CULTURAL, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL

cHANGE
• Social, cultural, and political
changes are trigerred either by
new ideas and technologies or by
new people and cultures.
• There are also new challenges
that human communities face
that require new ways of
responding.
 Functional patterns of change and adaptation
 Culture as a way of life and a way of doing things may be thought
of as emanating from the very experience of the people practicing
it.
 The purity of a culture, can be undermined by the ongoing
process of globalization, which is generally defined as the process
of international integration arising from the interchange of world
views, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture
 With the globalization in mind, a notion of pure culture suddenly
disappears, and the emergence of a “diluted culture” becomes a
relevant one.
 Dilution may connote corruptions and pollutions, terms which
later on in the chapter can a life and death realities to people in
context where the difference matter.
•
 Dilutionof culture is happening
everywhere and affecting everything.
 Globalization, becomes a sort of
transport process where materials-
concepts, practices, information,
technologies, and lifestyles- are being
moved in every possible direction
Cultural osmosis and patterns of change
Cultural Osmosis- is the process of gradual or unconscious
assimilation of ideas, knowledge, practices along and
across cultures.
 Human societies change and adapt in reaction to
changing conditions.
 These may be brought about by the entry of new ideas
or technologies, or by encountering other cultures.
 The manner by which societies adapt to new ideas or
technologies is through innovation and diffusion
 When they encounter other cultures, they adapt through
acculturation or assimilation
 Cultural diffusion
 This is the spread of culture including aspects
such as clothing and food from one group to
another, as a result of making contact with a new
group for the first time
 When one culture begins to adopt elements of
another, be it in manner, religion, food, clothing or
agricultural practice, cultural diffusion happens.
 Cultural diffusion is not necessarily a good thing,
however , it can lead to the displacement of native
cultural traditions, it can be dangerous.
 Five steps of diffusion
1. Decision- the individual weighs the positive and negative
results of changing to the new idea .
2. Knowledge- an individual first becomes aware of a new
innovation but lacks the information and inspiration to
utilize or introduce it.
3. Implementation- The individual adds the innovation into
the system . At this stage, he or she also begins to
determine the innovation’s usefulness
4. Persuasion- the individual’s interest in the innovation
spikes and he or she begins to research about it.
5. Confirmation- The individual decides to continue with
 innovation
 The process of translating a new idea into
something that can create value.
 takes advantage of an emerging idea or
technology, instead of looking at it as a
threat or a source of risk, it treats it as an
opportunity that can have value to society.
 acculturation
 is a process where a minority adopts the
cultural aspects of the majority without losing
its own traditions and customs.
 the importance of acculturation can never be
overemphasized in the study of cross cultural
influences and the ways peoples of different
ethnic identities learn to adapt and accept the
cultural traits of a majority community in a
multi-ethnic society.
 assimilation
 refersto the process where some of
the majority community’s cultural
aspects are absorbed and the home
or minority’s cultural aspects get
migitated or lost.
 People of a culture learn to adapt to
the ways of the majority culture.
 Social contradictions and tensions
• The entry of new ideas as well as encountering other
cultures can destabilize society and lead to social
conflict and tension.
• The entry of new ideas and technology , instead of
leading to innovation and diffusion, can disturb patterns
and relationships between people and social classes and
lead to class conflict. (example the mechanization of the
production process in factories has displaced manual
labor, and this severely affected factory workers and led
to unemployment .
• Instead of acculturation or assimilation, an encounter of
two different cultures can lead to inter- ethnic conflicts.
•Political Violence- can be the
result not only of ethnic conflict
but also of class conflict .
•It can also include peaceful
protest movements as these
openly challenge established
structures.
• Two forms of political violence;
1.Revolution- entails a public seizure of the
state with the main goal of overturning the
existing political structures.
• 2.Coup d’ etat- the sense that only the elites
are involved in the overthrow of the
government in the latter.
• Terrorism- occurs when non state actors
use violence against civilians to achieve
their political goals.
 Global warming and climate change
 are environmental realities that have become a global concern.
 Increasing atmospheric temperatures brought about by the
increasing levels of carbon in the atmosphere, mainly resulting
from carbon emissions from the industrialization process, not
only threaten the physical landscapes of the earth , but also
more importantly, it can severely disrupt the social, cultural,
and political lives of human societies.
 The effects of increasing concentrations of carbon in the
atmosphere include the rise in sea levels that threaten coastal
cities, the changing of climatic patterns manifested in the
increasing incidence of extreme weather events ( stronger
typhoons, floods, longer and more intense droughts) that
disrupt food production as well as destroy human habitats
• The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate change
( UNFCC)- was signed in 1994 to achieve stabilization of
greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a low enough
level to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the
climate system.
• To address the challenge, two mechanisms were made available;
• 1. Migitation Mechanisms- where human societies , and to
increase their carbon emitting activities, and to increase their
carbon sequestration potential by engaging in activities that would
increase their forest cover.
• 2. Carbon Trading- the process wherein countries that have high
carbon emission rates can “buy” carbon – sequestration values
residing in forest areas of countries that still have forest. In this
arrangement “carbon producers “ countries with forests – to keep
their forests intact or to mange them properly.
 Resilience

 refers to the adaptive capacity of a community in

the face of climate change and its adverse
impacts .
 Globalization, Transnational
migration and ofw
• Globalization- involves a deliberate restructuring, trade and services within
a system that is global in scale .
• The actors are no longer national companies that relocate limited and
specialized parts of their production processes to developing countries.,
but instead are globally oriented mega-corporations or transnational
corporations that organize their production and sales as a world- wide
operation.
• Enabled both by a rapid growth of global financial markets resulting from
the deregulation of financial transactions, as well as technological
developments in information technology that allow corporations to run
their operations on a global scale through computer hook ups,
teleconferencing, and the development of electronic banking and financial
transactions.
 migration
- The people migrate due to economic institutions or
traveling for leisure.
- Filipinos either looked for jobs in different countries and
were considered as migrants workers , then later they
became permanent residents and were naturalized , after
which they petitioned for their families.
- Others took the risk of starting as tourists, and they find
ways to permanent in their host countries, either by
finding a job or a spouse.
 ofw

• - refer to persons to be engaged, or

have been engaged in an
employment activity in a state
where he / she is not a legal
resident.
•