Today, we are going to introduce the discipline of sociology and look at the three major sociological perspec9ves, which will inform our further

Transcription

1 Today, we are going to introduce the discipline of sociology and look at the three major sociological perspec9ves, which will inform our further study of culture. A=er that, we will define culture and discuss various substructures and hierarchies. Finally, we will compare and contrast two compe9ng views on culture: the environmental determinists (whom we have already introduced) and the possibilists, who believe that humans impact their environment just as much, if not more than the environment impacts humans. 1

2 Human geography is but one of the sub-disciplines of the social sciences. The social sciences focus on human ac9ons, as opposed to the natural sciences like physics and chemistry, which focus on the physical world. Within the social sciences, there is overlap. Both psychology and economics, for example, seek to explain individual human behavior and individual decisions. Both sociology and poli9cal science seek to understand how groups make decisions or reach a consensus. 2

3 Sociologists use the scien9fic method to model, understand and predict human behavior. There are three perspec9ves that sociologists use, each perspec9ve contains different assump9ons regarding the purpose of group behaviors. 3

4 The func9onalist perspec9ve is primarily an evolu9onary perspec9ve. Shared group structures, like marriage, exist because they provide long-term benefits to the larger group. Over 9me, according to the func9onalists, bad ideas have been weeded out and only those group structures that provide superior benefits to the group overall remain. For example: public educa9on is now the norm because the long-term benefits outweigh the costs. Public educa9on has a manifest purpose (give everyone the same opportunity to develop their intellect) but there are also latent func9ons (public educa9on provides day care and allows both parents to work, if so desired). 4

5 The conflict perspec9ve says that group structures exist to allow elites to maintain control over scarce and limited resources. The conflict perspec9ve requires a zerosum game for every winner, there has to be a loser. For the person using the conflict perspec9ve, public educa9on exists to pre-sort the winners and the losers, to iden9fy future poten9al elites. 5

6 Interac9onists care about how the group structure impacts each individual in that group and changes their behavior and percep9on of reality. A famous experiment that fascinates interac9onist is the Stanford Prison Experiment of Student volunteers were randomly assigned roles of guard or prisoner. Within hours, the role of guard had so changed the students that they began to systema9cally abuse the students assigned the role of prisoners. This perspec9ve has significant overlaps with psychology and even philosophy. 6

7 Groups need 2 or more people who share expecta9ons (goals) about what they hope to gain through group membership. Group members must be able to regularly interact with one another. Finally, the group members must share common iden99es they must share common traits, behaviors and norms. Note that this class right now is probably an aggregate more than it is a group. If some natural disaster were to befall the class and we worked together to overcome our problems, then we would have a be_er chance of being a group. The common struggle would give us common goals and increase the chance we formed a common iden9ty. 7

8 We finally come to a defini9on for culture and cultural norms or traits. We learn the cultural traits of our parents during childhood. As adults, we can adapt to new cultures but the process is not quick nor is it easy (it is o=en referred to as culture shock ). These shared behaviors and beliefs that come with culture allow for groups to become very large and large groups have be_er outcomes than small ones. 8

9 Asian toilets are o=en of the squat variety. Squaang does improve the efficiency of evacua9ng our bowels but yet, most Westerners recoil at the thought of squaang to defecate. System II would dictate that all toilets, for the sake of efficiency, should be of the squat variety. 9

10 Human geographers enjoy ranking thinks in a hierarchy a top to bo_om order. Here, the smallest unit of culture is the trait. A trait can be a tool (ar9fact), an idea or a belief. Norm is o=en used interchangeably for trait but norms are beliefs, norms usually involve a value judgment. For example, a fisherman may prefer a certain type of fish-hook. The preference for the type of hook is a norm, while the hook itself is an ar9fact or trait. 10

11 Cultural region or cultural realm are the largest categories and and the top of the hierarchy. The two terms are o=en used interchangeably. You can see that language and religion are the determining factor at the level of the realm. Also recall that the more we generalize within a model, the less useful it becomes. 11

12 We can also look at culture by analyzing it component parts. Cultures are made up of shared ideas, technologies and social organiza9ons. The wedding bands pictured here contain all three the idea that we mark our unions through rings; the technology involved in making the rings and finally, the monogamous life9me ma9ng bond the rings represent. 12

13 Possibilism is an important perspec9ve in human geography. The possibilist would say that humans act upon the environment and that the combina9on of human culture with the physical environment creates the cultural landscape. Pictured here is Capetown South Africa in which European culture has transformed the African environment to create a unique cultural landscape. Possibilism differs from environmental determinism in that the direc9on of causality is reversed. Possibilists would say humans change their environment; a strict determinist would say that the physical environment changes human culture. Both perspec9ves are valid. You could say that humans change their environment within certain boundaries or constraints dictated by physical condi9ons. 13

14 A collec9on of both posi9ve and nega9ve impacts humans have had upon their physical environment. In each example, causality runs from humans to the environment, strengthening the possibilist posi9on. 14