WHAT IS CULTURE?

CULTURE IS…  Learned, not biological  Transmitted within a society to next generations by imitation, tradition, instruction

CULTURE PROVIDES…  a “general framework”  each individual learns & adheres to general rules  also to specific sub-groups:  age, sex, status, occupation, nationality  Portrays the impact of culture on the landscape-  Cultural Landscape

CULTURE PROVIDES….  Subcultures co-exist Ex. masculine / feminine, rural / urban, different ethnicities  Joined by common traditions, behaviors, loyalties, beliefs Ex. Christmas, church attendance on Sunday

CULTURAL VARIABLES.. MICRO VS. MACRO  Micro  Cultural traits – most elementary  Expression of culture, the smallest distinctions  Behavior  Object  Beliefs  Attitudes  Macro  these “building blocks” = a culture complex

Macro-cultural complex-Individual cultural traits that are functionally interrelated  Maasai of Kenya – cultural traits centered on cattle  Soccer, futbol – Europe, Latin America  Football-Southern U.S.

COMPONENTS OF CULTURE…  Art  Architecture  Language  Music  Film/television  Food  Clothing  Social interaction  Religion  Land use

CULTURAL SYNTHESIS OR SYNCRETISM  Cultural synthesis / syncretism -blending together of two or more cultural influences.  Ex. Country music-tied to folk music, influenced by Scotch-Irish settlers, German settlers, all African immigrants all who lived in the Southern U.S.  How has country music experienced “syncretism” recently?

CULTURE REGION Portion of the Earth’s surface occupied by populations sharing recognizable distinctive cultural characteristics (seeing culture on a map) Political organizations/boundaries  Religions  Economy type

CULTURAL REALM  A set of cultural regions showing related cultural complexes and landscapes  Large region that has assumed fundamental uniformity in its cultural characteristics and showing significant differences from surrounding realms

CULTURAL SPHERE  zone of outer influence for a culture region

FOLK CULTURE  Folk Culture – traditionally practiced by a small, homogeneous, rural group living in relative isolation.

Folk Culture – rapidly changing and/or disappearing throughout much of the world. Almost nonexistent in the developed world. Turkish Camel Market Portuguese Fishing Boat Guatemalan Market

FOLK CULTURE  Stable and close knit  Homogeneous in customs, ethnicity  Usually a rural community and cohesive  Subsistence economies; Goods are made by hand according to tradition  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.  Some folk traits utilize: astrology, songs, dances, and food

 Culture that still has folk components, but has recently been influenced by “Pop” culture.

Local Culture: A group of people in a particular place who see themselves as a collective or a community, who share experiences, customs, and traits, and who work to preserve those traits and customs in order to claim uniqueness and to distinguish themselves from others.

Hutterite Colonies in North America Are the Hutterites an example of a local culture?

Why are Hutterite colonies located where they are?

WHAT IS POPULAR CULTURE?

Popular Culture: A wide-ranging group of heterogeneous people, who stretch across identities and across the world, and who embrace cultural traits such as music, dance, clothing, and food preference that change frequently and are ubiquitous on the cultural landscape.

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.

How does “pop” culture reach across generations?

Fig.: Television has diffused widely since the 1950s, but some areas still have low numbers of TVs per population. Internet access has increased greatly over the past 15 years.

A MENTAL MAP OF RAP Fig. 4-3: This mental map places major hip hop performers near other similar performers and in the portion of the country where they started. What separates East Coast from West Coast Rap?

Effects on Landscape: breeds homogenous, “placeless” (Relph, 1976), landscape  Complex network of roads and highways  Commercial Structures tend towards ‘boxes’  Planned and Gated Communities more and more common Disconnect with landscape: indoor swimming pools, desert surfing.

Surfing in Tempe, Arizona Are places still tied to local landscapes?

Swimming Pool, West Edmonton Mall, Canada McDonald’s, Tokyo, Japan McDonald’s, Jerusalem

Part II

PROBLEMS WITH POPULAR CULTURE 1. 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 2. Western Media Imperialism?  U.S., Britain, and Japan dominate worldwide media.  Glorified consumerism, violence, sexuality, and militarism?  U.S. (Networks, FoxNews, CNN) and British (BBC) news media provide/control the dissemination of information worldwide. 3. Accelerated Resource Use through Accelerated Consumption  Furs: minx, lynx, jaguar, kangaroo, whale, sea otters (18 th 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. 4. Pollution : waste from fuel generation and discarded products, plastics, marketing and packaging materials

“THEY’RE GROWING HOUSES IN THE FIELDS BETWEEN THE TOWNS.” - JOHN GORKA, FOLK SINGER

Beijing, China Palm Springs, CA

Fiji

2. HOW CAN CULTURE BE DIFFUSED?

How do cultural traits and popular culture diffuse? Hearth: the point of origin of a cultural trait. Contagious diffusion Hierarchical diffusion

With Distance Decay, the likelihood of diffusion decreases as time and distance from the hearth increases. With Time-Space Compression, the likelihood of diffusion depends upon the connectedness among places. Which applies more to popular culture? Time-Space Compression

Why are popular culture traits usually diffused hierarchically? How is fashion in popular culture an example of hierarchical diffusion?

FACTORS THAT AFFECT DIFFUSION  Distance  Population Density  Means of Communication  Nature of the Innovation  Prestige of the Node

How are aspects of local culture (material, non-material, place) commodified? Commodification-is the transformation of goods, services and ideas into commodities or objects of trade. A commodity at its most basic, according to Arjun Appadurai, is "any thing intended for exchange," or any object of economic value. Living beings can also be commodified. what is commodified? who commodifies it? Glocalization-using globalized products to fit local contexts/cultures.

AUTHENTICITY Claims of authenticity abound – how do consumers determine what experience/place is “authentic” and what is not? This is the problem with commodification and glocalization…no one knows what is authentic.

CULTURE CHANGE AND CONVERGENCE  Acculturation -process whereby one culture is substantially changed through the interaction of another culture  Assimilation -process where two or more cultures fuse, but not necessarily cultural characteristics  Transculturation -changes that occur from the interaction of cultures that is equal  Migrant Diffusion -by the time the new ideas and inventions reach a place, they have faded away at their point of origin  Ethnocentrism -tendency to evaluate other cultures against the standards of one’s own

3. HOW ARE LOCAL CULTURES SUSTAINED?

Custom: a practice that a group of people routinely follows. Ex. Makah People of Washington

Material Culture The things a group of people construct, such as art, houses, clothing, sports, dance, and food. Nonmaterial Culture The beliefs, practices, aesthetics, and values of a group of people. “You can take my material culture, but you can’t have my non- material culture!” Ex. Makah people reinstated the practice of whale hunting

Little Sweden, USA (Lindsborg, Kansas) Is the Swedish Dala horse part of material or nonmaterial culture?

4. WHAT DO LOCAL CULTURES DO TO MAINTAIN THEIR CUSTOMS IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD?

A. Local Cultures often have two goals: 1.keeping other cultures out. (ie. create a boundary around itself) 2.keeping their own culture in. (ie. avoid cultural appropriation)

B. WHAT ROLE DOES PLACE PLAY IN MAINTAINING CUSTOMS? (RURAL AND URBAN LOCAL) By defining a place (a town or a neighborhood) or a space for a short amount of time (an annual festival) as representing a culture and its values, members of a local culture can maintain (or reestablish) its customs and reinforce its beliefs.

Why did the residents of Lindsborg define it as a Swedish place? neolocalism: seeking out the regional culture and reinvigorating it in response to the uncertainty of the modern world.

URBAN LOCAL CULTURES  Can create ethnic neighborhoods within cities.  Creates a space to practice customs.  Can cluster businesses, houses of worship, schools to support local culture.  Migration into ethnic neighborhoods can quickly change an ethnic neighborhood. For example: Williamsburg, NY, North End (Boston), MA

Runners of the NYC Marathon run through Williamsburg, (Brooklyn), NY Hasidic Jewish Neighborhood