Diffusion
Syncretism
Trobriand Cricket
• When British missionaries pressed Trobriand Islanders to celebrate
their yam harvests with a game of cricket rather than traditional
“wild” dances, Trobrianders transformed the staid British sport into an
event that featured sexual chants and dances between innings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jTP7a9I0dU -10 min
Cultural Loss
Abandonment of an existing practice or trait
•
Example:
– In ancient times wagons
were used in northern
Africa and southwestern
Asia, but wheeled vehicles
disappeared from
Morocco to Afghanistan
about 1,500 years ago.
– They were replaced by
camels due to their
endurance, longevity,
ability to ford rivers and
traverse rough ground.
– While a wagon required a
man for every two
animals, one person
manage six camels.
Question
• The spread of cultural elements from one
culture to another is called
______________
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
cold fusion.
transfusion.
diffusion.
bifusion.
confusion.
Answer: C
• The spread of cultural elements from one
culture to another is called diffusion.
Question
• In biblical times, chariots and carts were widespread in the
Middle East, but by the 6th century roads had deteriorated
so much that wheeled vehicles were replaced by camels.
This illustrates that cultural change is sometimes due to
•
a.
primary invention.
•
b.
secondary invention.
•
c.
diffusion.
•
d.
revitalization.
•
e.
cultural loss.
Answer: E
• In biblical times, chariots and carts were
widespread in the Middle East, but by the 6th
century roads had deteriorated so much that
wheeled vehicles were replaced by camels.
This illustrates that cultural change is
sometimes due to cultural loss.
Repressive Change
People don’t always have the liberty to make their own
choices and changes are forced upon them by some other
group, in the course of conquest and colonialism.
• Acculturation
– Culture changes that people are forced to make as a consequence of
intensive, firsthand contact between societies.
• Ethnocide
– Violent eradication of an ethnic group’s cultural identity; occurs when a
dominant society sets out to destroy another society’s cultural heritage.
• Genocide
– Extermination of one people by another, in the name of “progress,”
either as a deliberate act or as the accidental outcome of activities
carried out by people with little regard for their impact on others.
Repressive Change: Genocide
Ethnographic Examples
• Two examples of
attempted genocide in
the 20th century: Hitler’s
Germany against Jews
and Gypsies in the 1930s
and the 1940s; and
Hutus against Tutsis in
Rwanda, as in this 1994
massacre.
Repressive Change: Genocide
Civil War in Darfur (ex from Ch. 12)
Example: http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/places/countriesplaces/sudan/sudan_overview.html
Darfur (part of Sudan). Also see for more info: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/15/opinion/15ihtedofahey_ed3_.html?pagewanted=1. Emmanual Jal (Child soldier in Sudan):
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/places/countries-places/sudan/sudan_thewarchild.html
Escaping Repressive Change
International Refugees
Opposition of Change
Tradition
• In a modernizing society, old cultural
practices, which may oppose new forces of
differentiation and integration.
Opposition of Change
Revitalization Movements
• A movement that forms in an attempt to
deliberately bring about change in a society
– Usually occurs when a dominating culture overwhelms (politically, socially,
economically) a subordinate one.
– Introduction of items/technologies to the subordinate culture might mean the
destruction of the culture and assimilation into the dominating culture.
– If people from the subordinating culture survive, they are more often than not living
on the fringes of the dominating society and are demoralized (their worldview,
culture, mythology has either been destroyed or changed so radically as to be
unrecognizable).
– Revitalization movements then occur
• Ex: Celtic revival in Ireland
Opposition of Change
Rebellion and Revolution
• Rebellion
– Organized armed resistance to an established
government or authority in power.
• Revolution
– Sudden and radical change in a society or culture. In the
political arena, it refers to the forced overthrow of an old
government and establishment of a completely new one.
– A revolution is a more severe and total change than a
rebellion.
Rebellion and Revolution
Conditions
1.
2.
3.
4.
4.
Loss of prestige of established authority.
Threat to recent economic improvement.
Indecisiveness of government.
Loss of support of the intellectual class.
A leader or group of leaders with enough
charisma or popular appeal to mobilize the
population against the establishment.
Rebellion and Revolution
Armed Conflict
Rebellion and Revolution
Child Soldiers
(Slide from Ch 12)
• Today, there are more than 250,000 child soldiers, many as young as 12
years old. Among them are these boys training to be guerrillas in Sahel,
Eritrea.
• Emmanual Jal (Child soldier in Sudan):
–
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/places/countriesplaces/sudan/sudan_thewarchild.html
More on the Civil War in the Darfur area of Sudan…
Modernization
• Modernization refers to a process of
change by which traditional, nonindustrial
societies acquire characteristics of
technologically complex societies.
• Accelerated modernization
interconnecting all parts of the world is
known as Globalization.
Modernization
Subprocesses
1.
2.
3.
4.
Technological development
Agricultural development
Industrialization
Urbanization