Chapter 4

Folk and Popular Culture

(please read the chapter)

PPT by Abe Goldman

An Introduction to Human GeographyThe Cultural LandscapeJames M. Rubenstein

What is culture?

Over 200 definitions of culture

Mariinsky opera house, St Petersburg

Andy WarholMusic and Art

Music .. Sounds we make

Artifact .. What we make

Way of life .. How we get around

ALSO ….

Food we eat

Culture as the way we live

Culture as our traditions

What is culture according to others?

• Many definitions!• Rubenstein: combination of values, material artifacts

and political institutions (pg 114)• UNESCO "set of distinctive spiritual, material,

intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, and that it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs". United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Its aim: to build peace in the world through knowledge, social progress, exchange and mutual understanding among peoples.

Cultural Geography

• Involves study of everything about the way people live (what, why and where)– Clothes– Diet– Articles of material culture: artifacts – Customs – patterns of behavior– Interpersonal arrangements, family structure, educational

methods– How we see ourselves: writing, photographs, paintings– What we collect (deem valuable)

• Culture is linked to both group and personal identities

Folk and Popular culture

• Folk: Traditional, small groups, general concentrated around a hearth, linked to an ethnic group, hand-made, culture changes slowly, resistant to change, sometimes a struggle to survive.

• Popular or ‘pop’: large groups, rapid spread, reproduction from multiple sites

Looking at artifacts

• Reflect aspects of the culture– What is it– Where is it used– Where did it originate from– What is it made of– Is it part of popular of folk culture– What stories are attached to it

Culture is not static

• Forces of cultural change– Evolution

• change within a group over time (even folk culture)

– Diffusion (more rapid and further in the case of popular culture)

• adaptation of elements from another group• diffusion from a hearth (central area)

Ger (Yurt): Home for 50% of Mongolians: material culture, movement, city living

Folk Culture

Popular culture

Folk vs popular culture

• In general there is a concern about popular culture (Westernization) overwhelming folk culture.

• What is lost with the spread of Westernization?

• View of folk culture as constant and not economically viable. Is it constant, does it necessarily mean a lesser standard of living?

• Economic value and folk culture

Culture Regions as having economic value tied to their unique identity

• Champagne

• Roquefort

Geographical Indication and Terroir

• Geographical Indication (GI): a name or sign that corresponds to a particular location (European Law)

• Terrior: beyond trade-mark type approach to a philosophy and awareness that foods taste different depending on where they come from (soil, climate, how it is grown, differences in varieties)

• http://www.chow.com/food-news/54681/oyster-varietals/

Economic and cultural survival:Folk culture moves into popular culture: Harris tweed:

Scottish cultureSurvival of folk art by infiltration of popular culture markets

Nike for $220.

Rugs as folk culture

• Oriental rugs come from various sites, each with its owncharacteristics

• Hand woven and hand knotted if it has pile

Rug-making in Turkey

Folk culture becomes popular culture in

another country

High value itemsImported from overseas and manufactured in the West (my office)Transculturation

Crystal Palace 1851 – World’s Fair

(Queen Victoria, Products from the empire, Indian-British products)

Transitional products, interest in material artifacts (start of British Museum)

This fair marks the start of mass tourism, Thomas Cook excursions.

Tourism is today part of popular culture

Folk culture to popular culture: not new!

Folk culture of Lavender cultivation, Provence

Folk culture still integrating into popular culture today

New folk culture of the Sequim, the self-proclaimed Lavender capital of North America,

a blurry line between folk and pop culture

Transculturation: cultures mesh, sometimes mash?

• Western and Islamic worlds

• http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/shereen_el_feki_pop_culture_in_the_arab_world.html

Popular Culture• Culture of people who embrace

innovation and conform to changing norms

• Rapid diffusion• Mass culture

– Food, clothing, items that are mass produced– “Mass taste” = loss of individuality

• Geographic variation of market penetration

• Marketing of popular culture (development of felt needs)

• Uniformity of consumption, landscape

• Development of felt needs• Felt needs• Attachment of a product to cultural commodity• Billions of dollars• “Ask for m?”

Consumption fuels popular culture

Popular culture often results in uniform landscapes: Globalization of popular culture McDonald’s in China

ConvenienceUniformity as a landscape elementBright Colors

Uniform landscapes: Resorts and recreation sites

Environmental impacts

Tin Pan Alley and Popular Music

Fig. 4-2: Writers and publishers of popular music were clustered in Tin Pan Alley in New York City in the early twentieth century. The area later moved north from 28th Street to Times Square.

• Diffusion of popular music from a hearth

•Origin of popular music around 1900

• Music halls, vaudeville (fed into movies)

• Irving Berlin

• American popular music diffused worldwide in WWII

Diffusion of Amish Settlements in the U.S.: a function of their culture

Fig. 4-3: Amish settlements are distributed through the northeast U.S.

Relocation as sons are given farms spreads this traditional (folk) culture

Influence of the physical environment on folk cultures: Inuit – traditional food

Asking for Food From Spiritsby Elsie Klengenberg, Holman Island, 1989

Pacific Northwest Indians

The Salmon Eatersby Ken McNeil & Stan Bevan

Tahltan-Tlingit

Traditional British food (Yikes!)– Climate– England, slow cooking, frying

Food Taboos

Eating bugs in Thailand

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/07/asia_pac_eating_insects_in_thailand/html/1.stm

Houses: an expression of culture

• House as an essential concern of cultural geographers: What is a home, how homes are made through actions and physically with hammers and nails.

• House as a basic right? • http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/• Product of cultural and physical environment• Houses as space under an individuals

control: behaviors/traditions, belongings• Shopping carts to mansions

Jon May’s study of homeless people in 2000

• Shelters• Possessions• Control over space• Alteration of space (minor to major)

• Douglas Porter and Sandra Smith: Domicide

Houses: creating home

House materials: Environment

• USA/Canada: Wood based (log cabins to new contemporary homes … changes)

• US Southwest and other hot and dry countries: adobe

• Britain: brick• Also other influences: style, builders

experience, nostalgia/homesickness (once considered a disease)

Houses: Making homes spiritual

• Cross on bedroom wall

• Sacred walls/corners (Fiji, Parts of China)

• Feng Shui: location and harmony

Feng Shui Elements :

-Wall colors represent fire and earth-Table and chair represent wood-Fountain and pillow are water elements-Sofa color is earth

Homes: Culture determines home locations in Southeast Asia

Fig. 4-7: Houses and sleeping positions are oriented according to local customs among the Lao in northern Laos (left) and the Yuan and Shan in northern Thailand (right).

Head as high and noble Heads toward the East, concern about spirits

Houses over time: Diffusion of House Types in U.S.

Fig. 4-9: Distinct house types originated in three main source areas in the U.S. and then diffused into the interior as migrants moved west.

• Study by Fred Kiffnen

• Pioneer homes reflected east coast styles at the time(can you say this was the popular culture of the times?)

U.S. House Types, 1945–1990

Fig. 4-11: Several variations of the “modern style” were dominant from the 1940s into the 1970s. Since then, “neo-eclectic” styles have become the dominant type of house construction in the U.S.

New homes … Popular culture but elements of

folk culture

Mix of stylesDreams for sale BUT regional differences

still exist, eg PNW

East Coast

California

Culture and High technologyDiffusion of popular culture

through TV, 1954–2003

Fig. 4-14: Television has diffused widely since the 1950s, but some areas still have low numbers of TVs per population.

• First in 1930s• Blocked during the war• Rapid increase in number of televisions in the 1950s• ¾ of US homes had televisions by end of 50s

Diffusion of what precisely?

Distribution of Internet Hosts

Fig. 4-15: The U.S. had about one-third of the world’s internet hosts in 2000. Diffusion of internet service is likely to follow the pattern of TV diffusion, but the rate of this diffusion may differ.

Note: This situation is cahnging very rapidyl

Television and Internet

• What is the difference in the cultural impact?– Are these social activities?– Worlds in the television box compared to worlds

within the internet?– Impact on popular culture?– Impact on folk culture?

Change in traditional role of women with change in culture

• Role largely not like Queen Boudica (Boadicea) AD 60

• Geisha (sanitized subservience/human trafficking? )

Women in many traditional societies: lack of status

• United Nations studies on women have concluded that although women have made some gains in education, health, employment and politics in the last decade, equal rights for women are still a long way off.

Tanzania

Afghanistan

Lower economic status: lower general statusLower general status: opening to abuse

Selling mangos in India Gathering animal fodder in Nepal

HOPE: http://actionaidusa.org/what/womens_rights/?gclid=CNP8oOy1360CFQiBhwodJ10GCQ

Global diffusion of women’s rights? Nobel Peace Prize 2011: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2011/

Before we finish: Our Individual Cultural Identities

• Identity (who we are)

• Identity as plural: how do we define ourselves?

• What folk culture do we identify with?

• What pop culture do we identify with?

• What traditions have faded from our lives?

• What traditions are we remaking?