region on

a map– Example:

The Mid-Atlantic

Cultural Perception

Perceptual regions in the United States– Regional identity example:

“The South”

Perceptual Region: Texas

Cultural Environments

Complex relationships

Societies modify their natural environments from slight to severe

No society can completely escape the forces of nature– Ivan: before and after

Grenada, West IndiesRavaged by

Hurricane Ivan September 2004

Climate

Monsoon-ish climate

Wet & Dry Seasons

St. George's, Grenada

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

J F M A M J J A S O N D

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Grand Etang National Reserve

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

J F M A M J J A S O N D

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Wet Season…Dry Season

Climate

Hurricane belt: Grenada is just on the cusp(~12 degrees N)

Ivan…

Ivan from above…

12o N

Hurricane Ivan…Before & After

Hurricane Ivan…Devastation

Environmental Determinism

Human behavior is strongly affected by and even controlled or determined by the environment that prevails

Not new: Aristotle

Believed by many until the middle of the twentieth century– Ellsworth Huntington

Environmental Determinism

Some geographers recognized exceptions to the environmentalists’ hypotheses

S.F. Markham wrote a book based on climatic changes and their effects on cultural development

Now agreed (mostly) to be defunct

Possibilism

Natural environment limits choice– Depend on the people’s needs and

technology

As a culture rises in affluence, influence of environment declines

Other Cultural Environments

Political Ecology– Studies the environmental consequences of

specific political-economic policies

Changeable weather seems to influence significant numbers of people

Human will is powerful…

Resources

Dr. Sallie Marston, Univ. of Arizona– Video: Semiotics of Landscape– PowerPoint: Marston-LandscapeSemiotics

Discussion Question #1

A few years ago, several people in a small village near a large East Asian city got the flu. Within days, hundreds of people in the city came down with the same flu, and it spread to the surrounding countryside. Meanwhile, the Asian Flu appeared in cities around the globe (London, NYC, San Francisco, Moscow).– What processes were at work in China and

worldwide spreading this malady? Do the processes differ?

– If you were unable to get immunized, how would you use your knowledge of geography to best protect yourself (and family)?

Discussion Question #2

Our Perceptual Regions…

– Draw a map of North AmericaDraw in the international border(s)

Divide your map into regions and label them

– Why did you define the borders and regions as you did?

– What underlies our different perceptions?