Over the years, culture has been defined as a set of learned behaviors and beliefs in a form of human activity. This also includes values, traditions, or lifestyle shared by a particular society at a particular place. According to Houl, there are four key components of culture (Houl, T.F. 1969).
These are values, norms, institutions, and artifacts.
By definition, values are set of ideas about life and the important things related to it. Norms are expectations on the behavior of the people. Institutions are the structures of societies where values and norms are learned. Lastly, artifacts are the things or aspects of material culture, which is also products of values, norms, and traditions of a culture.
In studying culture of a certain country, there are five concepts to consider in this research. These concepts are the culture region, the cultural diffusion, the cultural ecology, the cultural interaction, and the cultural landscape.
The cultural region is the region where you focus your study. It may be the culture of America, Africa, the Middle East, or Asia. These regions are influenced with other cultures. The cultural diffusion is composed of how ideas are spread from one culture to another. The cultural ecology is the study of relationship between humans and its natural environment. The cultural interaction is the study of how individuals interact within a society. Finally, the cultural landscape is a landscape created by people and their culture, and a simultaneous product of nature and the human interaction with nature.
The Essay on Culture and Cultural Norms
Culture can be referred to as a people’s way of life. It can be used to refer to the way we live and all that goes along with our life. That means that for us to have a life we have to be affiliated to a certain culture or to belong to a certain culture. To be in a certain culture, one has to comply will the cultural values, norms and expectations. Cultural values can be used or rather the term ...
Brazil: Human GeographyIn this research, I want to focus at Brazil. Brazil is the largest country in South America. Brazil’s official name is the Federative Republic of Brazil and its capital is Brasilia. Upon studying Brazil, I want to focus on a little information about the country, and more on the cultural diffusion, cultural interaction, and cultural landscape.
Cultural RegionBrazil’s name is derived from the Portuguese word for the reddish color of brazilwood. It is an important export during the 16th century. Today, Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of sugar and coffee. Brazil gained independence from Portugal in 1822 and during the 19th century, they enjoyed a political stability, which is unusual for Latin America. Brazil has a population of 188,078,261 as of the year 2006, with a language of Portuguese and major religions of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
Cultural DiffusionMost Brazilians lived in very densely populated areas of eastern Brazil. Although urbanization has not produced actual declines in rural population, internal migration has caused cities to grow much faster than rural areas. Many migrants to the cities take up residence in shantytowns, on the edge of urban areas.
The ethnic mix in BrazilBrazil is a multi-racial country. Because of the incredible arrival of immigrants to Brazil during the 19th century, the population is mostly Caucasian. Italians, Germans, Syrians, and Lebanese followed the Portuguese in migrating to Brazil. The Asians arrived during the 1930’s. About 1 million Indians lived in Brazil when the first Portuguese explorers arrived early in the 16th century. Intermarriage between Portuguese and Indians produced a new race called mamelucos by the Brazilians.
During the 1538, African slaves were brought to Brazil. Mulattoes, those mixed Negro and Caucasian ancestry, constitute about 20% of the population. Today, the population of Brazil’s three southernmost states is mostly Caucasians.
The Essay on How the English language influenced African literature
The use of the English language plays a crucial and dominant role in African literature. In contemporary African literature the use of English is often the key element for success as an African writer. This enables them to express their views across a larger area of today’s global world. However writing in English instead of their native tongues may come at a high price for these African ...
The ArtsThe strength of the arts in Brazil owes much to the country’s racial and ethnic mix. Rio’s Carnaval, a spectacular folk festival held each year just before Lent, is a showcase for the samba, Brazil’s most characteristic dance, which has pronounced African beat. The influence of Mexican revolutionary muralists is evident in the work of such famous modern artists as Candido Portinari.
The culture of Brazil is Latin American, of a very assorted nature. Its chief early influence was Portuguese culture, because of strong colonial ties with the Portuguese empire that spread the Portuguese language, legal system and other cultural inheritances. Other important influences came from other parts of Europe, the Native South American people, Africa and Asia, creating a varied multicultural and mixed society. As a multiracial country, its culture also adapted other influences. The Amerindian peoples influenced Brazil’s language and cuisine and the Africans, brought as slaves, largely influenced Brazil’s music, dance, cuisine, religion and language.
Language and religionAlthough Brazil has racially mixed population, most of its citizens re united by language and religion. More than 90% of Brazilians are Roman Catholic, making Brazil the world’s largest Roman Catholic country. The church and the state have been constitutionally separated since 1889. Portuguese is the official language used in Brazil.
Cultural LandscapeDespite the availability of rich agricultural and mineral resources and recently modernized industry, Brazil has an economy hindered by a huge foreign debt. Brazil is mostly highland. Similar geologic processes formed all of Brazil’s highland regions. The deepest and oldest rocks are crystalline granites and quartzites. Over several million years these large blocks of land were shoved upward, divided by erosion. Recently, another episode of erosion took place. The lowland portion of Brazil is composed mostly of undisturbed sedimentary rocks.
Rainfall is the primary determinant of vegetation on Brazil. Tropical rainforest is found in the wettest part of the Amazon basin. Much of Brazil is covered by tropical grassland. Even though Brazil has Latin America’s most far-reaching forests, many are accessible. But the lumber exportation has made Brazil the Latin America’s largest exporter. Massive deforestation have cause environmental hazards to Brazil.
The Term Paper on Talking Your Culture: Diversity In Language And Culture
Every society has their own unique culture in which the lives of the people are patterned. Culture is responsible for shaping the identity of a society and the individuals who live in that society. People conform to distinguishable culture of their respective society by adhering to the norms, traditions, beliefs, and values that characterize a culture. Culture shapes people’s behavior and ...
Cultural InteractionAt this present period, Brazil faces an increasing task with regards to organization of the public administrative structure. Reforms have been conducted for every administration that took place but only mixed results are produced. Now, the public institutions are considered to be inefficient.
There is a high record of illiteracy and underemployment among the citizens. Many have criticized reputations of the government branches. Violence is also a part of life in Brazil, due to many social issues such as the unconcealed inequality between the upper and lower classes of citizens. These have created crimes and minor thefts.
Muggings, robberies and kidnappings are quite common in many cities, being even considered normal by many Brazilians. Anti-poverty programs have been developed by the government to minimize the crime rate in Brazil.
Despite of these negativities, there are still aspects where people have been trying to improve the reputation of Brazil. Programs and public assistances continuously aid the education and health issues. On the field of sciences, information technology and researches are continuously soaring and contributing to universities and to research center institutes.
Brazil has also gained popularity through football, the most popular sport of Brazil. As the years passed, Brazil has created different sports also. Few of these sports are beach soccer, footvolley, a mixture of football and volleyball played in sand, Capoeira, a martial art of African heritage, and Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, a variation of Japanese jiu-jitsu, and Futsal, an indoor soccer.
Conclusionhuman geography is another branch of geography. This focuses on the study of patterns and processes that shape human interaction with the environment, with particular reference to the causes and consequences of the spatial distribution of human activity on the Earth’s surface.
The Essay on List And Define The 5 Components Of All Human Cultures
There are five components of human culture; symbols, language, values and beliefs, norms, and material culture and technology. Symbols are anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share a culture. Language is a system of symbols that allows people to communicate with each other. Values are culturally defined standards by which people assess desirability, goodness, and ...
This is a branch of geography that deals with people and their environment – from cities to transportation to religion to food. This includes the influences that made the culture of a certain society have developed, with an emphasis on cultural origins and movement and the cultural characteristics of regions like language, religion, ethnicity, politics, historical development, agricultural methods, settlement patterns, and quality of life.
As I have conducted this research, I hope that I have presented well the culture of Brazil. How the country’s population and culture have grown over the years and how its people and structure can be describe at this present time. Lastly, I hope that the differences of the geographical concepts are also clearly explained through the articles stated in this research.
References
1 Snaden, J.N. (1987).
Brazil, Lexicon universal encyclopedia, Lexicon publications, Inc., New York, N.Y.,p. 459-464.
2 Compton, R. (1985).
Brazil: human geography and population, Population studies, Vol. 39, No. 2. p. 340-341.
3 Murphy, A.B. (2000).
Culture, society, and space, John Wiley and Sons Publications, p. 15-20.
4 Western, J. (1999).
Classics in human geography, Progress in human geography journal, Vol. 23,No. 3, p. 421-427.
