1. Cultural Geography is the study of how culture varies across space

2. Introduction What is Culture?
Comes from Latin word “Cultus” – meaning to care about
Includes all the ideas, practices, and material objects associated with a group of people (language, religion, housing, ethnicity, food, etc.)
Includes:
Artifacts: material objects
Customs: set of beliefs and values that set one group apart from another…a widely adopted habit

3. Folk Culture V. Pop Culture….see handout
Acculturation: cultural change that results when one group adopts traits of dominant society
Assimilation: process where minority population decreases or loses all together its identifying culture and blends into society
Must be a 2-way street – majority population recognizes them as members
Often measured by intermarriage and employment opportunities

4. POP CULTURE

5. FOLK CULTURE

6. Acculturation…..Assimilation A process over time of adopting majority culture
Language
“Anglicanize” name
Dress
Customs
Entertainment – movies, music, TV
Slang
Education – career
Intermarriage

7. Assimilation Cartoon….process of becoming “American”

8. When Cultures Collide….
Cultural Imperialism: 1 culture is dominant over another (i.e. imperialism/colonialism…the mother country usually dominated indigenous people; taught their language, their religion, their customs)
Cultural Syncretism: new cultural traits emerge as a hybrid blend of two distinct parent traits (i.e. the exchange is never 100% one way…always a mixture)

9. Where do Folk Culture and Pop Culture originate and diffuse?
Hearth: place of origin
FC has anonymous hearths, anonymous sources, and unknown dates
PC hearth is usually an MDC city

10. Diffusion of FC and PC
FC transmitted from one location to another slowly, often by relocation diffusion and without technology
(FC looks different from place to place)
PC diffuses hierarchically – starts in large cities and spreads rapidly around globe …driven by technology
(PC looks different from time to time)

11. Blend of PC and FC??

12. Is Globalization of PC a Problem?
Is PC a threat to FC?
Does PC make people reject traditional values?
Does PC lead to dominance of Western values?
i.e. W. dress, food, music, media values
Threatens women’s subservience to men in many cultures (ex: Taliban – women behaving like westerners were shot or beaten – walked alone, makeup, nail polish, etc.)
IN some areas PC has been bad for women – sex tours, internal prostitution (men from MDCs go to Philippines, Thailand, S. Korea)

13. Globalization of PC a Problem?
Does PC dominate the foreign media as a form of imperialism? i.e. watch our movies, our music, our TV
American TV presents our values – freedom of women, violence, sex, glorification of youth, upward social mobility…not all societies agree w/ this
News media dominated by Associated Press and Reuters out of U.S. and GB

14. Environmental Impact of PC
Possiblism not environmental determinism….i.e. PC imposes itself on environment
Leads to uniformity…all looks the same
PC generates higher volumes of waste/pollution