Local and popular culture

• What are local and popular cultures?

• How are local cultures sustained?

• How is popular culture diffused?

• How can cultures be seen in the landscape?

What are local (folk) cultures?

• A group of people in a particular place • who identify themselves as a community, • with shared experiences,

– Customs – actions routinely followed – Traits - characteristic used to judge a person – Traditions – long-established rules of behavior,

• actively maintained to distinguish themselves from others

The local culture:

• Accepts or rejects diffusing cultural traits

– Religion

– Community celebrations

– Family structure

– Isolation from other cultures

• Constantly redefining themselves based on interactions with other cultures

• Includes material culture (human made, visible stuff – structures, clothing, food, activities that change the land in some way)

Built environment, architecture stuff that people use (and how they use it) Music, art, poetry, prose Clothing styles, personal grooming

• Nonmaterial culture (beliefs, practices, aesthetics, values)

Local Culture “ways of life” practiced by small,

isolated, homogeneous groups Geographers focus on where local

cultures are located in space Identify each particular custom's

origin, Diffusion, integration with the

other characteristics

Where are these teenagers from?

Can you tell by their clothing?

Can you tell by their hairstyle?

How are cultures sustained?

• Local cultures are sustained through shared customs, – often the local culture has to isolate themselves from

outside world (Mormon Church)• ethnic groups tended to cluster in urban neighborhoods• 19th and early 20th C US promoted assimilation (acquire

English, learn new skills, public education, self-identify as American – melting pot metaphor

• 1960’s – attempt to re-establish ethnic heritage (Irish-American, Polish-American) – beef stew metaphor

• Local cultures are commonly found in relatively isolated rural areas– Easier to control access– Avoid interference by governments– Create and define their own place– Maintain traditions (Makah Indians)

• Urban ethnic neighborhoods are now remnants of immigrant neighborhoods– Identified by street names, names of churches,

food shops– Typical pattern is for 2nd generations to move out,

4th generations attempt to re-establish traditional place and customs, may be more ethnic than the original neighborhood

• Defining element of local culture is place – This becomes the symbol of the culture’s existence – Attempts to establish a new place that will support

traditions and customs neolocalism

• Sometimes cultures are appropriated by the “outside world” (sports teams named for Native Americans)– Commercial interests may patent cultural “secrets”– Local cultures work to hide their defining attributes

to avoid outsiders taking ownership

Relationship between material culture and physical environment Folk culture develops

over time without outside influence

Changes happen with migration diffusion

New settlement, still no outside influence

• Commodification - name, good, idea, person regarded as an object that can be bought or sold (Amish bric a brac, Indian sweat lodges, Irish craic)– Leads to questions about authenticity which can

only be discovered by interacting with the whole culture, not just the gift shop

• Search for mystical sense of authentic cultural place– Often recreates a fictional idea about a reality that

never existed (downtown in Tradition)– Based on stereotype of culture (importation of

“authentic” Irish pubs)• Real local cultures are dynamic

Popular Culture Large heterogeneous groups that share a particular

attribute Folk – many attributes shared by few people Pop – few attributes shared by many

Where are these teenagers from?

Can you tell by their clothing?

Can you tell by their hairstyle?

How is popular culture diffused?• Traditionally, innovations would be very limited by distance decay time to

diffuse was measured in months, years, decades and could be stopped by political divisions or interference

• Today, due to effective communications and marketing networks, time-space compression has made the world smaller (ideas move around the world fast)

• Relocation diffusion – physical movement of people

• Expansion diffusion – transfer without people moving• Contagious – rapid, widespread, “viral” (new medicine, web ideas)

• Stimulus – underlying principle spreads without specific brands (technology, McDonalds in India))

• Innovation – rapid spread of technology

• Hierarchical –

• Maladaptive – innovation that causes problems in the new area (housing styles, technology w/o infrastructure)

• Learned habits and traits including clothing, art, music, literature, food

• that are subject to rapid change and• Influence heterogeneous groups

• Hierarchical diffusion through transportation, marketing media, and communications networks• Who are the trend setters for the latest new thing

• The cultural hearth is usually in a major urban node• When too many people “know” about the pop

culture, it may lose its appeal

Diffusion of Pop culture Hierarchical

diffusion - Attribute is created at

hearth (node) Spreads out through

transportation, communication

Type of communication may increase acceptance by select

group (in-crowd)

Node

tran

spor

tatio

n

comm

unication

trendies1st enactors

hinterlands

Hierarchical diffusion in action– POP MUSIC

– 1900 – 1940s Tin Pan Alley in NYC money selling sheet music

– 1930's In US, radio networks established, paid to play songs

– WWII – Armed Forces Radio brings American music to Europe

– English is universal language lingua franca

– 1950s - Radio Free Europe sends pop music throughout Europe

– 1960s – communication satellites

– Non-English speakers record pop music in English

• because pop culture is heterogeneous (may include members from many cultural groups), local (national) cultures try to reterritorialize (incorporate local values or symbols into the new pop

– minimum % of local artists

– use of local language

Relationship between material culture and the physical environment

• Folk culture is based on the local environment in isolation so there are few changes

– Migration diffusion attempts to recreate this environment in the new area through people moving into the new place

• Pop culture has many interactions which leads to rapid diffusion (could include internet, magazines, TV, movies, music)

• Result is:

– Folk culture varies from place to place at any given time

– Pop culture varies from time to time at any given place (what is the latest hit music?) (how long will it be popular?)

Cultural landscape

• cultural landscape - (add to definition) visible imprint of human activity

• popular culture affects local cultures as local cultures lose their visual identity, leads to placelessness

– chain restaurants, gas stations, retail stores add sameness to communities

– “colonial style” McDonalds? Disney Main Street idealized landscape

– large urban areas have own accepted design based on height of skyscrapers

glocalization

• global-local continuum what happens at local scale is affected by what happens at larger scales

– local Walmart can only work with Walmart's world-wide operations and distribution system (Fl Walmarts sell California oranges)

• glocalization - local cultures mediate (change) global processes

– Walmart may sell some items of local interest, usually isolated from their typical merchandise (UF, FSU shirts,

Housing types

• homes are most direct representation of cultural values

– may need to be adapted to new conditions (sod houses on Great Plains, log cabins from Sweden)

• 4 distinct folk-house regions - (New England salt box, Mid Atlantic, Southern Tidewater, western ranch) understand how the attributes reflect local conditions

• diffusion routes - what was expansion based on?