SOURCES OF CHANGE &

NEW CHALLENGES TO
HUMAN ADAPTATION
KYLE JOSHUA M. RICARDO
JHIENEL CABACUNGAN
 SUBTOPICS
 FUNCTIONAL PATTERNS OF CHANGE AND
ADAPTATION
 SOCIAL CONTRADICTIONS AND TENSIONS
 NEW CHALLENGES TO HUMAN ADAPTATION
AND SOCIAL CHANGE
 INTRODUCTION
Social, cultural, and political changes are
triggered either by new ideas and
technologies or by new people and
cultures. People have functional as well as
dysfunctional ways of responding to these
changes. There are also challenges that
human communities face that require new
ways of responding.
FUNCTIONAL PATTERNS
OF CHANGE AND
ADAPTATION
 FUNCTIONAL PATTERNS OF
CHANGE AND ADAPTATION
PURE & DILATED CULTURE
- 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. In this light, it
can be seen as a pure product of such
experience.
 FUNCTIONAL PATTERNS OF
CHANGE AND ADAPTATION
PURE & DILATED CULTURE
- 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. In this light, it
can be seen as a pure product of such
experience.
 FUNCTIONAL PATTERNS OF
CHANGE AND ADAPTATION
PURE & DILATED CULTURE
- Globalization can undermine the
purity of a culture.
- Through globalization, the
emergence of a “diluted culture”
became a relevant one.
 FUNCTIONAL PATTERNS OF
CHANGE AND ADAPTATION
PURE & DILATED CULTURE
- Dilution of culture is happening
everywhere and affecting everything
since there are “roads” and “computer
terminals”, and Globalization becomes
a transport process.
 FUNCTIONAL PATTERNS OF
CHANGE AND ADAPTATION
PURE & DILATED CULTURE
- Dilution is the process of
repositioning of culture, which means
reconstruction of the cultural concept of
a society.
 FUNCTIONAL PATTERNS OF
CHANGE AND ADAPTATION
CULTURAL OSMOSIS & PATTERNS OF
CHANGE
- Cultural change can be likened to the
process of osmosis.
- In Biology & Chemistry, it is the process by which
molecules of a solvent tend to pass through a
semipermeable membrane from a less concentrated
solution into a more concentrated one,…
 FUNCTIONAL PATTERNS OF
CHANGE AND ADAPTATION
CULTURAL OSMOSIS & PATTERNS OF
CHANGE
- …thus, equalizing the concentration on
each side of the membrane.
- In social science language, it is the
process of gradual or unconscious
assimilation of ideas, knowledge, practices
along and across cultures.
 FUNCTIONAL PATTERNS OF
CHANGE AND ADAPTATION
CULTURAL OSMOSIS & PATTERNS OF
CHANGE
- 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.
 PROCESSES OF CULTURAL
CHANGE
CULTURAL DIFFUSION
- The spread of culture from one group
to another (clothes, food) typically when
making contact with a group for the first
time.
- It can also be dangerous as it can lead
to displacement of native cultural
traditions.
 PROCESSES OF CULTURAL
CHANGE
INNOVATION
- The process of translating a new idea
into something that can create value.
- It does not look emerging ideas or
technologies as a threat.
- Social Diffusion is adopted as a way of
spreading innovations through various
channels.
 PROCESSES OF CULTURAL
CHANGE
INNOVATION
- Steps of Diffusion:
1. Knowledge – being aware of new
innovation but lacking information to
introduce it.
2. Persuasion – the interest in the
innovation spikes as he/she do a
research about it.
 PROCESSES OF CULTURAL
CHANGE
INNOVATION
- Steps of Diffusion:
3. Decision – weighing positive and
negative results of changing ideas.
4. Implementation – adding the
innovation to the system.
5. Confirmation – deciding to continue
with the new innovation.
 PROCESSES OF CULTURAL
CHANGE
INNOVATION
- Steps of Diffusion:
3. Decision – weighing positive and
negative results of changing ideas.
4. Implementation – adding the
innovation to the system.
5. Confirmation – deciding to continue
with the new innovation.
 PROCESSES OF CULTURAL
CHANGE
INNOVATION
- Diffusion happens:
1. Internally – when the spread of
information and innovation happens
within a social network.
2. Externally – when it results from the
introduction of new ideas from the
outside.
 PROCESSES OF CULTURAL
CHANGE
ACCULTURATION
- A process where a minority adopts the
cultural aspects of the majority without
losing its own traditions and customs.
- It has many outcomes: assimilation,
rejection, integration, and
marginalization.
 PROCESSES OF CULTURAL
CHANGE
ASSIMILATION
- The process where some of the
majority community’s cultural aspects
are absorbed and the home of minority’s
cultural aspects get mitigated or lost.
- There is a loss since more value is
given to the cultural aspects of majority.
 PROCESSES OF CULTURAL
CHANGE
ASSIMILATION
- The process where some of the
majority community’s cultural aspects
are absorbed and the home of minority’s
cultural aspects get mitigated or lost.
- There is a loss since more value is
given to the cultural aspects of majority.
 SOCIAL
CONTRADICTIONS AND
TENSIONS
 SOCIAL CONTRADICTIONS AND
TENSIONS
The four processes are considered
functional as they do not lead to
violence and tension. However, there
are instances wherein they can
destabilize society and lead to social
conflicts.
 SOCIAL CONTRADICTIONS AND
TENSIONS
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 social
conflict.
 SOCIAL CONTRADICTIONS AND
TENSIONS
Instead of acculturation or assimilation,
an encounter of two different cultures
an lead to inter-ethnic conflicts, more
so if the dominant and minority
cultures have history of conflict and
their differences appear to be so
fundamentally irreconcilable.
 SOCIAL CONTRADICTIONS AND
TENSIONS
POLITICAL VIOLENCE – is seen as
politically-motivated violence which
can result both ethnic and class
conflict. It can also include peaceful
protests.
 TWO TYPES OF POLITICAL
VIOLENCE
1. REVOLUTION – entails a public
seizure of the state with the main goal of
overturning the existing political
structures.
2. TERRORISM – occurs when non-state
actors use violence against civilians to
achieve their political goals.
 TWO TYPES OF POLITICAL
VIOLENCE
a.) State-Sponsored Terrorism (Genocide)
- It is the state that uses violence against its
own people as a matter of state policy, or
against other people as a matter of foreign
policy.
b.) Guerilla War
- When the violence is committed by non-
state actors against their own state.
 SOCIAL CONTRADICTIONS AND
TENSIONS
There has been an increasing
relationship between political violence
and religion.
 3 REASONS OF THE STRONG RELATIONSHIP OF
RELIGION & POLITICAL VIOLENCE

A negative view of modernity that sees

it corrupting traditional religions and
causing human suffering.
Hatred of Western states whom
fundamentality accuse of exterminating
and demeaning the true believers of
their faith.
 3 REASONS OF THE STRONG RELATIONSHIP OF
RELIGION & POLITICAL VIOLENCE

Messianic, apocalyptic, and utopian

ideas that believe righteous believers
will prevail over modernity and the
West.
NEW CHALLENGES TO
HUMAN ADAPTATION &
SOCIAL CHANGE
 NEW CHALLENGES TO HUMAN
ADAPTATION & SOCIAL CHANGE
Two of the recent developments that
provided human societies
opportunities to adapt to changes are
in the domain of global warming and
climate change, and in transnational
labor migration.
 GLOBAL WARMING & CLIMATE
CHANGE
Global Warming & Climate Change are
environmental realities that have
become a global concern.
Increasing atmospheric temperatures
severely disrupts the social, cultural,
and political lives of human societies.
 GLOBAL WARMING & CLIMATE
CHANGE
Global Warming & Climate Change are
environmental realities that have
become a global concern.
Increasing atmospheric temperatures
severely disrupts the social, cultural,
and political lives of human societies.
 GLOBAL WARMING & CLIMATE
CHANGE
Because of this, the United Nations
Framework convention on Climate
Change (UNFCC) was signed in 1994 to
achieve stabilization of greenhouse gas
concentrations in interference with the
climate system.
 GLOBAL WARMING & CLIMATE
CHANGE
In 1998, the Kyoto Protocol to the
UNFCC was promulgated to further
reduce greenhouse gas emissions by
enhancing the national programs of
developed countries aimed at this goal
and by establishing percentage
reduction targets for the developed
countries.
 GLOBAL WARMING & CLIMATE
CHANGE
 TWO MECHANISMS TO ADDRESS THESE CHALLENGE:
1. Mitigation – where human societies
commit to reduce their emissions of
greenhouse gases by reducing their
carbon emitting activities, and to
increase their sequestration potential by
engaging in activities that would
increase their forest cover.
 GLOBAL WARMING & CLIMATE
CHANGE
 TWO MECHANISMS TO ADDRESS THESE CHALLENGE:
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 forests.
 GLOBAL WARMING & CLIMATE
CHANGE
Our country is not a carbon-emitter, it
is instead a potential seller of carbon
rights. However it does not exempt us
from the harmful effects of Climate Change.
Resilience – the adaptive capacity of a
community in the face of climate
change and its adverse effects.
 GLOBAL WARMING & CLIMATE
CHANGE
Exposure – a function of location and
urban design.
Sensitivity – a function of the level of
dependency of the community on activities
that are easily compromised by climate
change events.
Adaptive Capacity – the ability of a
community to modify and adjust their lives.
 GLOBALIZATION, TRANSNATIONAL,
AND OFWs
The world has become porous and
globalized. The decades prior to the
early 1970s were characterized by a
capitalist world economy dominated by
growing commodity trade among
capitalist economies, as well s the
internationalization of commercial
capital.
 GLOBALIZATION, TRANSNATIONAL,
AND OFWs
The emergence of new patterns in
industrial growth in the developing
countries were facilitated by the following
social and technological developments:
1. The emergence in the developing
economies of an increasing reserve of
comparatively cheap labor.
 GLOBALIZATION, TRANSNATIONAL,
AND OFWs
2. The emergence of subcontracting as a
practice.
3. The emergence of the “information
superhighway” enabled by technological
advances in transportation and
telecommunication.
 GLOBALIZATION, TRANSNATIONAL,
AND OFWs
Globalization – involves restructuring
of manufacturing, trade, and services
within a system that is global in sacle.
Transnationalization of capital –
relocation of certain production
processes to other countries.
 GLOBALIZATION, TRANSNATIONAL,
AND OFWs
Globalization now entailed the physical
movement of culture, information,
capital, and ideas across national
boundaries.
 CULTURAL, INFORMATION, &
CAPITAL FLOWS
Cultural Flow – seen in the spread of
locally-based cultural symbols.
Information Flow – enabled by the
Internet, and other medium that enables
the global transfer of information.
Capital Flow – now also enabled by the
globalization of financial institutions.
 CULTURAL AND INFORMATION
FLOWS
These flows lead to a globalization of
the flow and ideas.
 GLOBALIZATION, TRANSNATIONAL,
AND OFWs
Global Tourism – an important
economic activity that is now a source
of revenue for other countries.
Immigration – more permanent
migration
Economic migration – migrating due to
economic reasons
 GLOBALIZATION, TRANSNATIONAL,
AND OFWs
Labor Migration – different from travel
and it is just for temporary stay purely
for employment purposes.
OFWs – Overseas Filipino Workers,
refer to persons who are to be engaged,
are engaged, or have been engaged in
an employment activity in a state where
he/she is not a legal resident