1. What is culture?

2. culture is… Learned, not biological
Transmitted within a society to next generations by imitation, tradition, instruction

3. culture provides… a “general framework”
each individual learns & adheres to general rules
also to specific sub-groups:
age, sex, status, occupation, nationality

4. culture provides…. Subcultures co-exist
Masculine / feminine
Rural / urban
Different ethnicities
Joined by common traditions, behaviors, loyalties, beliefs
Christmas
Church attendance on Sunday

5. cultural variables.. micro vs. macro
Cultural traits – most elementary
Expression of culture, the smallest distinctions
Behavior
Object
Beliefs
Attitudes
Macro
these “building blocks” = a culture complex

6. culture complex
Macro-cultural complex-Individual cultural traits that are functionally interrelated
Masai of Kenya – cultural traits centered on cattle
Soccer, futbol – sports culture

7. culture region
Portion of the Earth’s surface occupied by populations sharing recognizable distinctive cultural characteristics
Political organizations/boundaries
Religions
Economy type

8. Types of Cultural Regions
Core Area (nucleus)
Domain (dominant extension)
Sphere (zone of outer influence for a culture region)
Subnational (cultural area that is part of a larger culture – The Mormons)
National Cultures (The French Culture)

9. 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

10. culture realms

11. Cultural Sphere
zone of outer influence for a culture region

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

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

14. 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

15. FOLK FOOD
How did such differences develop?

17. FOLK ARCHITECTURE
Effects on Landscape: usually of limited scale and scope.
Agricultural: fields, terraces, grain storage
Dwellings: historically created from local materials: wood, brick, stone, skins; often uniquely and traditionally arranged; always functionally tied to physical environment.

18. FOLK ARCHITECTURE

19. Cohokia Mounds, Illinois
Folk Culture and the Land
Terraced Rice Fields, Thailand
Hogan, Monument Valley, AZ
Cohokia Mounds, Illinois

20. North American Folk Culture Regions

21. Hog Production and Food Cultures
Fig. 4-6: Annual hog production is influenced by religious taboos against pork consumption in Islam and other religions. The highest production is in China, which is largely Buddhist.

22. Taboo – a restriction on behavior imposed by social custom
Taboo – a restriction on behavior imposed by social custom. Food Taboos: Jews – must have cloven hooves and chews its cud; can’t mix meat and milk, or eat fish lacking fins or scales; pigs, camel, rabbits are not “kosher” Muslims – no pork; Hindus – no cows (used for oxen during monsoon)
Washing Cow in Ganges

23. What are Local and Popular Cultures?

24. 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.

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

26. Why are
Hutterite
colonies
located
where
they are?

27. 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.

28. Popular Culture=“placelessness”
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.

29. Popular Culture
Clothing: Jeans have become valuable status symbols in many regions including Asia and Russia despite longstanding folk traditions.

30. How do cultural traits from local cultures become part of popular culture?

31. Diffusion of TV, 1954–1999
Fig. 4-14: Television has diffused widely since the 1950s, but some areas still have low numbers of TVs per population.

32. A Mental Map of Hip Hop
Fig. 4-3: This mental map places major hip hop performers near other similar performers and in the portion of the country where they performed.

33. 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.

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

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

36. What is Culture?
Part II

37. 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
Satellite Television, Baja California

38. 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, FoxNews, 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.

39. 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

41. “They’re growing houses in the fields between the towns. ”
“They’re growing houses in the fields between the towns.” John Gorka, Folk Singer

42. Beijing, China
Palm Springs, CA

43. Fiji

44. Marlboro Man in Egypt

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

46. How are Local Cultures Sustained?

47. Local cultures are sustained by maintaining customs.
a practice that a group of people routinely follows.

48. Material and Nonmaterial 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.

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

50. What do local cultures do to maintain their customs in a globalized world?

51. 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)

52. What role does place play in maintaining customs?
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.

53. Rural Local Cultures Migration into rural areas is less frequent.
Can better separate their culture from others and from popular culture.
Can define their own space.
Daily life my be defined by a shared economic activity.

54. Makah (Neah Bay, Washington)
Why did the Makah reinstate the whale hunt?

55. Makah (Neah Bay, Washington)
Why did the Makah reinstate the whale hunt?
To reinvigorate the local culture.

56. Little Sweden, USA (Lindsborg, KS)
Why did the residents of Lindsborg define it as a Swedish place?

57. Little Sweden, USA (Lindsborg, KS)
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.

58. Helen, GA (Alpine Village)

59. 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

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

61. Commodification/Glocalization
How are aspects of local culture (material, non-material, place) commodified?
what is commodified?
who commodifies it?
Sun City, South Africa

62. Authenticity
Claims of authenticity abound – how do consumers determine what experience/place is “authentic” and what is not?

63. How is Popular Culture Diffused?

64. What are Cultural Hearths
Ancient Hearths (locations – source of civilization)
Hydraulic Civilization Theory (cities able to control irrigated farming over large hinterlands, held political power over other cities)
Modern Hearths (locations) – Eastern Megalopolis in the United States

65. How are hearths of popular culture traits established?
Typically begins with an idea/good and contagious diffusion.
Companies (MTV) and Individuals (Tony Hawk) can create/manufacture popular culture.
Hierarchical diffusion: fax machines on a farm/industrial revolution
Relocation diffusion: British prisoners to Australia

66. The hearth of Phish concerts is in the northeastern United States, near where the band began in Vermont.

67. 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

68. Factors that Affect Diffusion
Distance
Population Density
Means of Communication
Nature of the Innovation
Prestige of the Node

69. 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

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