Culture Change

Chapter 16

Mechanisms of ChangeUnconscious Invention/(Accidental juxtaposition) - Primary Innovations…the chance discovery of some new principle.Examples – Fallen log rolls results in the wheel; accidental firing of clay took place in ancient cooking fires resulting in making of figurines and ultimately fired clay pots.

Mechanisms of ChangeIntentional or Secondary Innovations:“…deliberate attempts to produce a new idea or object.” (Ember)…something new that results from the deliberate application of known principles.Process – Primary innovation, chance discovery, then Secondary innovation, deliberate application of known principles.

Mechanisms of ChangeExample:Primary innovation – the discovery of fired clay in the cooking fire.Secondary innovation – Clay could be molded into shapes and decorative techniques applied.

Mechanisms of Change

Diffusion –…the spread of customs or practices from one culture to another.…the process by which cultural elements are borrowed from another society and incorporated into the culture of the recipient group. (Ember)Estimated 90% of culture’s content is borrowed.

Patterns of Diffusion

Basic Patterns of Diffusion:Direct contact – Elements of society’s culture may be taken up by neighboring societies. Intermediate contact – Occurs through the agency of third parties.Stimulus diffusion – Knowledge of a trait of another culture stimulates the invention or development of a local equivalent.

Forcible ChangeAcculturation –…a process of extensive cultural borrowing in the context of superordinate-subordinate relations between societies. (Ember)…major culture changes that people are forced to make as a consequence of intensive, firsthand contact between societies.

Culture ChangeAssimilation –…people from another culture have more or less completely adopted the dominant culture of the society.

Culture ChangeGenocide –…the extermination of one people by another, often in the name of “progress,” either as a deliberate act or as the accidental outcome of activities carried out by one people with little regard for their impact on others.

Reactions To Forcible ChangeSyncretism –…in the process of acculturation, the blending of indigenous and foreign traits to form a new system.

Rebellion and RevolutionRevolution –…a revitalization movement from within, directed primarily at the ideological system and the attendant social structure of a culture.

Rebellion and RevolutionConditions of Rebellion –(Ember)Loss of prestige of established authority.Threat to recent economic improvement.Indecisiveness of government.Loss of support of the intellectual class.

Modern WorldModernization –…the process of cultural and socioeconomic change, whereby developing societies acquire some of the characteristics of Western industrialized societies.

Continue Modernization –Haviland ---page438 and may want to add tradition

Important