Unit 3

Survey System

An analysis project to define the strengths and weaknesses of a project that can be used to outline how an area feels about things. Example: A company could call 1000 residents in Raleigh to find out how these residents felt about the company.

Ethnic Neighborhood

An area inside of a region, typically a city, that contains a large population of a certain ethnicity. Example: Little Italy in New York City has lots of Italians.

Culture Regions

An area or region that shares similar cultural traits. Example: Igboland in Africa all share the common trait of speaking the Igbo language as well as practicing Igbo culture.

Race

A classification system that is used to categorized humans into distinct groups based on physical, genetic, social, ethnic, religious and many other traits. Example: Americans who are of a light skin color are usually either Caucasian/white.

Ethnic Conflict

A conflict between two ethnic groups in the same country or area. Example: The Rwandan genocide was a result of the ethnic conflict between the Hutus and Tutsis.

Cultural Shatterbelt

A politically unstable region where there is conflict over the contact of differing cultural elements. Example: The Ukraine is now in a state of being a cultural shatterbelt.

Ethnic Group

A social group of people who identify with each other based on common ancestral, societal, national and cultural experiences. Example: The Han Chinese are the worlds largest ethnic group at about 1.3 billion people.

Ethnicity

A social group of people who identify with each other based on common ancestral, societal, national and cultural experiences. Example: The second largest ethnic group in Russia are the Tartars, the first are the Russians.

Glocalization

A term that refers to a product adapting from its original ways to fit in with another culture's ways. Example: McDonald's uses Asterisk the Gaul in France as opposed to Ronald McDonald because Asterisk the Gaul is popular in France.

Innovation Adoption

A theory that is used to determine why, how and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through culture. Example: Tamagotchi started out in Japan in 1996 and has since grown to be sold in numbers reaching over 76 million in 2010 due to the popularity of the game's addictiveness.

Folk Culture

A type of culture that is practiced by a small, homogenous group typically in an isolated setting that is usually passed down orally from group to group. Example: An American folk culture are the whale hunting rituals and process of whale hunting in Alaska.

Popular Culture

Ideas, materials, perspectives, attitudes, entertainment, etc that are found within a culture's mainstream. Example: Southern American culture is ironically composed of clothing items that say the words Southern in it and typically deal with boats or outdoor life.

Vernacular

The common language and slang of a society/culture. Example: In America, the word ratchet typically means a tool, but has since morphed into a word mean a girl that is undesirable to be around due to her "ratchetness".

Core/Periphery/Semi-periphery

The core refers to an area that is experiencing great economic growth due to its advances in technology and communications. Example: Germany is currently the core of the European Union as it has one of, if not the strongest economy and bails out other countries. The periphery refers to the opposite of the core as a place that is highly undeveloped. Example: Many sub-Saharan African countries are peripheries due to their lack of technological advancements. Semi-periphery: An area where there are tendencies of a core and a periphery. Example: Russia has seen many technological advancements, but is still held back by its large rural areas.

Dowry Death

The deaths of young women, resulting from murder or suicide, because of the severe harassment the women face from the husbands in their goal of extorting an increased dowry. Example: India has the most dowry deaths in the world.

Placelessness

The idea that a place has lost its cultural identity due to its lack of a cultural landscape found in the area. Example: American suburbs suffer from the phenomenon of placelessness as all the houses look the exact same and there are the same grocery stores and restaurants and same soccer moms and hybrid cars and the list goes on.

Global-Local Continuum

The idea that if something happens on a global scale, it will consequently affect the local scale and vice versa. Example: Chernobyl in Russia

Nonmaterial Culture

The ideology and philosophy of a culture that holds a very prominent place in the culture. Example: America places a strong value on the idea of Freedom (so much that I capitalized freedom).

Segregation

The legal separation of two separate races. Example: South Africa suffered from the Apartheid for many years, which is where the blacks and whites were separated from each other.

Ethnic Homeland

The origin of an ethnic group with which it holds a long and deep history with. Example: The early Americans, like George Washington, would probably have identified England as their homeland to their discontent.

Gender

The physical, biological, mental and behavioral characteristics that differentiate between a male and female. Example: I identify as a male based on my physical traits.

Assimilation

The process in which one group's culture starts to resemble another group's culture over time. Example: A coworker of mine who used to live in Syria used to wear a hijab, but has since stopped wearing it.

Acculturation

The process of a cultural and physiological change one culture experiences when coming into contact with another culture. Example: American typically practices the type of acculturation called cultural imperialism, or the spread of American ideas into other countries like McDonalds in India, Freedom in the Middle East, or American football in England.

Cultural Adaptation

The process of becoming adapted to a new culture after moving away from an old culture. Example: When a Southern American goes up to the North, they will have to adapt to the fact that Northerners do not put sugar in their tea or that Northerners are not as nice.

Adaptation

The process of changing in order to survive in an area for various reasons that could be cultural, political or economical. Example: Many Americans utilize eye contact when talking to someone, but if they were to go to another country, eye contact could be seen as an insult or worse.

Cultural Integration

The process of joining cultures into one big whole. Example: Many musicians incorporate music from other cultures in subtle or non-subtle ways to create a larger whole.

Cultural Realm

The region in which a certain culture is overly dominant. Example: Areas below the Mason-Dixie lie and east of the Mississippi River would constitute the cultural realm of the American South.

Enfranchisement

The right for someone to vote. Example: Women gained enfranchisement in America when the 19th Amendment was passed.

Maladapted Diffusion

The spread of an idea that is good in one place, but probably not good in another place. Example: The spread of American landmarks like McDonalds and other fast food restaurants to other countries as McDonalds menus may not be adapted for other countries i.e. India.

Ethnic Cleansing

The systematic forced removal of a cultural or religious group with the intent to create a territory with only one ethnic group. Example: The Communist Khmer Rogue group of Cambodia in the 1970s tried to eliminate minority ethnic groups of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai descent.

Material Culture

The tangible elements and things that a culture will typically place on a pedestal. Example: The American hip-hop culture places a high value on expensive clothing brands such as Versace, Gucci, and Polo.

Cultural Convergence

The tendency for cultures to become more and more similar as the two cultures share technology, ideas, and organizational structures. Example: Ukraine is in a standstill right now in terms of culturally converging with Europe and the European Union vs converging with Russia.

Cultural Divergence

The tendency for cultures to become seemingly more and more dissimilar as time passes. Example: The western side of Ukraine would like to diverge from the Russian cultural landscape of Ukraine.

Cultural Identity

The tradition and beliefs of a group that makes said group feel unique and distinctive. Example: Southern Americans would probably identify hunting, sweet tea and BBQ as things that compose the cultural identity of the South.

Cultural Appropriation

When a member of one culture exhibits or adopts elements from an entirely different culture. It is typically viewed in a negative light by the culture who is having its cultural identity stolen. Example: White Americans listening to African-American American hip-hop with lyrical content primarily related to the African-American culture. Another one could be white Americans wearing a dashiki, a West African clothing garment.