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