Globalization and Cultural Geography

Intro to Human Geography

Objectives

After covering this section, you should be able to:

Define globalization.

Describe the characteristics of contemporary globalization.

Identify and explain the three theories about cultural change resulting from globalization.

Globalization

So what is globalization, anyway?

Is globalization new?

How is globalization todaydifferent from the past?

Horizontal expansion

Vertical expansion

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/food/2009/05/the-history-of-spices/

Major Shipping Routes in the Colonial Era

Data source: Climatological Database for the World’s Oceans (James Cheshire)Via http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/01/13/40-more-maps-that-explain-the-world/

Facebook Users Worldwide

Flights Around the World

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/01/13/40-more-maps-that-explain-the-world/

Globalization

Contemporary globalization is characterized by stronger and larger number of connections between places than in the past.

What factors enable globalization?

Cultural Impacts of Globalization

Homogenization – globalization makes cultures more similar.

Placelessness – places lose their uniqueness

McDonaldization – standardization of eating habits

Americanization – diffusion of American culture throughout the world

Is globalization a one-way street?

Wikimedia - IDuke

Www.worldometers.info

Cultural Impacts of Globalization

Polarization -- globalization makes cultural identities stronger, causing fragmentation.

Neolocalism – a renewed interest in promoting the uniqueness of places

Wikimedia.org

Cultural Impacts of Globalization

Glocalization – global and local forces interact, changing both. So, a business or brand may diffuse to a new place, but is changed to fit local preferences.

Recrimisi.blogspot.com

McDonalds

Pop Culture inThe Islamic World

Commodification of Culture

Commodification means that something that wasn’t available to buy is now available to buy and own.

Commodification

Heritage Industry – Organizations that manage or sell the past.

Often has to be simplified

World heritage – sites that have value for the whole of humanity.

World Heritage List – Created by UNESCO

UNESCO World Heritage Map

What are the positives and negatives of cultural commodification?

Steppes & Lakes of Northern Kazakstan – UNESCO http://www.unesco.org/en/nhk-video/

Local vs. Popular Culture

Local Practiced by small, homogenous groups, covers a small scale

Anonymous hearths, people, unclear time of origin

Varies Between Places at a Given Time

Diffuses through relocation, limited contagious diffusion

Popular Large, heterogeneous large scale

Well-known hearths, developers, and dates

Varies over time at a given place

Diffuses hierarchically and contagiously

Inuit Wisdom Video

Local vs. Popular Culture

Local vs. Popular Culture

Local Knowledge – Always Valued?

Rationality doctrine – idea that Europeans were rational and non-Europeans irrational

Influenced colonization.

Led to diffusionism – idea that diffusion of Western knowledge and technology would allow non-Westerners to develop.

Ignored value of local knowledge.

Today, more appreciation is given to the value of local knowledge.

Inuit Wisdom Video

Traditional vs. Allopathic Medicine

Geography for maternal and newborn health

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htlWrFQzF-I

The traditional birth attendant: linking communities and health services

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OSZa31ek18

The Tuk Tuk Nurse Midwife Reducing Maternal Mortality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPm0seoAPgA

Reducing fear of birth in U.S. culture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9LO1Vb54yk

Traditional vs. Allopathic Medicine

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/24/maternal-mortality-rate-infographic_n_1827427.html

Review What is globalization? How is it different from historical globalization?

What is distance decay?

What factors enable contemporary globalization?

Why do connections between places develop? What are complementarity, transferability, and intervening obstacles?

What is diffusion? Identify and explain the different types.

What are the three types of cultural change from globalization? Describe them, and the various terms associated with them. (Ex. Americanization and McDonaldization are associated with globalization).

What is cultural commodification? Examples of it?

What is the World Heritage List and some of the criticisms/benefits associated with it?

How have Western perspectives of local knowledge changed over time? What is diffusionism, the rationality doctrine, and sustainable development?