Diffusionism: A Uniformitarian Critique

Diffusionism assumes that (1) inventiveness is rare and therefore diffusion accounts for nearly all significant culture change and (2) certain places are permanent loci of invention and thus are more advanced and more progressive than other places. If, however, inventiveness and innovativeness are assumed to be uniformly distributed, different spatial models emerge, different diffusion processes gain salience, inadequacies of current diffusion-of-innovation theory become evident, and new hypotheses about broad-scale culture change are uncovered. This paper examines the structure of diffusionism, puts forward a nondiffusionist alternative structure, and employs the alternative to modify diffusion-of-innovation theory and to argue five nondiffusionist hypotheses for culture history and present-day rural development.