Local culture refers to the traditions of a small, relatively isolated community group, usually in a rural area, which helps the group maintain a distinct identity. Popular culture arises from industrialization and urbanization and is embraced by a widespread heterogeneous population across different identities. Cultural traits from local cultures can become part of popular culture through processes like diffusion and cultural appropriation. Local cultures strive to maintain customs by defining spaces, like neighborhoods or festivals, that reinforce their distinct beliefs and practices. Popular culture tends to spread more widely and homogenize landscapes, while local cultures aim to preserve uniqueness.

1. Local Culture, Popular Culture, and Cultural Landscapes Chapter 4

2. Woman with Oxcart, Myanmar McDonald’s, Tokyo, Japan

3. Some Basic terms: Culture Folk culture Popular culture Local culture Non-material culture Hierarchical of diffusion Hearth Assimilate Custom Cultural appropriation Neo-localism Ethnic neighborhoods Commodification Authenticity Distance decay Time-space compression Placelessness Glocalization Folk housing regions Diffusion routes

4. Key Question: What are Local and Popular Cultures?

5. What is Local culture/Folk Culture? Local Culture: (text bk) 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. Common notion : Traditional practice by small group Usually a rural community living in relative isolation Homogenous: Stable and close knit Cohesive : Tradition control and Order maintained through religion or family 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.

6. Hutterite Colonies in North America Are the Hutterites an example of a local culture? In developed countries like United States, where folk culture exists, it is regarded as characteristic only of socially or geographically isolated groups E.g. - Amish - Native American communities - Mountain folk of Appalachia Prevailing Notion : Artifacts, belief & practices Reminders of the past Touristic curiosities

7. Definition : (Txt bk) 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. Common characteristics : Large societies heterogeneous society sharing certain habits (despite differences in personal characteristics). wide distribution small regional variations (over time)—limited variations in choice regionally Examples: franchises, cargo planes, internet, alcohol and snacks. Popular culture is product of industrialization & urbanization (began in Europe & US) – now expression of globalization Popular Culture:

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

9. Marlboro Man in Egypt

10. A Mental Map of Hip Hop This mental map places major hip hop performers near other similar performers and in the portion of the country where they performed.

11. How do cultural traits from local cultures become part of popular culture? Madonna wearing a red string Kabbalah bracelet.

12. People everywhere tend to discard or alter their folk culture when confronted with the attractions of modernity Few remain to practice their folk culture authentically

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

14. Key Question: How are Local Cultures Sustained? Custom: a practice that a group of people routinely follows. Local cultures are sustained by maintaining customs.

15. Folk Culture – rapidly changing and/or disappearing throughout much of the world. Turkish Camel Market Portuguese Fishing Boat Guatemalan Market

16. Folk Culture: Material and Nonmaterial Culture Material Culture (tangible elements) The things a group of people construct, such as art, houses, clothing, sports, dance, and food. Nonmaterial Culture (intangible elements) The beliefs, practices, aesthetics, and values of a group of people.

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

18. In an age of globalization, where popular culture diffuses quickly, what do local cultures do to maintain their customs? 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)

19. 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.

20. Local cultures fight to maintain their customs Rural Local Cultures (it is comparatively easier) 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.

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

22. 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.

23. 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

24. Runners of the NYC Marathon run through Williamsburg, (Brooklyn), NY

25. Commodification How are aspects of local culture (material, non-material, place) commodified? what is commodified? who commodifies it? Claims of authenticity abound – how do consumers determine what experience/place is “authentic” and what is not? Authenticity

26. 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

27. Irish Pub Company Pubs Right picture: Irish Pub Company and Guinness Brewing Company created 5 models of pubs and export them around the world. Left Picture: Little Bridge Pub in Dingle, Ireland (not an Irish Pub Company Pub)

28. How is Popular Culture Diffused? Key Question:

29. How are hearths of popular culture traits established? Typically begins with an idea/good and contagious diffusion. Companies can create/manufacture popular culture. (ie. MTV) Individuals can create/manufacture popular culture. (ie. Tony Hawk)

30. Diffusion of TV, 1954–1999 Television has diffused widely since the 1950s, but some areas still have low numbers of TVs per population.

31. Hearth of Popular culture Example: Phish Music band see-fig 4.12 Hip-Hop –from NY diffused to France & Germany Two important concepts: Distance Decay : the likelihood of diffusion decreases as time and distance from the hearth increases. Time-Space Compression : the likelihood of diffusion depends upon the connectedness among places.

32. Why are popular culture traits usually diffused hierarchically? How is fashion in popular culture an example of hierarchical diffusion? Actress Lindsay Lohan

33. Key Question: How can Local and Popular Cultures be seen in the Cultural Landscape? The visible human imprint on the landscape. How have people changed the landscape? What buildings, statues, and so forth have they erected? How do landscapes reflect the values of a culture? Cultural Landscape

34. Popular Culture Effects on Landscape: breeds homogenous, “placeless” (Relph, 1976), landscape Complex network of roads and highways Commercial Structures tend towards ‘boxes’ Planned and Gated Communities more and more common Disconnect with landscape: indoor swimming pools, desert surfing.

35. Placelessness: the loss of uniqueness in a cultural landscape – one place looks like the next.

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

37. Convergence of Cultural Landscapes: Diffusion of architectural forms and planning ideas around the world. (Skyscrapers diffusion)

38. Borrowing of idealized landscape images blurs place distinctiveness. Convergence of Cultural Landscapes:

39. House Types Kniffen’s traditional American house types:

40. Think of other folk housing Kraal in South Africa Uighur yurt in China Maasai manyatta Extended family compound of bambara of Mali