3. Culture and Travel
“Who are
we?”, “Where
are we going?”
and “Why do we
do what we do?”
Tracey Moffat
Adventure Series
(2003)
4. Cognitive Outlook
Examine the
relationship
between
things, space,
and
everyday
practices.
5. Cultural Perspectives
Visual Culture involves
exploring, analyzing, and
critiquing the relationship
between culture and
visuality, from a range of diverse
theoretical perspectives.
It important to understand how
Bob and Roberta Smith societies construct their visual
Culture Bashing is Book perspectives through
Burning knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, l
(2012) aws, and customs, amongst
other things.
6. Culture
A specific set of
learned
behaviors, beliefs, at
titudes, values, and
ideals that are
characteristic of a
particular society or
population.
Boyle Family
Earth Pieces
(1960-present)
7. Culture and Heritage
Heritage is:
• NOT history
• A carefully selective engagement with the past
• A way of making the past coherent, manageable and
meaningful for the present
• A comparatively recent form of leisure pursuit and culture
• Material: listed buildings, protected landscapes, art, and
design etc.
• Conceptual: shared memory, myth, beliefs about the past
etc.
• Also, officially defined, policed and protected national
construct (e.g. National Trusts)
8. Culture and Identity
Who do you think you are?
For most of us, answering
questions about identity
begins by listing details that
can be found on birth
certificates–
name, sex, ethnicity, and
family origins.
David Shrigley
9. Enculturation
Cultures are learned through the process of enculturation.
Culture is learned and passed
down from previous generations.
It is not something an individual
is born with.
Learning culture is continuous
process
Cultures involve the use of language and
symbols - things that stand for something else.
10. Nature/Culture
Things that strike us
as „natural‟ or
„normal‟ or „common
sense‟ or „human
nature‟ are often
cultural.
Bruce Nauman
Human Nature/Knows
Doesn't Know
(1983/6)
11. On the Road
Displacement Belonging
Home
Difference
Museum and display Travel
Diaspora
Territory
Participation Identities
Material culture Nations
Heritage
Visual anthropology
Globalization
Ethnocentrism
Ethnography
Observation
12. We can explore other cultures by, studying
behavior, customs, material culture
(artifacts, tools, technology), language, etc.
Ilya Kabakov
The Man Who Flew
into Space from His
Apartment (1984)
13. Culture is…
• Learned. Process of learning one's culture is called enculturation.
• Shared by the members of a society. There is no „culture of one‟.
• Patterned. People in a society live and think in ways that form
definite patterns.
• Mutually constructed through a constant process of social
interaction.
• Symbolic. Culture, language and thought are based on symbols
and symbolic meanings.
• Arbitrary. Not based on „natural laws‟ external to humans, but
created by humans according to the needs and preferences of
the group e.g. standards of beauty.
• Internalized. Habitual. Taken-for-granted. Perceived as „natural.‟
14. Ethnocentrism
The idea that one
persons culture is
superior to other cultures.
It is important ensure that
attitudes such as this do
not pollute the
interpretations of any
culture being studied.
17. Alterity/Otherness
Alterity is not the same thing as prejudices (for example,
racism, sexism, classism), although it leads to them.
First we construct some group as Other.
Next we project onto it those qualities we reject, fear, or
disown in ourselves.
Then we assign qualities to variable human individuals on the
basis of their inclusion in this constructed Alterity.
Once we take this step in our construction of Alterity, then, at
last, we have also created prejudice and stereotyping.
18. Binary oppositions
Rational - Irrational/emotional
White - Black
Male - Female
Heterosexual - Homosexual
Order - Chaos
Mind - Body
Active - Passive
Town - Country
Cowboys - Indians
Civilised - Primitive
Rational - Irrational
Culture - Nature David Shrigley
21. The Location of Culture
Many people never
acknowledge how their day-
to-day behaviors have been
shaped by cultural norms
and values and reinforced
by families, peers, and
social institutions. How one
defines „family‟, identifies
desirable life goals, views
problems, and even says
hello are all influenced by
the culture in which one
functions.
22. Artist as Ethnographer
Ethnographic aesthetics: the
intersection between art and
anthropology.
Artists, like
ethnographers, train their
eyes to see things other
people don‟t see. They try to
present what they see so that
we, the audience, can glimpse
something where we have
looked a thousand times and
failed to find anything Simon Starling
Infestation Piece
noteworthy. (Musseled Moore)
(2012)
23. Anthropology
Anthropology is a tool for
understanding what makes
people and cultures different
and what makes them the
same.
Studying and going to „other‟
cultures provides us with
comparative perspectives of
the world.
Roderick Buchanan
Mixed Marriage
(2007)
24. Artist as Anthropologist
Artists and
anthropologists
share a set of
common practices
that raise similar
ethical issues.
David Shrigley
25. Culture and Place
Places are created by
cultural practices.
Places are never
finished.
Yinka Shonibare
Gallantry and Criminal Conversation (Parasol)
(2002)
26. Cultural Geography
Cultural geographers study the cultural aspects that explain how
and/or why people function as they do in the areas in which they live
e.g. language, religion, different economic and governmental
structures, art, and music.
Berlin from above Berlin in parts
From: Odd Things Happen When You Chop Up Cities And Stack Them Sideways
27. Globalisation
Globalisation is also
becoming increasingly
important to this field
as it is allowing these
specific aspects of
culture to easily travel
across the globe.
N55
Walking House
(2008)
28. Material Culture
Material Culture is
concerned with the
relationship between
artefacts and social
relation.
Material Culture Studies
aims to systematically
explore the linkage
between the construction of
social identities and the
production and use of
Bob and Roberta Smith culture.
Everything is Made
(2012)
29. Museology
Museology is the science of
collecting and arranging
objects for museums.
The meaning of objects shift
and change according to
the various
physical, temporal, social
and cultural contexts in
which they are used and
displayed.
Editor's Notes
In considering the idea of culture and travel the questions…may be considered as general topics for exploration.This lecture will introduce the ways in which disciplines like social anthropology and material cultures enhance our understanding of the social, cultural and historically specific meanings and practices associated with culture and place.
Visual Culture examines the relationship between things, space, and everyday practices. A culture’s use of imagery is part of the shaping of its world view. This is also known as our Cognitive Outlook. Or in other words the framework of ideas and beliefs, that distinguish that culture. This lecture provides you with some perspectives in order to engage with ideas about the production of knowledge about culture through visual realms and material culture.
Cultural PerspectivesSo if you recall form last week: Visual Culture is everything that is seen, that is produced to be seen, and the way in which it is seen and understood. It is that part of culture that communicates through visual means, a tactic for studying the functions of a world addressed through pictures, images, and visualizations, rather than through texts and words.
Cultural variations are often the cause of major and minor misunderstandings as groups come into contact with one another
Another way we might understand a place is through its heritage, this is particularly pertinent to tourism.
For most of us, answering questions about identity begins by listing details that can be found on birth certificates–name, sex, ethnicity, and family origins. And for example when we want to research our family histories we locate the birth certificates of known family members because these documents provide essential information about the identities of ancestors. The importance of birth certificates might suggest that identity is basically fixed and stable from the time of birth.
The final step in the construction of Alterity is to institutionalize these prejudices in our laws and customs. When laws, group culture, educational values, and social custom operate as if prejudices were truths, then we have racism, sexism, classism, anti-semitism, and so on. Racism is institutionalized racial prejudice; it has the weight of the entire society to enforce it. Sexism is institutionalized gender prejudice. Classism is institutionalized class prejudice.
The creation of binary opposition structures the way we view others. One of the oppositional terms is always privileged, controlling and dominating the other.Most commonly, another person or group of people who are defined as different or even sub-human to consolidate a group's identity. For example, the Nazi's internal cohesion depended in part on how they defined themselves against (strove to maintain distinctions from) their image of the Jews. In this sense, "The other" is the devalued half of a binary opposition when it is applied to groups of people.
Ellen Gallagher
Although both anthropology and art often have different criteria, methods and techniques, both share the ambition to reflect on the human condition and to give meaning to existence.
Some of the main cultural phenomena studied in cultural geography include language, religion, different economic and governmental structures, art, music, and other cultural aspects that explain how and/or why people function as they do in the areas in which they live.
Globalisation
Material Culture is concerned with the relationship between artefacts and social relation.Material Culture Studies aims to systematically explore the linkage between the construction of social identities and the production and use of culture.
Spaces where political ideologies are played out in the context of everyday practices such as consumption, appropriation and societal organisation.The physical placement, or framing of an object can change the objects meaning.Historical connotations, economic value, symbolic meaning and value
