Cultural Geography
3. Explain the geographies of cultural difference, focusing on folk culture, popular culture, and indigenous culture. How is nature related to cultural difference?
Culture is defined by food, religion, holidays, clothing, music and leisure times. Different types of cultures have different geographies. Folk Culture: Small, cohesive, stable, isolated group that is homogeneous in custom and race; characterized by a strong family structure, order maintained through sanctions based in the religion or family, division of labor between the sexes, interpersonal relationships, handmade goods. No node, no date, difficult to identify. Relocation diffusion: slowly, small scale Possess a close relationship to the land and local environment Popular Culture: Dynamic culture based in large, heterogeneous societies permitting considerable individualism, innovation, and change; having a money based economy, division of labor into professions, weak interpersonal ties; producing and consuming machine-made goods. Share certain habits, even though different. Traceable to person or place, comes from developed countries. Expansion diffusion. Less directly tied to the physical environment. Do not draw their livelihoods from the land. Make heavy demands on ecosystems. Ecological impact like air pollution to soil erosion. Indigenous Culture: Culture group that constitutes the original inhabitants of a territory, distinct from the dominant national culture, which is often derived from colonial occupation. Native cultural Possess a very close relationship with their physical environment Main distinctions between folk culture and popular culture is their differing relationships with nature.
1. What is the relationship between landscape and culture? Describe the differences between a formal region, a functional region, and a vernacular region.
Culture: Total way of life held in common by a group of people. Cultural Landscape: The visible human imprint on the land. Combination of cultural features, economics features and physical features Formal Region: Cultural region inhabited by people who have one or more cultural traits in common. Everyone in an area shares one or more characteristics, language, economic, and environment Functional Region: Cultural area that functions as a unit politically, socially, or economically. Focal point, characteristic comes from the node Vernacular Region: Cultural region perceived to exist by its inhabitants, based in the collective spatial perception of the population at large and bearing a generally accepted name. People believe exist due to culture characteristics
6. Define the terms dialect, creole, and lingua franca. How do geographers map various dialects? How do languages provide the basis for formal and functional culture regions?
Dialect: Distinctive local or regional variant of a language that remains mutually intelligible to speakers of other dialects of that language; subtype of a language. Region variation of language; spelling, vocabulary, pronounce can understand other dialects Creole: Language derived from a pidgin language that has acquired a fuller vocabulary and become the native language of its speakers. Results mix indigenous (Native) with colonize language Lingua Franca: An existing, well established language of communication and commerce used widely where it is not a mother tongue. Commonly used by people different native languages and maturely understood Geographers use Isogloss, the border of usage of an individual word or pronunciation, to create maps of various different dialects. Languages provide the basis for functional culture regions for political unity Languages provide the basis for formal culture regions because geographers map out the areas based on languages
7. What is the relationship between technology and language? How has modernization affected the spatial distribution of language? Why is the number of languages in the world declining?
Language is the mutual agreed-on system of symbolic communication that has a spoken and usually a written expression. Technology allows people to spread their language easily. Technological innovations affecting language range from the basic practice of writing down spoken language to the sophisticated information superhighway provided by the internet. Technological innovations affect languages by spreading and proliferation of languages. Technology expands language. The number of languages are dying because the elderly folk that spread these endangered/extinct languages are dying. So, these languages are not getting written down or taught anymore.
5. What are the issues associated with overpopulation? In your answer, define Malthusian, cornucopian, and neo-Malthusian. Describe the effects of population control programs.
Overpopulation is a condition where the number of people are exceeding the population of the area. The issue is that there is fear that we will run out of natural resources and there will be too many people causing crowding. Malthusian: Those who hold the views of Thomas Malthus, who believed that overpopulation is the root cause of poverty, illness, and warfare. Cornucopian: Those who believe that science and technology can solve resource shortages. Critics of Thomas. Supply is fixed, population growth is not a problem, more people produce, buy more things Neo-Malthusian: Modern day followers of Thomas Malthus. Not just food endangered, energy and water Thomas Malthus: Essay of the principle of population: Rate of population increase is running out of food supplies. Population Control Programs Effects: • Are antinatalist: Seek to reduce fertility
4. What is population geography? How are demographic patterns expressed in the cultural landscape?
Population Geography: Study of the spatial and ecological aspects of population, including distribution, density per unit of land area, fertility, gender, health, age, mortality, and migration. Demographic patterns are expressed in the cultural landscapes depending on if they are urban, suburban or rural locations. Depends also on population. Constantly adapting to demographic change.
8. What are the differences between race, ethnicity, and nationality? What are the various reasons that mobility shapes geographical patterns of ethnicity?
Race: Classification system that is sometimes understood as arising from genetically significant differences among human populations, or from visible differences in human physiognomy, or as a social construction that varies across time and space. Physical characteristics of someone. Ethnicity: Identity with a group of people who share cultural traditions of a hearth - homeland. Nationality: The statues of belonging to a particular nation and belonging to a Country Migration process itself often creates ethnicity. The various reasons that mobility shapes geographical patterns of ethnicity is migrations. There is involuntary migration which is different types of slavery. There is ethnic cleansing which forces different people to migrate away from death. Then there is also voluntary migration which is the diffusion of groups of people because they want to migrate
2. Define the different types of diffusion, and provide examples of each.
Relocation Diffusion: Spread of an innovation or other element of culture that occurs with the bodily relocation of the individual or group responsible for the innovation Expansion Diffusion: Spread of innovations within an area in a snowballing process, so that the total number of knowers or users becomes greater and the area of occurrence grows • Hierarchical Diffusion: Type of expansion diffusion in which innovations spread from one important person to another or from one urban center to another, temporarily bypassing other persons or rural areas. Diffused by levels of power - node: top of hierarchy • Contagious Diffusion: Type of expansion diffusion in which cultural innovation spreads by person to person contact, moving wavelike through an area and population without regard to social studies. Wide spread diffusion like a disease • Stimulus Diffusion: Type of expansion diffusion in which a specific trait fails to spread but the underlying idea or concept is accepted. Spread of underlying concept/principal
