Folk and Popular Culture

Chapter 4

Folk and Popular Culture

• Key Issues:1. Where do Folk and Popular Cultures Originate

and Diffuse?2. Why is Folk Culture Clustered?3. Why is Popular Culture Widely Distributed?4. Why Does Globalization of Popular Culture

Cause Problems?

Where do Folk and Popular Cultures Originate and Diffuse?

• What do we mean by ‘culture’?• The Origin of Folk and Popular Cultures

– Origin of folk music– Origin of popular music

• Diffusion of Folk and Popular Cultures– Diffusion of Amish Folk Culture– Diffusion of Popular Culture Through Sports

• Culture– The body of material traits, customary beliefs,

and social forms that together constitute the distinct tradition of a group of people

– Each cultural activity has a distinctive spatial distribution.

– Geographers study the relations between material culture and the physical environment.

What is Culture?

• Daily necessities and leisure– Material culture deriving from the necessities

of daily life– Culture involving leisure activities– Habit: A repetitive act that a particular

individual performs– Custom: A repetitive act of a group– Material culture: A collection of social customs

• Folk culture: Varies from place to place at a given time

• Popular culture: Varies from time to time at a given place

What is Culture?

– Anonymous hearth(s)– Anonymous sources (originators)– Unknown dates– Diffuses slowly and on a small scale

• Chiefly through migration– Little change

Characteristics of folk culture

– Found in large heterogeneous societies– Large territory as compared to folk culture– Usually product of developed countries – Rapid diffusion facilitated by technology– Changes rapidly and frequently

Characteristics of popular culture

• Composed anonymously and transmitted orally

• Contents derived from daily life

• Travels via relocation diffusion

Folk Music

– Composed by specific individuals

– Commercial purposes

– Originated ~1800• Tin Pan

Alley• Rise of

recorded music

Popular Music

Differences between popular and folk culture

• Popular culture– Consists of large masses of people who conform to and

prescribe to ever-changing norms– Large heterogeneous groups– Often highly individualistic and groups are constantly

changing– Pronounced division of labor leading to establishment of

specialized professions

Differences between popular and folk culture

• Popular culture– Money based economy prevails– Replacing folk culture in industrialized countries

and many developing nations– Folk-made objects give way to their popular

equivalent• Item is more quickly or cheaply produced• Easier or time-saving to use• Lends prestige to owner

Differences between popular and folk culture

• Folk culture– Made up of people who maintain the traditional– Describes people who live in an old-fashioned way-simpler

life-style– Rural, cohesive, conservative, largely self-sufficient group,

homogeneous in custom– Strong family or clan structure and highly developed

rituals– Tradition is paramount — change comes infrequently and

slowly

Differences between popular and folk culture

• Folk culture– Little specialization in labor though duties may

vary between genders– Subsistence economy prevails– Individualism and social classes are weakly

developed– In parts of the less-developed world, folk cultures

remain common– Industrialized countries no longer have unaltered

folk cultures

Differences between popular and folk culture

• Folk culture: The Amish in the United States– Perhaps the nearest modem equivalent in Anglo-

America– German-American farming sect– Largely renounces products and labor-saving devices

of the industrial age– Horse-drawn buggies still used, and faithful own no

autos or appliances– Central religion concept of demut, ”humility,” reflects

weakness of individualism and social class– Rarely marry outside their sect

FOLK CULTURE : DISTRIBUTION OF THE AMISH

Differences between popular and folk culture

• Folk culture• Typically, bearers of folk culture combine folk and nonfolk

elements in their lives• Includes both material and nonmaterial elements

– Material culture includes all objects or “things” made and used by members of a cultural group—material elements are visible

– Nomnaterial culture, including folklore, can be defined as oral, including the wide range of tales, songs, lore, beliefs, superstitions, and customs

• Other aspects of nonmaterial culture include dialects, religions, and worldviews

• Folk geography—defined as the study of the spatial patterns and ecology of folklife

• Eleventh-century England

• Denmark ~1018–1042

– “Kick the Dane’s Head”

• Football Association, 1863

Soccer’s folk culture origins

• Late 1800s diffused to continental Europe

• Holland, 1870s

• Spain, 1893

• Diffused via British imperial expansion

• Russia, 1887

Soccer as popular culture

– Cricket– Ice hockey– Wushu– Baseball– Football– Lacrosse

Surviving folk sports