Diffusionism: A Uniformitarian Critique

J . M. Blaut

Department of Geography, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60680

Abstract. Ditfusionisni assume5 that ( I ) inventiveness is rare and theretore diffusion accounts tor nearly
a11 sifniiicant culture change and ( 2 ) certain places arc permanent loci of invention and thus arc inore
advanced and iiiore progressive than other places. It. however. inventivenesb and innovativeiiess are
assumed to he uniibrnil y distributed di ffkrent spat i d models crnerpe , different diffusion proccsacs gain
saliencc. inadequacies of cui-i-ent diffusion-of-innovation theory become evident. and new hypothese\
about broad-scale culture change are uncovered. This paper cxaininea the structure of diffusionism, put&
forward a noncliflu\ioni~talternative structure. and employs thc alternative t o modify dilfu\ion-of-in-
novation thcory and t o a r g ~ i efive nondiffu~ionist hypotheha for culture history and present-day rural
dcvclopinenl.

lie) Words: diffusion. tliffusioni\ni. invention. innovation. culti.iral evolution. technological change.
colonialism. unifoi-mirariniii~iii.

IFFUSIONISM is a way of looking at the
D world that has long influenced thinking in ge-
ography and social thought. Its classical form was
described by Malinowski (1927. 31) as the belief
"that culture can be contracted only by contagion
and that man i s an imitative animal." I n other
words. culture change docs not arise autwi(i-
mously in most human communities: it comes from
without. via diffusion. But diffiision itself must
have a source, and classical diffusionism postu-
lated that some places arc permanent, natural cen-
ters o f creativity and invention. Even the opponcnts
o f classical diffusionism tended t o accept its main
proposition that Europe is the world's sourcc o f
culturally significant innovations.
Classical diffusionism was strongly though not
thoroughly criticized. Its i n a t salient forin. the
. ext re me d it'fu s ion is m ' ' that at tri bu tcd almost al I
cultural origins to diffusion and claimed t o find a
single fountainhead for civilization (see. e.g., Smith
1933) was fairly disposed o f (see Childe 195 I :
Harris 1968: Kroebcr 1937: Leaf 1979: Lowie
1937). A fcw geographers and anthropologists
continued to accept parts of the doctrine. however,
such as the claim that New World cultures did not
invent agriculture and other civilizing innovations
on their own but received them via transoceanic
diffusion (Carter 1968; Edmonson 1961).l h e vicu.
that i i i ~ s cultures
t and most people are uninventivc
was attacked by Radin ( 1905) and others (see Leaf
1979, 16.1-7 1 ), and opposing viewpoints gained
favor, particularly among those cultural anthro-
pologists and cultural geographers who defended
the integrity o f folk culture and who understood
"tradition" t o be dynamic and rational (see. e , g , .
Kniffen 1965). But Eurocentrisni rctained its he-
gemony over most social thought, arid the "folk-
urban continuum' ' remained in cssence a concept
of one-way diffusion.
Diffusionism has become reinvigorated. pri-
marily because i t fits with the stance that progress
for the Third World consists in accepting the
"modernizing" diffusion of inultinational capital-
ism and the material traits. ideas, and sociopolit-
ical bchavior associated with it. The ideology of
modernization has received considerable scientific
criticism. and some writers have
diffusionism (c.g., Blaikie 1978; Blaut 1970. 1977:
Brookfield 1975; Chilcote 1984; Frank 1969) . B u t
diffusionism in its modern form has not as yet
been systematically described and criticized. n o r
has the full extent of i t s influence been rccog-
nizcd.
In this paper I describe diffusionism and outline
an alternative structure, a way o f theorizing about
culture change that takes account of spatial tlif-
fusion but does not succumb to diffusionism. I
also argue that the nondiffusionist alternativc has
useful implications for a wide range of geographic
theories. 1 suggest some ways to eliminate diffu-

30
 Diffusionism
sionism from the part of spatial diffusion theory
that relates to agricultural developincnt in the Third
World, and I look at a few of the larger problems
in historical geography in which an explicitly non-
diffusionist approach can be helpful. The project
as a whole is best described as a critique of dif-
fusioni\m, but it i s a schematic critique limited by
the space available in a journal article. In partic-
ular. I d o not criticize diffusionist writings except
wherc thib cannot be avoided in the context of a
theoretical argument. and I say little about the his-
tory of diffusionism in geography o r in general.
Structure of Diffusionism
Diffusionism is a large and complex doctrine
that has intluenced inany disciplines and countless
arguments for the past IS0 ycars or s o . The es-
sential structurc of diffusionism is quite simple.
From two axiomatic propositions it constructs two
interchangeable landscapes, one a two-sector space,
thc othcr a space with a continuous gradient be-
tween two polcs. Finally, it describes thc prop-
erties of the two sectors and o f t h e two poles (plus
gradations between) and the transactions that flow
in both directions, with a set o f elementary argu-
nicnts, six of which are crucial and will be dis-
cussed here.
Assume a landscapc with many communities.
(1 usc the word c~~rnrnunity to designate a discrete
social space at any scale, e . g . , a settlement o r a
culture region.) A novel trait appears in one com-
munity. Later, the same trait appears in a second
community. Thc second community either in-
vented the trait for itself ( a case of what is called
indcpcndent invention) or acquired it from the first
coinmunity ( a case of diffusion). Thereafter the
trait appears in other communities, and each ncw
appearance is explaincd as a further instance of
indcpcndent invention or diffusion. So far so good.
But suppose now that we wish t o predict where
in this landscape sotnc other novel trait will make
its initial appearance. Is it reasonable to suppose
that thc community that invented the first trait will
invent all subsequent traits as well’?This would be
likely only if two additional assumptions obtained:
( 1 ) the role of diffusion is more important than is
that of independent invention (there is little inven-
tiveness in this landscape): and (2) the community
that invented the first trait has a greater capability
than d o the other communities o f inventing traits
in general. If both these assumptions hold true,
then subscqucnt trait inventions should come from
31
this one community, which thus bccomcs thc per-
manent center for invention and innovation for this
landscapc; thereafter. the appearance of new in-
novations elsewhere in the landscape would be the
result of a diffusion process originating in our sin-
gle inventive community.
This belief- that changes are produced by dif-
fusion rather than (ordinarily) by independent in-
vention and that certain places are the permancnt
centers of innovation - is diffusionism. Diffu-
sionisrn at thc world scale usually considers Eu-
rope or thc West to be the permanent center of
invention and innovation, although this generali-
zation needs to be qualified as to historical epoch.
(Classical diffusionists conceived thc center,
“civilization.” to be Europe or northwestern Eu-
rope or. for racists, “the Lands ofthe White Race.”
Modern diffusionists tend to view the center as the
developed capitalist countries, Japan having been
recently admitted to the central sector, which is
still called “the West” in line with diffusionism’s
theory of history and culture.) At the regional scale
diffusionism considers the part of a region that is
most “Europeanized ,” ‘ *Westernized,’’ “mod-
ernized.” or “cosmopolitan,” and perhaps most
“progressive, ’‘ “innovative. ’’ o r “rational, ’ ’ to
be the center of invention and innovation. Inno-
vations then spread by diffusion to the ”traditional
areas ,” the “folk societies ,” thc “backward re-
gions,” and so forth. Note the implication that the
permanent center is always more advanced than
the other parts of the region (or of the world) as
it is always emitting innovations that are adopted
only later elsewhere. Diffusionists often carry this
matter of comparative synchronic levels of devel-
opment one step further: the societies most distant
lrom the center are the most backward and the
most ancient; they are sometimes thought of as the
“contemporary ancestors” of the societies at the
center, as though t o travel outward in space is t o
travel backward in time. Thus diffusionism i s in
a double sense elitist: the center is at all times
more progressive than is the periphery, and it is
at all times more advanced, that is to say, more
civilizcd. The classical position was enunciated by
Katzel (1896, 179): “How much more the inter-
course between lands and islands has contributed
to the enrichment of men’s stock of culture than
has independent invention . . . . It
seeins . . . correct to credit the intellect of ‘nat-
ural races’ with great sterility in all that does not
touch the most innnediatc objects of life.” Here
explicitly are the two diffusionists assumptions that
invention is rarc and that most peoplcs are unin-
32 Blaut
ventive. and here implicitly the double elitism: the
“natural races” are backward and they are unpro-
gressive. Today “natural races” would be re-
placed by “traditional cultures.”
The elementary structure of diffusionisin i s a
two-sector space at any geographical scale and
historical depth. Six arguments (possibly more)
describe the properties of each sector and the
transactions between them. These six arguments
are developed from the two basic diffusionist as-
sumptions and are elaborated. in turn, into more
complex and specific propositions. In some con-
texts of discourse diffusionism describes a simple
two-sector world with a boundary between the
sectors. In other contexts it depicts a space with
small gradational changes, such that the six ar-
guments describe srnall and local differences: e . g . ,
more innovative and less innovative, more tradi-
tional and less traditional. A further qualification
must be made t o distinguish the arguments of the
classical and modern forms of diffusionism (about
which more will be said shortly). For brevity, the
discussion will focus on the world scale, contrast-
ing a “core” sector and a “periphery,“ and on
the classical form of the arguments. as follows:
( I ) Progressive culture change that takes place
in the core sector i s autonomous: that is, it reflects
inventions occurring within the core, and it owes
nothing important to the periphery.
( 3 )The underlying force or cause of inventive-
ness in the core sector is some psychological or
spiritual factor such as rationality (Weber 1904-
0.5). technological inventiveness (L. White 1962),
imaginativeness ( a s opposed to imitativeness)
(Tarde 1903). a logical theoretical mind (Sack 1980
t k / e LCvy-Bruhl 1966), o r “Western economic
man” (Chisholm 1982).
(3) The periphery is the traditional sector o r
“traditional world,” “tradition” here having two
meanings: low level of civilization and low rate
of change. Therefore, allowing for exceptions (like
the archaic Asian civilizations that rose but then
stagnated). progressive culture change in the pe-
riphery i s not autonomous but is attributable to
diffusion from the center. T h e argument about a
“traditional sector” takes a special form when it
i s applied to settlement of the periphery by people
from the core. What i s invoked here can be called
the “myth ofemptiness.” The idea of tradition as
used in diffusionism is basically an idea of ab-
sence-of-qualities. Usually the missing qualities
are psychological (e.g., “rationality”) o r institu-
tional (e.g.. “private property,” “the state”). The
myth of emptiness also asserts an actual emptiness
of the landscape: there were n o indigenous people.
o r their population was negligibly srnall (and sparse
enough to allow unimpeded settlement by foreign-
ers). o r they were “nomads” and thus had no real
claim to land. resources, and territorial sover-
eignty.
(4) The predominant forin of interaction be-
tween core and periphery i s the outward diffusion
of progressive ideas, intangible intellectual and
moral products reflecting the core culture’s ration-
ality and inventiveness. In classical diffusionism
this i s seen as the spread of “civilization” and
today as the spread of “modernization.” This cen-
trifugal diffusion is not really explained; it i s as-
sumed, rather, to reflect the automatic workings
of what can be called (with a nod to Malinowski)
the principle of ideological contagion: certain ideas
diffuse for no reason other than their innate infec-
tiousness and the inherent susceptibility-in this
case, the imitativeness-of the recipients. Again
there i s a variant for settler colonies: the progrcs-
sive ideas are distributed by their bearers. Clas-
sical and modern diffusionism (see the brief
historical discussion below) differ in the formu-
lation of this argument. The classical argument
tended to emphasize mass migrations (Adams. Van
Gerven. and Levy 1978) and the transfer of cul-
tures and culture complexes. Modern diffusionism
tends to assert that diffusion proceeds “from per-
son to person. rather than from community to
community or from culture to culture” (Rouse
1961, 96, commenting on Edmonson 1961), re-
ducing cultural process to the level of individuals,
who are thought to be adopting new ideas freely
(the myth of “voluntarism”) and as a reflection
mainly of cognitive processes and interpersonal
communication (Blaut 1977).
( 5 ) There is a counterdiffusion of material things
from periphery to core, things like raw materials,
plantation products, art objects, and workers.
Classical diffusionism saw this as one side of a
grand transaction embodied in colonialism: ma-
terial wealth in partial repayment-it could never
be full repayment-for civilization.
(6) There i s a second kind of counterdiffusion
from periphery to core, consisting of precisely the
opposite of civilization. Because the periphery i s
by definition archaic. it i s the locus of atavistic
traits that seep back into the core according t o the
principle of ideological contagion.
Embedded in the foregoing are a number of im-
portant contrasts that distinguish core from pe-
 Diffusionism
riphery in classical diffusionist ethnoscience:
inventivenessiimitativeness, rationality/irrational-
ity, intellect/emotion (or intellect/instinct), ab-
stract thought/concrete t h o u g h t , theoretical
reasoningiempirical (practical) reasoning, mind/
body, disciplinc/spontaneity , adultichild, saneiin-
sane, and scienceisorcery .
Functions and History of Diffusionism
The diffusionist world model became explicit,
powerful, and important as the scientific under-
pinning of colonialism. its classical form emerged
soon after the Napoleonic period and flourished
’
until about the time of World War 1. Colonialism
itself was of course a diffusion process among
other things, but classical diffusionism imposed a
theoretical model over the real process to exhibit
colonialism and the phenomena related to it (such
as the internal characteristics of the colonized so-
cieties) in ways that would conform to the interests
of the colonizing societies and of the elite groups
within them that benefited directly from coloni-
alism. Diffusionism demonstrated, as it were sci-
entifically, that colonialism is normal, natural,
inevitablc, and moral (that is, a bestowal of civi-
l ization).
Classical diffusionism was appropriate to the
epoch in which capitalism was expanding mainly
by means of colonialism and related processes.
This epoch ended after World War I, to be fol-
lowed by a period characterized by a search for
stability, normalcy, and peace, hence equilibrium,
and characterized in social thought by models of
equilibrium, not of expansive diffusion: Keyne-
sian models in economics, regionalism in geog-
r a p h y , f u n c t i o n a l i s m a n d r el at i v i s m i n
anthropology, and the like. Diffusionism was in
eclipse during this period, although some diffu-
sionist schools ( e . g . , the Kulturkreislehre of
Grdebner and Schmidt and the migrationism of
Huntington and Taylor) remained active and naive
diffusionism still prevailed in children‘s school-
books (see Harris 1968; Kroeber 1937; Lowie 1937;
Voget 1975).
A new and modern form of diffusionism gained
prominence after World War 11, in the period of
collapsing colonial empires and an emerging ‘‘Third
World” of undcrdeveloped but sovereign coun-
tries. These countries were of great economic im-
p o r t a n c e t o c a p i t a l i s m in its n ew e r a o f
expansionism and were of equally great political
33
concern to Cold War strategists, who sought (not
always successfully) to kccp these states from
turning to socialism. Both interests required the
creation and scientific validation of a modern form
of the diffusionist model, a body of ideas that had
to persuade the now-sovereign Third World states
that economic and social advancement consisted
in acquiring so-called modernizing traits from the
developed capitalist countries - traits including
penetration by multinational corporations, spread
of commodity production and consumption, ac-
ceptance of and reliance on external capital, mil-
itary e quipm e nt, and personnel, and so o n .
Advancement also required the suppression of
forces that would inhibit diffusion by, for in-
stance, building self-reliant economies, encour-
aging labor organization, and investing social capital
in research institutions rather than in diffusion
agencies engaged in propelling foreign traits into
the countryside (see Blaikie 1978; Blaut 1973. 1977;
Browett 1980; Chilcote 1984; Frank 1969; Yapa
1977, 1980; Yapa and Mayfield 1978).
As with classical diffusionism, modern diffu-
sionism as a world model needs to be distin-
guished from actual diffusion processes and
agencies. Modern diffusionism is a theoretical
model in which diffusion from developed coun-
tries to Third World countries (along with the phe-
n o m e n a re la te d to it suc h a s the inte rna l
characteristics of the Third World societies) are
depicted in such a way as to demonstrate, scien-
tifically, that diffusion is the only possible road to
development, to “modernization” (the Modewort
of modern diffusionism). Diffusion, therefore, is
still normal, natural, inevitable, and moral. And
this is demonstrated with arguments grounded in
the two diffusionist assumptions and six basic dif-
fusionist propositions. Modern diffusionism is, if
anything, more important in our own time than
classical diffusionism was in the last century. This
is so because persuasion has now replaced naked
force -though not everywhere -and the evident
failure of the diffusion process to produce real
development thus far means that ever greater em-
phasis must be placed on theories that prove con-
clusively that diffusion must lead to development
sooner or later.
The foregoing discussion of the structure of dif-
fusionism and its history and changing functions
is of course schematic and incomplete. What is
perhaps most obviously missing is an explanation
of the fact that most social scientists who today
put forward diffusionist ideas - all must do so to
 Blaut
one extent or another - arc unaware of the tlif-
fusionism in their (our) thinking. 1 have addressed
this problem elsewhere (Blaut 1979, 1-6).
A Theoretical Alternative
Let us return now to an abstract landscape and
begin to construct ;I theoretical alternative t o dif-
fusionism. In fact there arc at least two alterna-
tivcs. both o f which eliminate the diffusionist
assumption that one place has more inventiveness
than all other places. Instead we
mitnrianisni - that all communities have equal
potential for invention and innovation, regardless
of Lvhcther for the landscape as a whole the overall
propensity t o invent is low o r high. The original
d o c t r in c c a 1 I e d ‘ .u n i f o r i n i t a r ian isin ’ ‘ w a s t he
methodological principle used by nineteenth-cen-
tur? science to counter the claiins of theologians
and others that physically similar forms across the
earth‘.; surface are to be explained as unique in-
terventions of God o r the Devil (see Harris 196X:
Vogct 1975). L‘niformitarianism asserted, in es-
sence. that a common set o f physical laws operates
everywhere, and wherever we find similar physi-
cal lacts we should look lor similar physical causes
and vice versa. A logically related doctrine, called
the principle of the “p. hic unity of mankind”
(“psychic” here meaning “psychological”), was
used some decades later to oppose the diffusionist
argument that independent invention cannot be in-
voked to explain trait adoption by most of the
world’s peoples because most peoples are not in-
ventive. Underlying the principle of psychic unity
was the simple proposition that all human beings
share the same basic psychological attributes and
capabilities (Harris 1968; Koepping 1983; Lowie
1937). We can take this part of thc doctrine, call
it “psychological uniformitarianism” o r simply
“uniformitarianism,” and define it for our pur-
pose as follows: in all human communities we
should expect to find the same capacity for crea-
tion and invention; hence invention and innovation
should have an equal probability of occurring in
all places. Note that what we are assuming here
i s not uniformity but equality. and recall that dif-
fusionism assumcs inequality.
A uniformitarian landscape can change in either
of two ways. depending on whether we choose to
retain o r discard the diffusionist assumption that
diffusion is more important than independent in-
vention because invention i s rare. This assumption
has tended to be re,jected by opponents of diffu-
sionism because it seems to carry with it the as-
sumption that people in general are imitative. not
inventive. and that ordinary pcoplc ;ire stupid. But
in fact. as 1 outline below. it i s not necessary to
give an important role to independent invention in
order to build a nondiffusionist, uniformitarian
schema for diffusion theory. The critique of dif-
iusionism docs not have to draw LIS into the tra-
ditional and often futile debates labeled “diffusion
vs. independent invention.” Let us first assume
that independent invention is indeed important and
see where this takes us.
In the limiting case. an invention occurs simul-
taneously in all communities throughout a land-
scape. If these communities were. say. villages
not very distant from one another. it would be
extremely unlikely that all communities would ac-
quire a trait simultaneously through indcpendent
invention. ( I assume that the trait i s in some de-
finable sense useful for the population as a whole.)
But if the communities were major culture re-
gions. then the scenerio of simultaneous indcpcn-
dent invention i s not necessarily unrealistic. (Think.
for instance, of parallel reaponscs t o widespread
drought. epidemic. o r invasion.) At a given time
all places would lack the trait: at the end of ;I
defined interval all places would possess the trait.
_I he
. landscape would thus go through a sequence
of stages, each representing the acquisition of one
novel trait, and at each stage the landscape would
be a uniform region.
It would obviously be inore realistic tu assume
that diffusion occurs along with independent in-
vention. (Nobody has ever questioned the signif-
icance of diffusion, merely its claim to hegemony.)
In this case. the first novel trait would appear in
a number of communitics randomly distributed
across the landscape. and the trait would spread
to the communities surrounding them. The sub-
scqucnt diffusion process would not necessarily
lead to spatial differentiation. and. after a given
number of defined intervals, the region would again
be uniform. having changed state irom trait ab-
sence to trait presence. We can complicate the
process by assuming that new innovations are ap-
pearing while the prior innovations are diffusing.
‘The overall picture would remain one in which
diffusion plays a role, yct no part of the landscape
acquires characteristics that arc not alsci acquired
by all other parts.
Next assume a situation in which independent
invention plays only a minor role, a case that m a y
have been overlooked in the classical arguments
against diffusionism. Here a trait i s invented i n
 Diifuaioniwi
one community and subscqucntly diffuses to other
communities. At this point we may pause to con-
sider the properties of what I have been calling
“traits.” One problem in studies of culture change
by anthropologists and cultural gcographers has
bccn the difficulty of isolating a single empirical
event of the sort called a “culture trait.” Every
trait is in principlc made up of componcnt traits.
Sometimes wc do reach a definite limiting point
below which everything seems t o be a part of a
trait. particularly when we are dealing with func-
tional itenis of material culture like bows. houses,
and so o n . But, in general. the efforts to reduce
culturcs to “trait lists” proved unworkable, and
the concept of “trait” remained imprecise (see
Harris 1968. 3 7 6 7 7 ; Leaf 1979, 167; Voget 1975,
372-82). Modern diffusion research tcnds t o ig-
nore this issue and to employ what can be called
the “patent office” notion (or the “commodity”
notion) of what constitutes a diffusing trait, the
notion that it is in some ontological sense whole
and different from any existing trait. In the present
discussion a fruit refers to any distinguishable bit
or quality of culture, whether or not it is ontolog-
ically object-like. holistic. of systemic. I t must,
howevcr. be invented. put to use as an innovation,
and then diffused to other communities. Defining
trtrir in this way has some interesting implications.
Thc invention and diffusion of definite, whole,
rccognizable things is much less significant in the
real world than is the addition by invention or
diffusion of improvements, modifications. or ad-
aptations made to already existing pieces of cul-
ture. Though well known, this has surprising
implications. Consider again the trait invented in
one community and then diffused to others. Let
us assume that some other community, after ac-
quiring the trait, modifies i t . Generically, this is
independent invention, though modest modifica-
tions might not be called inventions. The now-
modified trait appears in the landscape and begins
t o diffuse in its own right. Later a new modifi-
cation is made by one of the communities, and
the now twice-modified trait begins to diffuse. As-
sume that a sizable proportion of the diffusion
events in the landscape consist of the emission of
traits in a modified form, as compared to the form
in which thcy were originally received and adopted.
All of this is going on simultaneously throughout
the landscape. in a process that can be called -
I will define the term more precisely later -
“crisscross diffusion.” W e continue to assume that
the communities that initiate each invention and
modification are randomly distributed across the
35
landscape. If there is environmental variation in
the landscape, then trait modifications would most
likcly occur in those environmental contexts where
the original trait proves least useful. Hence it might
bc that the farther one goes from thc originating
community, the greater is the probability that the
trait will be modified. Nonetheless. we are sat? if
we merely assume randomness in the process o f
modification. This scenario again produces a uni-
form region.2
This is the base case for uniformitarianism. It
denies that some places o r people arc inore invcn-
tive than others, and it denies that innovation is
rare. It assumes only the level of inventiveness
needed to produce modest modifications of exist-
ing traits. It gives t o diffusion, not to independent
invention, the main causal role in culture change.
But this kind of diffusion is very different from
the diffusion of diffusionism. It produces spatially
uniform or randomly varying ,changes, not the
building up of centcrs of invention and innovation.
It thus draws our attention away from the evolving
pattern of a spreading diffusion, what I have de-
scribed elsewhere as the transitional phase in a
diffusion process (Blaut 1977). and toward differ-
ent kinds of problems.
Diffusion Processes
W e can now identify seven diffusion processes
that become salient in a uniformitarian approach
to diffusion theory.
1 , Cdlukir tlj(firsion. In a theoretical landscape
into which we have not introduced any empirical
basis for spatial differentiation (such as hill-val-
Icy, town-country, sovereign state-colony. core-
periphery) o r in which it cannot be assumcd a
priori that such empirical differences will produce
spatial variations in the invention and diffusion
patterns, the effects of both invention and diffu-
sion will lead to a uniform region. This is because,
as we have seen, invcntions will occur in ran-
domly distributed communities and diffusion will
have n o greater tendency to move in one direction
than another. Thus in the real world we would
have a uniform region changing from the one state
to another as a whole. At higher levels of aggre-
gation we would have a pattern of cellular regions,
each uniform and separated from all others by a
boundary defined by the fact that diffusions d o not
cross it within a defined epoch. In this situation
the problem of major interest would no longer in-
volve the spatial transition from trait absence to
36 Blaut

trait presence but would relate to why the trait ifications will be generated, transmitted, and re-
either does or does not diffuse in the region - ceived frequently and will diffuse quickly. At all
problems thus of entry conditions and boundary times novel traits will be crisscrossing the land-
breaching between regions (Blaut 1977, 349). All scape. For large cultural transformations like the
of this may be callcd “cellular diffusion.” Neolithic Revolution and the transition from feu-
2. Ultra-rapid dijfusion. Consider three cases: dalism to capitalism, the effect of crisscross dif-
( 1 ) a trait diffuses through a region with great fusion would be simultaneous changes throughout
rapidity - almost instantly; (2) a trait diffuses at a landscape as a whole. Consider a landscape
some moderate, measurable rate; (3) a trait does composed of just two communities, 1 and 2. Com-
not diffuse in the region at all. Cases ( 1 ) and (3) munity 1 invents a trait or modifies an existing
have received little attention in Third World rural trait. The invention reaches community 2 by dif-
contexts (but see Blaut 1977, 345-47; Yapa and fusion. Community 2 adds a modification of its
Mayfield 1978). 1 think the neglect of both cases own, which then diffuses to community 1 , which
reflects, in part, an unperceived influence of dif- may at the same time be transmitting another mod-
fusionism, specifically its assumption that people ification to 2. Both communities are simulta-
are not very innovative (Bowen-Jones 1981, 79- neously inventing, transmitting. and receiving novel
82: Chisholin 1982, 155-63) and that change rc- traits, which thus are crisscrossing the space be-
flccts the arrival of traits diffused from elsewhere tween them, and both comrnunitics are going
(Lentnek 1969; 1971, 163; Hoyle 1974, 5 ) . A large through an ordered sequence of changcs simulta-
diffusionist mythology has been built up on the neously. If the bundle of novelties adds up to a
basis of “extensionism” in rural sociology (Rog- major cultural transformation, a “revolution,” we
ers 1962) and “modernization” theory elsewhere cannot say that the revolution started in one com-
(McClelland 1961; Foster 1962; Hagen 1962) to munity and diffused to the other: it occurred in
support the idea that Third World people can be both sumultaneously. For the same scenario in a
made on empirical evidence that diffusion tends landscapc with many communities, we would not
to proceed either remarkably rapidly or not at all. be able to point to one place as the source or hearth
If a trait is information-dependent, if it is patently of the revolution and describe other places as re-
useful, and if resources to adopt it are present, cipients-by-diffusion. If we were studying such a
then it will diffuse nearly at the rate information transformation empirically, we would assume that
spreads. This is almost instantaneously in most the entire landscape participated in the transfor-
social systems, unless information is a commodity mation by crisscross diffusion unless we were to
or is held oligopolistically by power groups and uncover empirical evidence to the contrary.
not allowed to diffuse (see Blaikie 1978; Blaut 4-6. Dependent, disguised, and phantom dif
1977). If human beings are highly inventive and ,fusion. Diffusionism, as noted previously, asserts
prone to receive and transmit innovations rapidly, that progressive ideas and their consequences -
trait diffusion if not inhibited by extraneous forces civilization, modernization, development - tlow
(c.g.. economic or political) should proceed at rates from the developed capitalist “core” to the more
so rapid perhaps that modeling the transition is backward and slowly progressing “periphery.”
either impossible or uninteresting. By the same Modern diffusionism, for reasons discussed al-
token, howcver, inhibiting forces will often - ready, strives to show that it is just this spreading
and in most Third World areas typically - pre- of modern knowledge and ways that characterizcs
vent the diffusion of useful, development-induc- the present-day relationship between capitalist me-
ing innovations from taking place at all. As to the tropolis and Third World and strives to argue con-
intermediate case, of moderate, measurable, niod- vincingly that receptivity to flows of all sorts from
elable diffusion, I will argue below that, at least the metropolis is the only way for peripheral so-
in the Third World. cases of this sort usually re- cieties to achieve development and “modernity.”
flect processes other than the autonomous diffu- Emerging from this is a concrete model in which
sion of innovations. Note that this stop-or-go there is asserted to be a steady flow of infornia-
diffusion pattern - ultra-rapid diffusion or none tion. “modern” social attitudes, and wealth-gen-
at all - is consistent with the cellular model dis- erating material things likc productive farm inputs
cussed previously. glissading down from metropolis to periphery. This
3. Crisscross difusion. In a uniformitarian model has been deployed in one form or another
landscape, diffusion will proceed rapidly in the in a number of studies, empirical and theoretical,
absence of inhibiting factors. Traits or trait mod- and claims are made that it has been empirically
 Diffusionism
validated (see e.g., Gould 1969; Rogers and Shoe-
maker 1971; Pedersen 1970; L. Brown 1981). in
fact, it is merely self-validating, because it fails
to distinguish traits generating development from
traits doing quite different things, such as increas-
ing poverty and landlessness; in effect the model
treats all diffusing traits as “modernizing inno-
vations.”
The foregoing critique leads us to recognize three
specific erroneous argument structures that I will
refer to respectively as (4) dependent diffusion,
(5) disguised diffusion, and (6) phantom diffu-
sion. In dependent diffusion, assume the diffusion
in the same space-time of two traits, x and y; y is
dependent on x if the diffusion of x is an auton-
omous process, explainable in terms of a definite
causal model, and if the diffusion of y is wholly
explained by the fact that wherever we find x we
tend to find y (for whatever reason). Trait y may
covary spatially with x, or it may simply be an
adventitious attachment to x. In such cases we
would be in error if we explained the diffusion of
\ with a model postulating an autonomous cause
of the diffusion. As an example, consider the case
of a region in which there is a progressive erosion
of farm tenure, with farms tending to slide down
what is often called the “tenure ladder,” from
farm ownership to tenancy to sharecropping to
landlessness and sale of labor. As tenure erodes,
there may well be a change in crops, productive
inputs, and equipment. A novel crop may spread
because it provides the same food value on smaller
acreage. Another may spread because it can be
sold as a commodity to pay rent demanded in cash.
Another crop. often a “modern” export crop, may
spread because landlords force its growth on share
tenants and may spread even more dramatically
when farmers have been evicted and the land is
cultivated in large plantations. In these two cases
(increased sharecropping and conversion to plan-
tation or “kulak” agriculture) we often find an
impressive diffusion into the countryside of agri-
cultural machinery and expensive inputs. If we
were to claim here that there is an autonomous
diffusion of “modernizing” traits - innovative
crops. tractors, and the like - we would be mis-
taken: these are the y’s, traits whose diffusion is
dependent on the diffusion of x, in this case land-
lordism. Yet diffusion researchers often make this
mistake in their studies of Third World rural land-
scapes, falsely characterizing the diffusing y’s as
innovations that are part of “modernization” and
development (e.g., Lentnek 1969; Riddell 1970).
In this case there is a misreading of causality:
37
an explanatory schema is invoked for the diffusion
of a trait y whereas the appropriate explanation
would have to account for the diffusion of the
independent trait x, with y then being seen as a
trait that, so to speak, rides piggyback on x . In
the case of disguised diffusion, the independent
trait x is simply not observed. This occurs most
frequently when the observed trait, y, seems to be
an expression of ‘‘the diffusion of modernizing
innovations,” while the x is some economically
or socially corrosive process. One further type of
disguised (and dependent) diffusion deserves no-
tice. This is the case where the truly significant
spatial flow is outward from a region (as in the
marketing of farm commodities or the draining of
wealth from periphery to core) whereas the spatial
flows info the region (the diffusion processes nor-
mally studied) are nothing more than a preparation
of infrastructure: capital investment, road build-
ing, and the like. (On the historical importance of
diffusion from periphery to core see Lattimore
1980.) Most colonial diffusions consisted of in-
frastructure of this sort, designed for profit not
development, and leading often to the opposite of
development. Yet a number of geographers, e .g.,
Riddell in his study of Sierra Leone (Riddell 1970,
3-7, 13-14, 40-65. 70-72, 86-93, 95-101, 129-
3 I ) , treat all such colonial infrastructural diffu-
sions as though they were truly “modernizing,”
thereby suggesting that colonialism was itself a
modernizing process, rather than, as in Sierra
Leone, a process of destroying the pre-existing
social-political, economic, and spatial structure of
precolonial development, including roads, schools.
and medical institutions.’
It can also happen that a diffusion is inferred t o
have taken place when none in fact did, a case of
what can be called phantom diffusion. This error
is easier to make than may seem apparent and is
most easily made if the trait is ephemeral (like
information) or abstract (like modernization it-
self); but it happens also with concrete material
traits whose actual diffusion was not observed. A
classic case is the mythic spread of modern med-
icine in colonial India.4 Equally classic is the ar-
gument that early Americans did not invent the
innovative traits of civilization but received them
from some original hearth in the Old World (Carter
1968, 538-63) and the related attempt by Edmon-
son (1961) to trace the diffusion of pottery to the
New World using a form of the principle of ide-
ological contagion and neglecting material evi-
dence.
An important case of- phantom diffusion is the
iX
inference-based o n evidence of known diffusion
of certain material traits-that dcvclopmcnt-in-
ducing information has spread through a region.
The spread of such traits in the rural Third World
often retlects processes in which inforrnation (as
th;it term is used in diffusion research) was either
irrelevant o r absent: there was no voluntary ”de-
cision to adopt” made after the receipt of infor-
mation: rather. the decision was forced on farmers
( e . 9 . . by landlords o r creditors) o r it took place in
;I different economic space. such as that of plan-
tation\. “kulaks.” or merchants (Blaut 1977, 3 4 6
3 7 ) . Thus. inferring that the diffusion of traits like
iicu crops o r iliachincry was based upon the dif-
fusion of information is often unwarranted. This
is ;I crucial point for theory and policy because it
cuts the chain o f reasoning by which the diffusion
o f new ideas is judged to be the crucial component
o f devclopmcnt-that it has some role to play is
not at issue-and by which technical assistance
nnd the encouragement of external dependence and
control literally takes the place of land reform and
p i u i n e social change. In this connection we might
.ic instance of information dif-
fusion in a process of agricultural iiioderniration,
the case of extension services to United States ag-
riculture from the 1930s to the IYSOs, calls for
sonic reinterpretation. Farmers, acting through the
political process (particularly the “farm bloc” in
Congress). demanded that they be provided with
such services in an environment in which the fam-
ily farm was gravely threatened by the growth of
giant markcting and supply corporations. Hence
the critical inforrnation diffused f i . 0 ~ 7 the farmers
r o the government. and the reply came back via
cxperiment stations. county extension agents, and
the rest.
Another form o f phantom diffusion is where the
abstract substance, development, is inferred t o have
diffused into a Third World region when it has not
clone so. Often this involves a fusing of classical
and modern diffusionism in the argument that Eu-
ropean colonialism was innately a process o f de-
vclopmcnt and modernization and that this process
is the only route to development today. Given this
inodcl. many colonial traits can be seen a s con-
crete indicators of “modernization. ’ ’ Thus. for in-
stance. Riddell describes a relatively unimportant
change i n local administration that the British im-
posed essentially by force on Sierra Leone in the
1930s as a voluntarily adopted, “modernizing”
change. He depicts the change, which was i n -
posed mainly over a six-year period by the British
in a spatial process accordant with their pattern of
Blaut
administration and control, as a typical case of
voluntary diffusion of innovations. with “dem-
onstration effects,” “information.” a pattern of
“acceptance“ nicely suited t o trend-surface map-
ping and the like (see Riddell 1970. 4X-55. and
supporting coninients in Gould 1969, 66 and in L.
Brown 19x1. 267-69: comparc Kup 1975. Ch. 6
and Fyle 19x1, 116-17).
A rnore concrete and interesting case comes from
Could ( 1969. 1970) and some others (including
Riddell) who make the following argument: The
colonial powers built roads: roads imply accessi-
bility: iind accessibility is an adequate surropate
for development o r modernization. This argument
is invalidated on three counts. First, accessibility
existed in precolonial routes of movement and trade.
usually elaborate and often as rnodern as one can
expect for the pre-automobile era. Kiddell (1970.
3) asserts that precolonial Sierra Leone had only
“bush paths and riverine routes.” whereas it had
two intcrdigitating transport networks, one leading
to the Sudanic economic hearth. the other (Creole)
one to Freetown (Kiddell 1970. 3. 10:compare
Hopkins 1973: Howard 1975. 263-64; K ~ i p1975.
71:Ncwbury 1969, 60; Fyle 1981, C h . I S ) . In
the casc of Ghana, Could writes o f “total inac-
cessibility” prior to British road building for an
area which also had a complicated network of prc-
colonial (prcmotor) roads, in fact a well-dcvel-
oped hierarchy of central places (Could 1969. 64:
compare Kea 1982 on road networks and central
place systems of precolonial Ghana). Second, co-
lonial road networks are oriented t o European eco-
nomic concerns. mainly of export, and they are
not always of much use in transportation planning
today; indeed. they reinforce ( as they were in-
tended to do) the external economic dependency
for which the country may wish t o substitute iiu-
tonomy. Third. road systems do not necessarily
provide development. In inany colonies and in
semicolonies (like China), complex road and rail-
road systems were developed but they did not bring
development. Today, development does not au-
tomatically tlow down these networks because of
accessibility (Stevens and Lee 1979: Wilbanks
1972). lJnder certain sociopolitical conditions. they
provide accessibility for flows which arc antidcv-
elopinent.
7. Most diffusions are also di.~~~/trc~cmellrs,~7f.s
in that
one trait displaces another or one population dis-
places another. The distinction between displacing
and nondisplacing diffusions is not often made,
and this leads to theoretical and empirical errors.
One source of this problem is the diffusionist ar-
 Diffusion i s tn
gurncnt that I have called thc myth of emptiness.
Classical colonialism argued that the sprcad of Eu-
ropean populations. cultural facts, and political
control was scicntifically natural and morally jus-
tifiable because (among other things) the land-
scapcs into which these things were inserted were
in one sense or another empty. Aboriginal popu-
lations were sparse o r virtually nonexistcnt. Thc
people were nomads. They had n o state, no prop-
erty, n o commerce. At most they had "traditional
society" into which everything tnodern would tlow
as if into a vacuum. Modern diffusionism reduces
its focus mainly to the case of "traditional soci-
cties" and the tlow into thcm of "modernizing
innovations. ' '
It would take us far afield to discuss the many
ways in which the myth of emptiness still affects
geography and social thought. but I shall offer a
few exainples of this type 0 1 thinking. Nostrand
underestimates earlier Hispanic population in the
Southwest (Nostrand 1975: criticized in Blaut and
Rios-Bustamante 1984). McEvcdy has depicted
southern Africa as largely empty o f Africans other
than Bushmen and Hottentots prior to European
settlement (McEvedy 1980. 20-1 I?: in a similar
vein. sec Guelke 1976). Reichman and Hasson
(1984. 6 2 ) map the Palestinian West Bank circa
1910 as an area of "nomad population." (For an
extreme view see Rowlcy 1983, 188). Various
theoretical studies employ models that improperly
define prediffusion spaces as empty, thc most in-
tluential example being the depiction by Taaffe.
Morrill, and Could (1963) of transportation dc-
vclopnicnt in a hypothetical underdcveloped coun-
try (see cotnmcntary in L. Brown 1981, 267-69).
Such models diffuse into pedagogy, where they
bupply realistic-seeming models. images, games,
and "simulations" of empty-seeming Third World
spaces ( e . g . . French and Stanley 1974; Haggett
1983. 5 15-21 ; Haggett and Chorley 1969, 296-
298). In the case of diffusions that displace. it
seems unlikely that theoretical models (or games)
can be of much help unless they take account of
conflict. coercion. and political power.
Hypotheses
Diffusionism has so pervaded social thought that
it seems reasonable to suppose that a nondiffu-
sionist perspective will lead us to rethink some of
our larger hypotheses. By way of concluding this
paper. 1 shall discuss five such hypotheses. Four
have to d o with culture history and the fifth with
39
agricultural development in the present-day world.
I n each case I put forward a gcneralization and
just enough supporting evidence t o render it plau-
sible.5
Hypothesis 1. The Old World agricultural rev-
olution may have happened everywhere at oncc.
More prcciscly, we should not look for onc or two
original and autonomous centers but should cxpcct
to find that large portions of Asia, Africa, and
Europe were participating simultaneously in the
process. however lengthy it may have been. The
process niay have worked in the following way.
First. we make the familiar, though not univer-
sally accepted, assumption that a transformation
from a preagricultural to an agricultural economy
was advantagcous for people over most (not all)
of the reasonably warm and nonarid portions of
thc Old World.' Second. we assume that human
settlement was essentially continuous over most
of this area, with discontinuities spanned by land
and watcr routes of movement. Third. we intro-
duce the uniformitarian assumptions that all set-
tlements and cultures were simultaneously
inventing, sending, and receiving agricultural in-
novations. Fourth, the effects of the foregoing were
transmitted by crisscross diffusion throughout the
entire rcgion at a rapid rate, rapid enough to pcr-
rnit innovations to pass back and forth throughout
thc region (which stretched at least from West Af-
rica and Central Europe to China and New Guinea).
and thus gradually to build up an agricultural land-
scape.
W e should take note of recent evidence pointing
toward a convergence of dates for earliest agri-
culture in the ncighborhood of 9,000-1 1.000 B.P.
for regions distant from one another and very dis-
similar in environment: northern Nigeria and var-
ious Saharan sites (c. 9,000 B.P.: Wendorf and
Schild 1980). southeastern Europe (c. 8,000 B.P.:
Kabaker 1977). Southwest Asia (c. 10,000 B.P.:
Kabaker 1977). northeastern India (c. 7.000 B.P.:
Vishnu-Mittre 1978), lhailand (9,000 B . P . or ear-
lier: Gorman 1977). highland New Guinea (c. 9,000
B . P . : Golson 1977). and China (c. 7,000 B . P . : H o
1977). Further research niay shift the specific space-
time pattern, but n o longer will single-center the-
ories be able to assert the hegemony of Middle
East antiquity. Various theories of agricultural
origins ( e . g . , Cohen 1977; Rindos 1984) are con-
sistent with the hypothesis of a nearly continental-
scale agricultural revolution. Some of these the-
ories posit a number of sites that either shared a
common environmental character ( e .g.. maximal
40 Blaut
biomass-production potential) o r were cnviron-
mentally diverse ( e . g . , Vavilov’s (1951) long list
of domestication hearths), but such sites can be
viewed as nodes in a network and these theories
are not inconsistent with our hypothesis.
Hypothesis 2. A number of important theses
about agricultural evolution are influenced by as-
sumptions about selective ignorance, noninven-
t i v e n e s s , and a primordial directionality o f
diffusion-assumptions that are sometimes diffu-
sionist and sometimes given momentum because
they arc conformal to diffusionism. Withdrawing
these assumptions should change o u r thinking in
significant ways. 1 shall suggest two. ( I ) Why
should we believe that irrigation i s an evolutionary
advance over drained- and dry-field farming sys-
tems o r that sedentary systems are an advance over
shifting systems? When we deal with situations
that are not complicated by class pressures for sur-
plus delivery, all of these different farming sys-
tcnis should be capable of providing about the same
returns to labor over many different environmental
situations. There i s nothing about small-scale ir-
rigation that i s more esoteric than the way farmers
manage moisture supply in drained-field and dry-
field farming systems. And we are supposing now
that inventiveness and rapid cri
are the normal state of affairs. It seems reason-
able. therefore, to suggest that drained-field ag-
riculture and shifting agriculture are neither more
nor less ancient than irrigated agriculture and that
the systems vary for reasons that have nothing t o
do with selective technological ignorance o r cog-
nitive p r i ~ i i i t i v i t yAnd
. ~ it does not seem reason-
able t o believe, a priori, that an “irrigation
revolution” or “hydraulic revolution” occurred
separate from the primal agricultural revolution
and created centers of social evolution. Large-scale
irrigation systems must have been the effect, not
the cause, of class processes and the state: the
logic of such systems i s that they can provide more
surplus product per unit of area and facilitate the
division o f labor. Thus the popular causal model
for “hydraulic civilization” i s stood on its head,
and the notions of “oriental despotism” and an
“Asiatic mode o f production” arc denied their
principal means of support. ( 2 ) The belief that an
autonomous, internally generated agricultural rev-
olution occurred in medieval Europe (see. e . g . , L.
White 1962) must lose credibility when we with-
draw from it the diffusionist assumption that evo-
lutionary change within the European sector is
autonomous. Innovations in material culture and
social organization of production diffused both into
and out of Europe. An agricultural revolution of
sorts was indeed taking place but on a hemispheric
scale (Blaut 1976). and the changes that took place
within Europe cannot be woven into a separate
causal theory of progress.
Hypothesis 3. The rise of capitalism occurred
in many parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe at the
same time. This hypothesis is a simple denial of
the thesis that capitalism arose autonomously in
Europe and nowhere else and arose because of
attributes (e.g., progressiveness, rationality. mod-
ernity) unique t o Europeans. 1 defend this hypoth-
esis elsewhere (Blaut 1976, in press) but briefly
the argument is as follows: First, every attribute
of medieval Europe that played a causal role in
the subsequent rise of capitalism was also present
in a number of other Communities across the Old
World at the same time, and these communities
were not less progressive, more rigid, more “tra-
ditional.” nor were Europeans uniquely “inven-
tive” (Weber 1904-05. 1916; L. White 1962.
1968). Second, emerging proto-capitalism was
seated mainly in mercantile-maritime urban cen-
ters (with small hinterlands), stretching from west-
ern Europe t o eastern Asia and southern Africa (to
Sofala and perhaps southward). These centers were,
on the one hand, peripheral to and partially in-
dependent of the surrounding feudal states and, o n
the other, were themselves interlocked in a hem-
isphere-wide network of trade and communica-
tion. a network through which innovations of all
sorts were transmitted to all parts of the system
by rapid crisscross diffusion with the result that
the character of mercantile capitalism. of urban
production, and of much else besides was basi-
cally common to all nodes in the network. Thus
all centers were participating in a common evo-
lution toward a fully capitalist society and polity.
an evolution that was taking place at a rapid, per-
haps ultra-rapid, rate during the fifteenth century
in parts of Europe but also in parts of Africa and
Asia. Third, it was the conquest and plunder of
the New World-carried out by Europeans be-
cause proto-capitalist centers of Europe were thou-
sands of miles closer to the New World in 1491
than were any other major proto-capitalist cen-
ters-that provided the resources enabling Euro-
pean merchant capital to rise toward political power
in Europe and t o begin the process of destroying
competing groups elsewhere. T h u s capitalism
 Diffusionism
ceased to rise in Africa and Asia while it was
advancing toward a bourgeois and thcn industrial
revolution in Europe alone.
Hypothesis 4. Nationalism did not arise as an
innovation in Europe and then appear in other parts
of the world as a result of diffusion from Europe.
This hypothesis, like the preceding one, 1 have
dcfcndcd elsewhere (Blaut 1980, 1982, in press)
so here 1 will merely summarize the arguments
and the issucs. Thc body of theory about nation-
alism (1.e.. national conflicts, the “national qucs-
t i o n ” ) is d o m i n a t e d by t w o v i e w p o i n t s , a
mainstream theory that is diffusionist and a form
of Marxist theory that is only slightly less so. The
mainstream theory derives national processes from
a primordial European idea, the “idea of nation-
alism,” which is supposed to have arisen auton-
omously in northwestern Europc as the idea of.
and urge to create, the nation-statc. This idea then
diffused outward toward the rest of the world.
eventually arriving in colonies and sparking na-
tional liberation movements. The comparable
Marxist theory identifies the nation-state as the
most suitable political form for youthful capital-
ism and thus the goal of political struggle by the
bourgeoisie in its rise to power. Capitalism dif-
fused out across the world, and therefore, quite
naturally. there emerged everywhcre a local class
of “rising bourgeoisie” and. in its wake, “bour-
geois nationalism.” Neither theory givcs a real
causal role to conditions of cxploitation and
oppression in the colonies and semicolonies or ex-
plains either the kind of nationalism that struggles
against colonialism in order to create a socialist
state or the kind that struggles to restore a prccap-
italist state. A nondiffusionist alternative to both
theories argues that national struggle is struggle
for state power, under conditions where control of
the state is in the hands of foreign groups and
produces suffering (economic, political, or cul-
tural) for the inhabitants. This can occur in many
circumstances and many forms of society. It may
reflect colonial oppression, or power struggles in
early capitalism, or other circumstances, some set
in motion by diffusion processes, others internal
to an area, or culture, or state.
Hypothesis 5. In present-day rural landscapes
of underdeveloped countries, the main variables
that determine diffusion rates are not spatial or
psychological and are not matters of distance, ac-
ccssibility, or so-called adopter attributes: the main
variables have to do with the political and class
41
environment. Typical diffusion rates for exoge-
nous agricultural innovations that are clearly ben-
eficial to farmers tend to be rapid or ultra-rapid
where inhibiting political and class conditions arc
absent. This is the casc, for instancc. where an
egalitarian political environment limits or elimi-
nates the ability of nonfamily-farming groups or
classes to prcvent family farmers from adopting
innovations freely. This is also the case where
family farmers, because of farm size and tenure
security. have power to make decisions. On the
other hand, innovations tend to diffuse slowly or
not at all in political cnvironmcnts that favor power
groups (e.g., landlords, merchants) that can pre-
vent family farmers from making decisions or in
political cnvironments in which farmers are pow-
erless because of poor tenure, small size of farm,
and the like.
The influcncc of social conditions upon diffu-
sion rates is not often disputed. But what this hy-
pothesis asserts is that these conditions play the
critical role in matters relating to agricultural change
in underdeveloped areas; the factors traditionally
emphasized by diffusion theorists (in geography
and elsewhere) are of secondary importance in some
situations and irrelevant in most others. If thc hy-
pothesis is valid, then the effort to explain. pre-
dict, and generate agricultural change should
proceed in a fundamentally different way. To make
this argument I will have to say a word about the
evolution of diffusion theory and the way it be-
came entangled with diffusionism.
When diffusion-of-agricultural-innovations the-
ory began to crystallize, mainly in the 1940s and
1950s, the crux of the theory was the information
postulate-the notion that the communication of
information about innovations is central to the
process of change. There was important confirm-
ing evidence from landscapes with strong and sta-
ble peasantries: indeed, agricultural extension had
much to do with the survival of family farming in
North America during and after the Depression.
The argument that information flows would be im-
portant predictors of change made good sense in
that context (see HHgerstrand 1967; Tiedcmann and
Van Doren 1964). But the context did not extend
to politically disenfranchised peasantries suffering
under landlordism and debt peonage.
In the 1950s geographers, rural sociologists, ag-
ricultural economists, and their colleagues began
a truly massive effort to apply information-based
diffusion theory to this larger and fundamentally
different context. The motor force, as discussed
earlicr in this paper, was the effort to generate
42
economic development in the Third World. but to
do so by means of strategies that would not lead
to dramatic social a n d political upheavals like nil-
tionalization of foreign holdings, land reform and
related attacks o n local elites. socialist revolution,
and in some areas decolonization. Scholars were
enlisted in this campaign in various ways that need
not concern us (although it should be noted that
all these research workers were convinced that their
(our) work was directed against poverty and suf-
fei-ing). What is crucial hcre is the fact that the
diffusionist model was axiomatic for most of the
resulting s c h o l a r s h i ~ m p i r i c a l theoretical.
. and
applied. ‘The axiom asserted in essence that de-
velopmcnt results from the tlow of inodemizing
innovations from the center t o the countryside.
that development results troni not much more than
the diffusion of innovations plus a sinall line of
credit. ( I iun over\implifying. J
The in fornia t ion pos tulatc itse If became d iffu-
sionist in this intellectual environment. Informa-
tion-based diffusion theory assumed a two-sector
landscape, one part informed and incrementally
developed. the other part uninformed and unde-
veloped. Information and development spread
spatially from one o r another kind of center. Dis-
tance. accessibility. and the psychological condi-
tion o f being informed or uninforrncd are the
essential variables. (For examples o f this approach
see Lentnek 1969; Taaffe. Morrill and Gauld 1963:
Wilbanks 1972. A critique i s given in Blaut 1977).
But this. overall, was a mild sort of diffusionism.
troublesome mostly foi- its ingenuous disregard of
culture (and cultural geography). Rather quickly
a inore serious form o f diffusionisin t o o k hold in
diffusion research and some other schools of geo-
graphic research concerned with rural Third World
development. c . g r . ,the “natural hazards” school.
Distance and accessibility remained as operant
variables. But in place of the information variable
there emerged a complex psychological variable,
described in diffusion research as “adopter attri-
butes,” which postulated that rural Third World
people have some fundarncntal (though curable)
psychological disability that limits o r inhibits their
propensity t o develop.
Personality traits d o of course vary among hu-
ni;in groups. but diffusionism asserts incorrectly
that some groups possess crucial traits that permit
positive change (development) and other groups
luck such traits or possess them in smaller mea-
sure. One of these pseudo-traits is “achievement
mitivation” (McClelland 196 I : discussed sup-
portivcly in 1.. Brown 1981. 235, 252, 254. 274).
Blaut
Another i s “locus of control.” in essence the be-
lief that one can control events: this pscudo-vari-
able i s a part of the explanatory model used by G .
White and some o f his associates in studies of
natural-hazard adaptability by Third World, mainly
rural, people (see G . White 1974. 5-10: Bauniann
and S i m s 1974, 2 - 3 0 : Burton, Kates. and White
1978, 107: Dupree and Roder 1974. I 17; for sche-
matic critiques from differing perspectives see Bluut
1984, 150-51: Mitchell 1984, 57; Waddell 1977).
Still another pseudo-variable. already discussed
here, i s “traditionalism” or ‘.the traditional mind.”
a notion deployed in diffusion research (see. e . g . .
L. Brown 1981. 27iC75; Riddell 1970. 6) and
elsewhere in geography to explain lack (if dcvcl-
opniental progress in particular landscapes or in
general. At the niwt general level. f o r instance.
Sack ( 1980) constructs an elaborate theory pro-
posing to explain the evolution and cross-cultural
variation of human abilities to conceptualize space.
both concrete (political. economic. physiographic)
and abstract, grounding the entire theory i n the
diffusionist dichotomy between the traditional ( o r
“prirnitivc”) mind and the modern mind, the lor-
nier being childlike, ancient, superstitious. suh-
.
j ec t ive . unsophisticated , non ra t ional pract ic a I
(nonthcorctical). and characteristic generally of non-
Western societies (although peasant societies ap-
parently admix the two forins of mentality) (see
Sack 1980. 22-23.27. 117-38, 142-.57, 167-93.
construction is close t o classical
diffusionism in its view of the h
it is also a typical example of a
porary statements in which the traditional-mind-
modern-mind dichotomy is used as an explanatory
schcina for cultural evolution. economic devel-
opment. and. not incidentally. Third World rural
modernization.
1raditionalism in these theories i s stubborn trii-
I .
dition. not cherished tradition. The presumption
i s that some groups resist change when change is
beneficial or necessary. while other groups. in other
places, are not so stubbornly traditional. I t is be-
yond the scope of this paper to attempt a critiquc
of this view. F:ive comments must suffice. First.
it is not iiictliodologically proper hcre to argue that
individual subjects resist change irrationally until
we have establishcd that change i h feasible and
that change will benefit the sub,iects: psychologi-
cal limitations are properly invoked hcre only when
external limitations have been discountcd. Scc-
ond, instruments do not yet exist for confirming
the existence of. much less measuring. these pos-
tulated mental attributes o r pseudo-attributes. 1‘01-
 Dilfusionism
getting past those barriers of status. power, C L I I -
tural distance, and the like, which contaminate all
studies (from the outside) about the psychology of
rural Third World people. This skeptical view was
perhaps the majority view among cultural anthro-
pologists three decades ago. when many culture-
an d -per s o n a I i t y the o r i st s questioned even the
seemingly culture-neutral Rorschach protocols as
valid cross-cultural instruments (see Bock 1980,
134-37). But the opposing thesis gained popular-
ity because, in my view, it was conformal to mod-
ern diffusionism and the belief that, in the rural
Third World. poverty i s at least partly the fault of
the poor. Third, the emerging critique of modern-
izationism. developmentism. and diffusionism
brings with it a new perspective on the role of the
individual mind in development (see for instance
Freirc 1973: Giroux 1981; Pinar 1974; Stea 1980)
and the role of technological knowledge in that
process (Hansis 1976; Johnson 1077; Pearsc 1980;
Wisner 1977: Yapa 1980). Fourth, to argue that
members of different cultures have equal perccp-
tual and cognitive (“intellectual”) capabilities is
not t o deny the fact that personality varies cross-
culturally.x And fifth, in agreement with Marx and
Engels ( 1 8 4 5 4 6 ) and G. H. Mead (1938). I see
the self is essentially a social product.
Accessibility is a real variable in some circum-
stances, and distance inay also be significant as a
(surrogate) variable. Both, however. are usually
functions o f political and class forces. L. Brown
( 198 1 ) tries in essence t o add socioeconomic var-
iables t o the variables of classic spatial diffusion
theory-name1 y . psychological adopter attributes,
information, distance. and accessibility-while
epting certain of the criticisms that have been
made about that theory. His discussion of the role
of diffusion agencies (public and private) is help-
ful. but it neglects the difference between theories
that predict and those that propose strategies and
it gives little new support to spatial diffusion the-
ory as a predictor. At the same time he pays in-
adequate attention to the variables of culture (and
cultural geography). His perspective is not diffu-
sionist. but the diffusionism of earlier perspectives
remains unrecognized and uncriticized. M . Brown
( 198 1 ) suggests better ways t o measure innova-
tion-adoption behavior. but she does not solve the
problems discussed in the present paper. In gen-
eral, diffusion theorists have not succeeded in pre-
dicting or generating the diffusion of agricultural
innovations in the Third World.
Our hypothesis calls attention to causal forces,
and development strategies, that are systemic:
33
mainly matters of class and politics. These forces
inay vary across the landscape, but spatial (process)
diffusion is not usually a central issue. The hy-
pothesis thus speaks of tendencies toward uniform
regions in cellular landscapes. regions in which
diffusion either covers all possible adopters very
quickly or does not penetrate the space at all. There
is some empirical evidence in support of the hy-
pothesis: for instance, ultra-rapid diffusion has been
observed when inhibiting conditions were not
present.’ Much better evidence, though difficult
to quantify and uninteresting to map, comes from
the innumerable cases in which the inhibiting con-
ditions were present and there was no diffusion
and n o development.
To explain such cases of nondiffusion in rural
spaces we tend, conventionally, to blame the
farmers themselves: their inaccessible locations,
their traditionalism, their ignorance, their lack of
“achievement motivation,” and the like. But the
farmers will tell us that we are wrong, and they
will tell us why if we listen.”’
Conclusion
Why. in the last analysis, should we assunie
that the natural state of affairs in any region is t o
have a center from which innovations emanate and
a periphery toward which they diffuse’! Surely all
of us share the belief that all human communities
possess the same underlying potential to create, t o
invent. t o innovate. Communities are distributctl
alongside one another across a landscape, so the
premise of human equality i s at the same time a
premise of spatial equality. Spatial inequality i s
not something normal, natural, inevitable, and
moral. Diffusionism makes it appear to be so. But
diffusionism i s just a thought-style, and we can
put it out of our minds.
Notes
I . The ultiinate origins of classical Eurocentric diffu-
sionism are to be sought long before the beginning
of the nineteenth century. I argue that the world
model became explicit, powerful, and important in
the post-Napoleonic era because of a confluence of
the following historical circumstances, among oth-
ers: ( I ) Science was becoming sufficiently free of
religious strictures to begin the serious inquiry into
origins; e.g., to search for ancient humans and their
cultural effects and to consider the earth’s history
in a uniformitarian methodological framework. (2)
The rapid expansion of’ formal and informal colon-
44 Blaut
ial empires ineant the systeinatic gathering. for the
first time. of information (no matter how biased)
about non-Europeans. (3) The expansion of colon-
iali\tn. and. beyond that. the great increase i n the
importance of coloninlisiii to European econoniies.
led to efforts to formulate specific theories about
not only the nature and history of non-Europeans
but the overall process by which European culture
was spreading through and conquering the rest of
the world-that is. the theories of classical diffu-
sionism. On the general doctrines of
fusionism. see. for example. Cesaire 1972: Galeano
1073: Panikkar 1959; Rodney 1972: Said 1979:
Turner 1978: Venturi 1963. O n diffusionism in its
specific influence on anthropology, geography, and
other emerging disciplines. and on the schools known
a s “extreme diffusionists“ (principally the “British
Ditfusionists” and the German-Austrian KuI/ur-
Xwi., school). see. e . g . . Asad 1973: Blaut 1970:
Childe 1951: Harris 1968: Hudson 1977: Koepping
1983: Kroeber 1937: Lowie 1937: McKay 1943:
Radin 1965: Voget 1975, 339-59).
2. This abstract landscape contains no regions that arc
politically dominant and thus would be able to with-
hold innovations from diffusion. Although it is the-
oretically possible that an innovation might give
one conitnunity such an advantage over others that
it would thereby become a permanently dominant
center. this would be a realistic possibility only if
additional attributes were inserted in the model. one
of these being a definition of the individual trait as
a truly revolutionary innovation lacking the ante-
cedents that would have already diffused in our model
(and in the real world). another being a tooth-and-
fang conception of culture in which boundaries are
in effect barricades.
3. See Amin (1973. xvi-xvii) for comparison: “[Sierra
Leone‘s] ’creole’ bourgeoisie . . . spread along the
whole of the western coast in the nineteenth century
and filled the role of a cwriprtrdor bourgeoisie for
British capital. But this class disappeared at the end
of the last century. when the English executed their
main creole trading rivals on the pretext that they
had taken part in the Tcrnne and Mende revolts.
Isolated from the rest of the Empire and relatively
:ibandoned. the colony fell into a doze from which
it has not yet emerged.” Also see Howard 1975:
Kup 1975: Osae. Nwabara, and Odunsi 1973; Fylc
1981.
4. On this myth. see Hhatia (1967) and Klein (1973).
On the related myth that there was an unchanging
“traditional” demographic pattern of high birth rates
and high death rates. which diffusing colonial med-
icine broke open (leading to a fall in death rates
and-hecause of ”traditionalism”-a sustained high
birth rate and thereafter overpopulation), see Klein
( 1973) on death rates and the work of Nag ( 1980)
showing that birth rates increased substantially iin-
der colonialism (Collyer ( 1965) argues al
ilar lines for some Latin American countri
Harewood (1966) for Grenada).
5. I d o not suggest that methodological and episto-
mulogical considerations are in any way a substitute
for empirical evidence. At most they direct us toward
new evidence and influence the weighting we give
evidence in general.
6. It docs not matter for our purpose (.judging the tcr-
rain over which the original Old-World Agricultural
Revolution took place) whether the advantages oi
agriculture over hunting-gathering-fishing-shell-
fishing resulted from a hemisphere-wide deteriora-
tion i n l i v i n g c o n d i t i o n s r e s u l t i n g f r o m t h e
environmcntal changes. whether the period was
witness to an epochal advance in an uninterrupted
process of cultural evolution. or whether some other
ca~isalprocess was at work. s o long as the process
affected all of the reasonably warm and moist por-
tions of the hemisphere or its effects were trans-
mitted throughout this zone. e.g.. by evening out
stresses through human migration. Also embedded
in this model is the assumption that the advantages
of agriculture were roughly comparable (or became
so because of stress-evening population move-
ments) across many ecological zones, from tropical
forest to warm-winter inidlatitude forest. and from
moderately sloping land to swamp edges and nat-
iiral levees.
7 . See Golson (1977) for evidence of 9,000-year-old
drained-field farming in New Guinea. and see De-
neviin (1966) on the antiquity of raised-field fariii-
ing in the New World. Today, when suitable land
is available, a given farming group usually practices
some complex mixture of systems, which may range
from extensive shifting agriculture to intensive
drained-field or wet-field o r natural-levee agricul-
turc.
8. There exists a diffusionist tendency (criticized in
Blaut 19x4) to apply culturally biased tests to Third
World peoples and find them to be inferior to Eu-
ropeans in terms of perceptual and intellectual traits
indicating innovativeness, cognitive development
(hence inferentially inventiveness). and the like. That
this is normal paradigmatic science can be seen,
e . g . . from the fact that nearly 10 percent ofempir-
ical studies in the Journcd of (‘ros.s-Cirlturci/ Ps\-
chology are reports by white South Africans and
Europeans purporting to show such psychological
inferiority in black Africans.
9 . The most dramatic cases involve literacy and adult
education programs in some Third World countries.
Often success reflects the use o f an approach i n
which people come to understand the inhibiting
conditions and the need to struggle against them
and then literally demand the innovation and strug-
gle to acquire i t (see Freire 1972). A cahe of ultra-
rapid diffusion of an agricultural innovation in Ven-
ezuela is discussed in Blaut (1977).
10. We can listen. for instance, to folksongs like the
widely diffused Populist song. “The Farmer Is the
Man”: “buys on credit ‘ti1 the fall/ Then they take
hiin by the hand/ And they lead him from the land/
And the middleman’s the man who gets it all.”
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