AP HuG Unit 3

• Culture

  Shared practices, technologies, attitudes, and behaviors transmitted by the members of a society that are not the result of biological inheritance (socially constructed)
• Ethnicity

  A group of people who share a common cultural identity
• Ethnicities


  • Hispanic
  • German
  • Italian
  • Hmong
  • Japanese
• Race


  Historical classification used to categorize human populations with shared physical traits (not culture)
• Racial categories


  • American Indian or Alaska Native
  • Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
  • Black or African American
  • White
  • Asian
• Culture trait


  A single attribute of a culture, such as food preferences, architecture, and land use
• Nonmaterial culture traits


  • Language/religion
  • Education systems
  • Government/law systems
  • Music/holidays
• Material culture traits


  • Clothing
  • Food
  • Literature/art
  • Houses/public buildings
• Ethnocentrism


  Judging another culture based on the values of one's own culture (language, religion, customs)
• Cultural relativism


  The idea that a person's beliefs, values, and practices should be understood based on that person's own culture, rather than be judged against the criteria of another
• Cultural landscape


  The combination of physical features, agricultural and industrial practices, religious and linguistic characteristics, sequent occupancy, traditional and postmodern architecture, and land use patterns
• Sequent occupance


  The combined imprint on an area when it has been inhabited by a succession of cultures
• Indigenous communities


  The original settlers of an area (pre-invasion/colonialism) who have retained their culture apart from the colonizers
• Indigenous communities


  • Native Americans, First Nations, Aborigines
• Ethnic neighborhood


  An area within a city occupied by a distinctive minority culture
• Ethnic neighborhood


  • Little Italy in NYC
• Gender


  Social and cultural differences between males and females (not biological differences)
• Gender role


  Learned behaviors that are deemed appropriate to gender as determined by cultural norms
• The role of women in the workforce has increased substantially over the 2nd half of the 20th century
• Gendered spaces


  Areas in which gender expression is either welcome or unwelcome
• Gendered spaces


  • Muslim society: public space (employment, politics) belongs to men and private space (home) belongs to women
  • U.S. society: public restrooms divided by gender
• Sense of place


  Term used to connote attachment to and comfort in a particular place with a strong identity that is deeply felt by inhabitants
• Strong sense of place


  Sense of place that is felt by visitors as well as inhabitants
• Strong sense of place


  • Amish country, Little Italy
• Place making


  How a culture makes a place fit their identity by shaping the landscape to show what they believe and value (buildings, statues, sacred sites, etc.)
• Centripetal forces


  Forces that unite a country
• Centrifugal forces


  Forces that divide a country
• Cultural diffusion


  The spread of an idea, innovation, cultural trend, or disease from its source area to other areas
• Relocation diffusion


  Type of cultural diffusion when an innovation or idea spreads by the actual movement of individuals who have adopted the idea and carry it to a new place
• Relocation diffusion


  • The spread of Christianity to the New World
  • The spread of Spanish and English to the New World
• Expansion diffusion


  Type of cultural diffusion when an innovation or idea develops in a source area and remains strong there while also spreading outward the innovation or idea moves through fixed populations (wave-like)
• Contagious diffusion


  Type of expansion diffusion where nearly all individuals are affected as it spreads outward
• Contagious diffusion


  • Spread of Islam
• Hierarchical diffusion


  Type of expansion diffusion when particular groups are affected as it leapfrogs over areas
• Hierarchical diffusion


  • FAX machines, AIDS
• Stimulus diffusion


  Type of expansion diffusion where a small portion of the population adopts an idea or modifies it
• Stimulus diffusion


  • Vegetable "burgers" in India
• Lingua Franca


  A language mutually understood by people who speak different languages, usually for the purpose of trade
• Lingua Franca


  • English as language of international business
  • Swahili as language of trade in East Africa
  • Arabic as language of trade in Southwest Asia
• Creolization


  The blending of European, Amerindian, and African cultures in the New World as a result of colonialism to create something new