Chapter 16
Culture Change and Globalization
What We Will Learn
•
•
•
•
•
How do cultures change?
What are some obstacles to cultural change?
In what ways do civilization and
industrialization threaten the cultures of
Indigenous populations?
Do planned programs of economic
development always benefit the local people?
What is globalization, and how does it affect
the cultures of the world?
Cultural Change
•
•
No culture remains unchanged.
Cultures change in two ways:
• Internally - through the processes of
invention and innovation
• Externally through the process of
diffusion.
Cultural Change
Inventors and Innovators
•
•
•
Inventors and innovators tend to be marginal
people living on the fringes of society.
Marginal people are non-mainstream people
who are at the fringes of their own culture.
Not bound by tradition or convention, these
people see problems and their solutions with a
fresh perspective.
Diffusion
•
•
•
The spreading of a thing, an idea, or a behavior
pattern from one culture to another.
If every culture had to rely solely on its own
inventions, human progress over the centuries
would indeed be slow.
Cultures have been able to develop rapidly
because the process of diffusion has enabled
humans to pool their creative/inventive
resources.
Cultural Diffusion: Selectivity
•
The adoption of an innovation by a culture and
the speed with which it is adopted depends on
the following:
• Is it seen as superior to what already exists?
• Is it consistent with existing cultural patterns?
• Is it easily understood?
• Can it be tested on a trial basis?
• Are the benefits clearly visible?
Cultural Diffusion: Reciprocity
•
•
Diffusion is a two-way process.
While Europeans introduced their culture to
native Americans, they received cultural
features in return:
• Clothing - ponchos, parkas, and moccasins.
• Medicines - quinine, pain relievers, and
laxatives.
• Food - corn, beans, tomatoes, squash,
yams, avocados, and the so-called Irish
potato.
Cultural Diffusion: Modification
•
Once a cultural element is accepted in a new
culture, it may change in form or function.
• The Masai of Kenya and Tanzania pierce
their earlobes and enlarge the hole by
inserting increasingly larger round pieces of
wood until a loop of skin is formed.
• One group of Masai was observed using
Eveready flashlight batteries obtained from
the U.S.
Diffusion
•
The pizza pie has
made a number of
changes in form as it
diffused from Italy to
the Americas in the
early 1900s.
Cultural Diffusion: Likelihood
•
•
•
Some parts of culture are more likely to be
diffused than others.
Material culture is more likely to be diffused
than ideas or behavior patterns.
A traditional farmer in Senegal is more likely
understand the advantages of a bulldozer over
a shovel than of substituting Buddhism for his
form of ancestor worship.
Cultural Diffusion: Variables
•
Diffusion is affected by:
• Duration and intensity of contact.
• Degree of cultural integration.
• Similarities between the donor and
recipient cultures.
Question
•
A/an ________ is any new thing, idea, or
behavior pattern that emerges from
within a society.
a) Creation
b) Innovation
c) Construct
d) invention
Answer: d
•
An invention is any new thing, idea, or
behavior pattern that emerges from within
a society.
Question
•
________ is the spread of a thing, an
idea, or a cultural pattern from one
culture to another.
a) Diffusion
b) Enculturation
c) Innovation
d) Acculturation
Answer: a
•
Diffusion is the spread of a thing, an
idea, or a cultural pattern from one culture
to another.
Acculturation
•
•
•
Takes place as a result of sustained contact
between two societies, one of which is
subordinate to the other.
Involves the widespread reorganization of one
or both cultures over a short period of time.
Both the dominant and subordinate culture
experience changes, but the subordinate
culture changes most dramatically.
Consequences of Acculturation
The subordinate culture could:
• Become extinct
• Be incorporated as a distinct subculture of
the dominant group
• Be assimilated (blended) into the
dominant group
Acculturation
•
The Skolt Lapps
adopted snowmobiles
in the 1960s to help
them become more
efficient reindeer
herders.
Linked Changes
•
•
A single innovation may set off changes in other
parts of a culture.
Television
• Introduced during the 1950s.
• Replaced the the radio as the major form of
electronic communication in U.S.
Households.
• Had consequences for other parts of the
culture, such as the family system, the
political process, and religious institutions.
Linked Changes
•
The increased use of
cell phones by
inattentive
pedestrians on busy
streets has led to a
significant rise in auto
accidents.
Question
•
_______ is a special type of diffusion
that takes place as a result of sustained
contact between two societies, one of
which is subordinate to the other.
a) Modification
b) Acculturation
c) Reciprocity
d) Enculturation
Answer: b
•
Acculturation is a special type of
diffusion that takes place as a result of
sustained contact between two
societies, one of which is subordinate to
the other.
Cultural Boundaries
•
Strengthen a culture’s traditions and
discourage cultural borrowing:
• Language
• Eating habits
• Clothing
• Folklore
• Humor
Indigenous Populations
Refers to a group of people who are:
• Original inhabitants of a region.
• Identify with a specific, small-scale cultural
heritage.
• Have no significant role in the government.
• Examples: the small-scale cultures in Asia,
Africa, and the Americas that came under the
influence of the colonial powers during the past
several centuries.
Indigenous Populations
•
If the Shasta Dam, located in Northern California, is
elevated by 18 feet (as proposed), the last remaining
sacred sites of the Winnemem Wintu Indians will be
destroyed.
Change And Development
•
•
Today’s world can be roughly divided into
two broad categories of countries: the
haves and the have-nots.
In terms of comparative income,
Canada’s per capita income is 170 times
higher than Mozambique’s, and the
average U.S. citizen earns approximately
178 times more money as the average
Ethiopian.
Economic Disparity
•
The income of the
average Canadian is
170 times greater
than that of this man
from Mozambique,
Africa.
Modernization Theory
•
•
The theory that explains economic development
in terms of the inherent sociocultural differences
between the rich and the poor.
Includes many of the assumptions as the
Culture of poverty view, an interpretation of
poverty that suggests that poor people pass
certain cultural features on to their children that
tend to reinforce and perpetuate poverty.
World Systems Theory
•
•
An attempt to explain levels of economic
development in terms of the exploitation
of the poor by the rich nations of the
world, rather than in terms of innate
socioeconomic characteristics of each.
Economic development occurs when one
group purposefully increases its own
wealth at the expense of others.
Neocolonialism
•
The economic, political, and military
influence that developed nations continue
to exert over less developed countries,
even though the official period of
colonization ended in the 1960s.
Question
•
According to the ________ theory, the wealthy
countries of the world achieved high levels of
development by exploiting other regions,
plundering their resources, using their people
as cheap sources of labor, and dominating
their markets.
a) colonialism
b) voluntaristic
c) world systems
d) modernization
Answer: c
•
According to the world systems theory,
the wealthy countries of the world
achieved high levels of development by
exploiting other regions, plundering their
resources, using their people as cheap
sources of labor, and dominating their
markets.
Less Developed Countries
(Ldcs)
•
Countries that have a relatively low gross
national product (GNP) and low annual
family income.
Multinational Corporations
•
Large corporations that have economic
operations in a number of different
countries throughout the world.
Multinational Corporations
•
•
Vietnamese Buddhist
monks walk past an
inflatable Pepsi can in Ho
Chi Minh City.
Multinational
corporations have more
assets than the countries
in which they operate,
giving them enormous
control over governments
and economies.
Factors in the the Rise of
Globalization
•
•
•
Revolution in computer technology made
communication faster and cheaper for a
growing segment of the world’s
population.
Methods of investing money has
changed, today it is, to a large degree, in
the hands of individuals.
There has been a fundamental change in
the flow of information all over the world.
Globalization
•
The fall of the Berlin
Wall in 1989 marked
the symbolic
beginning of our
present period of
globalization.
Globalization
•
As yet one more
leading indicator of
rapid globalization,
more than half of all
U.S.-based
franchises are now
located in other parts
of the world, as is this
KFC restaurant in
Shanghai, China.
Globalization
•
Examples of Global Interconnectedness:
• Major league baseball and football teams
have their preseason games in Europe and
Japan.
• In 2003, 56% of U.S. franchise operators
were in markets outside the United States as
compared to 46% three years earlier.
• Coca-Cola sells more of its products in Japan
than it sells in the U.S., even though Japan
has half the population of the U.S.
Multiculturalism
•
A public policy philosophy that recognizes
the legitimacy and equality of all cultures
represented in a society.