The following handout is offered as a supplement to chapter 15 and lectures of April 9-11. Anthropologists try to understand how and why cultures change. How and Why Cultures Change Discovery and Invention Discoveries and inventions may originate from outside or from inside the society are ultimately the sources of all culture change when they are not ignored of course. The process by which cultural elements are borrowed from another society and incorporated into the culture of the recipient group is called diffusion.
Diffusion is a selective process.
These cultural traits will impact the economic system of the colonized groups, their gender relations, their kinship organization, their political organization. Colonized groups will be forced to adopt certain cultural elements, however they will incorporate them into their own social organization in many different ways. Colonized groups will also resist assimilation.