Folk and Popular Culture
Important Terms
Custom – frequent repetition of an act until it becomes characteristic of a group of people..
Habit – repetitive act performed by an individual.
Folk Culture – traditionally practiced by a small, homogeneous, rural group living in relative isolation.
Popular Culture – found in a large, heterogeneous society that shares certain habits despite differences in personal characteristics.
Material Culture – the physical objects produced by a culture in order to meet its material needs: food, clothing, shelter, arts, and recreation. Carl Sauer (Berkeley, 1930s – 1970s).
Folk Culture – rapidly changing and/or disappearing throughout much of the world.
Folk Culture
Stable and close knit
Usually a rural community
Tradition controls
Resistance to change
Buildings erected without architect or blueprint using locally available building materials
anonymous origins, diffuses slowly through migration. Develops over time.
Clustered distributions: isolation/lack of interaction breed uniqueness and ties to physical environment.
FOLK ARCHITECTURE
FOLK ARCHITECTURE
FOLK FOOD
U.S. House Types by Region
Taboo – a restriction on behavior imposed by social custom. Food Taboos: Jews – can’t eat animals that chew cud, that have cloven feet; can’t mix meat and milk, or eat fish lacking fins or scales; Muslims – no pork; Hindus – no cows (used for oxen during monsoon)
Popular Culture
Wide Distribution: differences from place to place uncommon, more likely differences at one place over time.
Housing: only small regional variations, more generally there are trends over time
Food: franchises, cargo planes, superhighways and freezer trucks have eliminated much local variation. Limited variations in choice regionally, esp. with alcohol and snacks. Substantial variations by ethnicity.
Popular Culture
Clothing: Jeans and have become valuable status symbols in many regions including Asia and Russia despite longstanding folk traditions.
Diffusion of TV, 1954–1999
A Mental Map of Hip Hop
Popular Culture
Effects on Landscape: breeds homogenous, “placeless” (Relph, 1976), landscape
Complex network of roads and highways
Commercial Structures tend towards ‘boxes’
Dwellings may be aesthetically suggestive of older folk traditions
Planned and Gated Communities more and more common
Disconnect with landscape: indoor swimming pools, desert surfing.
Problems with the Globalization of Culture
Often Destroys Folk Culture – or preserves traditions as museum pieces or tourism gimmicks.
Mexican Mariachis; Polynesian Navigators; Cruise Line Simulations
Change in Traditional Roles and Values; Polynesian weight problems
Problems with the Globalization of Popular Culture
Western Media Imperialism?
U.S., Britain, and Japan dominate worldwide media.
Glorified consumerism, violence, sexuality, and militarism?
U.S. (Networks and CNN) and British (BBC) news media provide/control the dissemination of information worldwide.
These networks are unlikely to focus or provide third world perspective on issues important in the LDCs.
Environmental Problems with Cultural Globalization
Accelerated Resource Use through Accelerated Consumption
Furs: minx, lynx, jaguar, kangaroo, whale, sea otters (18th Century Russians) fed early fashion trends
Inefficient over-consumption of Meats (10:1), Poultry (3:1), even Fish (fed other fish and chicken) by meat-eating pop cultures
Mineral Extraction for Machines, Plastics and Fuel
New Housing and associated energy and water use.
Golf courses use valuable water and destroy habitat worldwide.
Pollution: waste from fuel generation and discarded products, plastics, marketing and packaging materials
“Progress?”
“They’re growing houses in the fields between the towns.” - John Gorka, Folk Singer
Marboloro Man in Egypt
Cultural Identity: Race and Ethnicity
Culture groups
Few or many characteristics (language, religion, race, food, etc.)
Subculture
Races
Single species
Secondary biological characteristics
Ethnic groups
Ethnocentrism
Race
Race in the U.S.
What is ethnicity? How is it different than race?
1. identity with a group of people who share the cultural traditions of a particular homeland or hearth. Thus: customs, cultural characteristics, language, common history, homeland, etc...
2. a socially created system of rules about who belongs and who does not belong to a particular group based on actual or perceived commonality of origin, race, culture. This notion is clearly tied to place.
Nationalities and States
Nationality - legally it is a term encompassing all the citizens of a state, but most definitions refer now to an identity with a group of people who generally occupy a specific territory and bound together by a sense of unity arising from shared ethnicity, customs, belief, or legal status. Such unity rarely exists today within a state.
State - a politically organized territory that is administered by a sovereign government
Nationalism
Helps create national unity
Can be very dangerous
Can breed intolerance of difference and Others
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