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