Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
a certain geographic breadth, encounter one or more barrier effects, and then stop spreading.
Were there no barrier effects, then culture traits would, in fact, “keep going and going,” res-
ulting in a rather uniform global culture. Thanks to barrier effects, therefore, Earth's cultural
geography is a mosaic of culture areas instead of a monochrome.
Barriers may be
absorbing
or
permeable,
respectively stopping completely the spread of culture or
selectively accommodating the spread of some culture traits, but not others. For millennia, the Atlant-
ic Ocean was an absorbing barrier that stopped the westward expansion of European culture. More
recently, societal decision making in Saudi Arabia has been a
permeable barrier,
allowing into that
country western technology related to oil drilling, but holding at arm's length other western cultural
commodities such as bikinis and beer. As these examples indicate, barrier effects may originate from
the physical or social environment.
Getting physical
Physical barriers
are natural elements that now or in the past inhibit cultural diffusion. These
have historically served to isolate people, either preventing or seriously limiting access to
agents of culture change. The following sections cover the classic examples.
Oceans
Oceans were formidable barriers to cultural diffusion for millennia. People didn't know what lay
acrossthem,orhowfarawayplaceswere.Similarly,theydidnotpossessthetechnologytoaccurately
plot a course to a particular destination or to return home whether or not they had discovered any-
thing.Ontopofthat,andforthelongesttime,shipswerefragileandatthewhimsyofwindandstorm.
Thus, until modern shipbuilding and navigation came along, oceans tended to inhibit the spread of
culture instead of promote it. To this day scattered Pacific Ocean Islands are homes to people whose
cultures have been only modestly (if that) altered by contacts with the broader world. In these cases,
the surrounding ocean continues to serve as a formidable physical barrier that has insulated the is-
lands from forces of culture change.
