Getis,
Introduction to Geography
based on 9th Edas
modified by 12th Ed
Chapter 7
Cultural Geography
Components
of Culture
Culture traits
Culture
complex
Culture region
Culture Realms
-
Anglo-American
-
European
-
Slavic
-
Latin-American
-
Islamic
-
Indic
-
Sino-Japanese
-
Sub-Saharan
African
-
Southeast
Asian
-
Insular
Oceanic
-
Austral-European
Interaction
of People and Environment
No Environmental Determinism
Possibilism
Cultural Landscape: The
cultural landscape, the earth’s surface as modified by human action, is the
tangible, physical record of a given culture. House types, transportation networks, parks, and cemeteries,
and the size and distribution of settlements are among the indicators of the use
that humans have made of the land. As
a rule, the more technologically advanced and complex the culture, the greater
its impact on the environment, although preindustrial societies can and
frequently do exert destructive pressures on the lands they occupy.
Subsystems
of Culture
Anthropologist Leslie White suggested:
Technological, sociological, and ideological subsystems of culture.
Biologist Julian Huxley identified three aspects of
culture:
Artifacts, sociofacts, and mentifacts.
A
MODEL OF STATE-SOCIETIES
Talcott Parsons
Functional
Pre-Requisites
Resultant Structure or Subsystem
___________________________________________________________
Procreation
System of Social Structure
Socialization
Cultural
System
Adaptation
Economic
System
Collective
Decision-Making Political System
___________________________________________________________
Technological Subsystem
Sociological Subsystem
Ideological Subsystem
Cultural integration.
Culture Change
Innovation
Primitive societies
Foraging, Scavenging, Hunting
Paleolithic
Agricultural Revolution ~10,000 BCE
Traditional village societies
Herding and farming
Neolithic
City societies (Civilizations)
Culture hearth
Mesopotamia/Middle East—5500 BCE
Egypt—3300 BCE
Crete—2500 BCE
Indus Valley—2300 BCE
North China—2200 BCE
Southeast Asia—1500 BCE
Andean—1500 BCE
Meso-America—1250
West Africa—400 BCE
Industrial Revolution—1750 CE in England
North-South Division of Contemporary World
More Developed
Less Developed
Diffusion
Spatial diffusion
Syncretism
Acculturation
Amalgamation theory (melting pot)
Assimilation
Competition theory.
An assertive assimilated minority group becomes a new elite
II
Cultural
Diversity
Material Culture
The material basis of culture is covered in Chapter 5:
The Geography of Natural Resources and Chapter 10: Economic Geography.
Natural Resources
Level of Technology
Economic System
Political System is discussed in Chapter 9:
Political Geography
Language
Language Spread and Change
Standard and Variant Languages
Standard language
Dialects
Pidgin
Lingua franca
Language and Culture
Topnymy: the study of place
names. It is a revealing tool of
historical cultural geography, because place-names become a part of the cultural
landscape that remains long after the name givers have passed from the scene.
Religion
Excerpted from President Barak Obama's Inaugural
Speech, January 20, 2009
"We will not
apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver
in its defense, and for those who seek to
advance their aims by inducing terror and
slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that
our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you
cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.
"For we know that
our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a
weakness. We are a nation of Christians and
Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We
are shaped by every language and culture, drawn
from every end of this Earth; and because we
have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and
segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter
stronger and more united, we cannot help but
believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass;
that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve;
that as the world grows smaller, our common
humanity shall reveal itself; and that America
must play its role in ushering in a new era of
peace. "
The US Census Bureau does not
keep accurate statistics on religious affiliations
because the US Congress in the past has held that
collecting such statistics might violate the U.S.
Constitutional principle of "separation of church
and state." Several non-governmental
organizations do attempt to come up with statistics
on religion.
Adherencts.com (http://www.adherents.com/)
has an extensive WEB site on religion.
(Sizes shown are
approximate estimates, and are here mainly
for the purpose of ordering the groups, not
providing a definitive number. This list is
sociological/statistical in perspective.)
- Christianity:
2.1 billion
- Islam: 1.5 billion
-
Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1
billion
- Hinduism: 900
million
- Chinese traditional
religion: 394 million
- Buddhism: 376
million
- primal-indigenous: 300
million
- African Traditional &
Diasporic: 100 million
- Sikhism: 23 million
-
Juche: 19 million
- Spiritism: 15
million
- Judaism: 14 million
- Baha'i: 7 million
- Jainism: 4.2 million
- Shinto: 4 million
Religion in
the United States.
The settlers who
founded the thirteen British colonies that became
the United States were Christians. A small
Jewish community existed by the time of the American
Revolution. Deists and Unitarians played an
important role during the formative period of the
American Republic. The first Amendment of the
United State Constitution includes two provisions
regarding religion: the free exercise clause
that all (and no) religion may practice their
beliefs freely without government interference and
that government may not establish an official
religion or favor one religion over another (or no
religion). The US was the first country in the
world to prohibit an official religion on the
national level. Several states did have
official religions at the beginning of our national
history.
The diversity of
religious belief, first within the Christian
community and now in a much broader community of
religions, has grown over time. President
Obama is the first President to state clearly in an
Inaugural Address that: "We are a
nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus —
and non-believers."
Top Ten Largest Religions in the
United States, 1990
(self-identification, NSRI)
| Religion |
Estimated
Adult Pop. |
Estimated
% of Adult Pop. |
| Christianity |
151,225,000 |
86.2% |
| Nonreligious |
13,116,000 |
7.5% |
| Judaism |
3,137,000 |
1.8% |
| Agnostic |
1,186,000 |
0.7% |
| Islam |
527,000 |
* 0.5% |
| Unitarian Universalist |
502,000 |
0.3% |
| Buddhism |
401,000 |
* 0.4% |
| Hinduism |
227,000 |
* 0.2% |
| Native American Religion |
47,000 |
0.03% |
| Scientologist |
45,000 |
0.03% |
* Islam, Buddhist, Hindu figures in table
have been adjusted upwards by Kosmin to account for
possible undercount.
86% of Americans
considered themselves Christian in 1990.
Christianity is, however, not a single monolithic
religion, it is divided into several major branches.
Historically, Christianity is divided into Orthodox
Christians, Catholic Christians, and Protestant
Christians. The Protestants are themselves
divided into many denominations such as Baptists,
Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians.
Below is a list of major Christian and Jewish
denominations from adherents.com.
Largest denominational families
in U.S., 2001
(self-identification, ARIS)
|
Denomination |
1990 Est.
Adult Pop. |
2001 Est.
Adult Pop. |
2004 Est.
Total Pop. |
Est. % of
U.S. Pop.,
2001 |
% Change
1990 - 2001 |
| Catholic |
46,004,000 |
50,873,000 |
71,796,719 |
24.5% |
+11% |
| Baptist |
33,964,000 |
33,830,000 |
47,744,049 |
16.3% |
0% |
| Methodist/Wesleyan |
14,174,000 |
14,150,000 |
19,969,799 |
6.8% |
0% |
| Lutheran |
9,110,000 |
9,580,000 |
13,520,189 |
4.6% |
+5% |
| Presbyterian |
4,985,000 |
5,596,000 |
7,897,597 |
2.7% |
+12% |
| Pentecostal/Charismatic |
3,191,000 |
4,407,000 |
6,219,569 |
2.1% |
+38% |
| Episcopalian/Anglican |
3,042,000 |
3,451,000 |
4,870,373 |
1.7% |
+13% |
| Judaism |
3,137,000 |
2,831,000 |
3,995,371 |
1.3% |
-10% |
| Latter-day Saints/Mormon |
2,487,000 |
2,697,000 |
3,806,258 |
1.3% |
+8% |
| Churches of Christ |
1,769,000 |
2,593,000 |
3,659,483 |
1.2% |
+47% |
Congregational/
United Church of Christ |
599,000 |
1,378,000 |
1,944,762 |
0.7% |
|
| Jehovah's Witnesses |
1,381,000 |
1,331,000 |
1,878,431 |
0.6% |
-4% |
| Assemblies of God |
660,000 |
1,106,000 |
1,560,890 |
0.5% |
+68% |
Source:
http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#religions
Classification and Distribution of Religions
Religious may be classified into
categories. Christianity derived historically from Judaism. We often
talk about the Judeo-Christian heritage. With the growth of Islam in the
United States in recent decades, the fact that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
share and venerate Abraham as the foundation of their religious
traditions, has led to the categorization of these three religions as the
Abrahamic religions. All three are monotheistic religions and share a
belief in a common Creator-God. (See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions for further information on
this concept. But there are also differences between these three
religions. Christianity and Islam are universalizing religions; whereas
Judaism is basically an Ethnic religion. Your text, Getis, uses the
classification system descibed below.
Universalizing religions:
faiths that claim applicability to all humans and that seek to transmit
their beliefs to all lands through missionary work and conversion.
Christianity
Islam
Buddhism
Ethnic religions
Judaism
Indian Hinduism
Japanese Shinto
Tribal (or traditional) religions
“ are special forms of ethnic religions distinguished by their small size,
their unique identity with localized culture groups not yet fully absorbed into
modern society, and their close ties to nature.
Animism is the
name given to their belief that life exists in all objects, from rocks and trees
to lakes and mountains, or that such objects are the abode of the dead, of
spirits, and of gods.
Shamanism is a
form of tribal religion that involves community acceptance of a shaman, who,
through special powers, can intercede and interpret the spirit world.
A
Brief Description of The Principal Religions
The following links provide a brief description of the beliefs of these
different religions.
Judaism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism
)
Christianity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity)
Islam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism)
Hinduism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism)
Buddhism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism)
East Asian Ethnic Religions
Confucianism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucianism)
Taoism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoism)
Shintoism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shintoism)
Ethnicity
"Recognition of an ethnic community may
be based on language, religion, national origin, unique customs, or an
ill-defined concept of 'race.' . . . Ethnic groups try to preserve their special
shared ancestry and cultural heritage through the collective retention" of
their common cultural traits.
Ethnocentrism is the view that one's ethnic
group is superior to all others.
Many ethnic groups are territorially
segregated.
Gender
and Culture
"Gender refers to socially
created--not biologically based--distinctions between
femininity and
masculinity."
"Hunting and gathering cultures observed
a general egalitarianism; each sex had a respected, productive, co-equal role in
the kinship group."
In hoe agriculture . . . , women became
responsible for most of the actual fieldwork, while still retaining their
traditional duties in child rearing, food preparation, and the like; their
economic role and status remained equivalent to males." Hoe
agriculture is still practiced in much of Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.
"Plow agriculture tended to subordinate
the role of women and diminish their level of equality. Women might have
hoes, but men plowed, and female participation in farm work was drastically
reduced. This is the case today in Latin America and, increasingly, in
sub-Saharan Africa. As women's agricultural productive role declines, they
were afforded less domestic authority, less control over their own lives, and
few if any property rights independent of their male family members."
"Western
industrial--"developed"--society emerged directly from the
agricultural tradition of the subordinate female, who was not considered an
important element in the economically active population, no matter how arduous
or essential the domestic tasks assigned."
The Victorian ideal of womanhood fostered in
19th century America and much of Western Europe a strong rationale for both
social and economic discrimination against working women. Only during the
later 20th century did this subordinate role of women begin to change in a few
countries.
Other
Aspects of Cultural Diversity
Architectural styles
Music
Food
GamesThis page was visited
times during the Spring Semester 2009
Updated January 22,
2009
Copyright Dr. Harold Damerow
Senior Professor of Government and History
Union County College
Cranford, NJ 07016
