Local Culture, Popular Cultures, and Cultural Landscapes
Field Note
What are local and popular cultures?
Tata Family/Corporation
A rich family that owns many businesses
Members of the Parsi religion
Zoroastrian
Fled to Persia (Iran)
Then came to India after showing they could bring wealth to country
About 60,000 Parsi in India out of 1.3 billion
India is 85% Hindu
Large share compared to making up 0.00046% of population
Possible reasons
Strong ties w/ British while India was a colony
Started off in cotton industry early
Invested into other industries
Only accepted if both parents Parsi (some exceptions for born to Parsi men)
Religion declining
Systems of beliefs, norms, and values
Folk Culture
Homogeneous population
Typically rural
Small
Popular culture
Large
Heterogeneous population
Typically urban
Local culture
Self-identify as a collective
Share experiences, customs, traits
2 common practices
Culture changes over time
Values/practices change
Change other places
Material culture
Defined by creations
Nonmaterial culture
Defined by beliefs, practices, aesthetics
Changes as fast as in minutes
Often by hierarchal diffusion
Fashion, such as Kate Middleton's bridal gown, is good example
Spread from hearths
Important cities
Important people/groups of people
Often diffuse w/ other cultures
How are local cultures sustained?
Assimilation
Native Americans in 1800s/1900s
Occurred w/ Indigenous cultures elsewhere too
Punished for practicing culture
Taught "american" customs/practices in schools and on reservations
Many other countries (Canada/Australia) publically apologized
Customs- common practice
Maintaining culture
Keeping other cultures out
Rural tend to maintain better
Changes over years
Rural local cultures
Include anabaptists (Mennotites, Amish, Hutterites, etc)
Hutturite: Women viewed lesser
Makah Native Americans
In 90's reinstated whale hunt because cultural tradition
Little Sweden, USA
Town that celebrates swedish culture
Neolocalism- celebrating culture in a different region than origin
Urban Local Cultures
Some maintain culture through ethnic neighborhoods to practice cultural traditions w/ other members of the same culture
Local Cultures and Cultural Apporpriation
Commodification- something that wasn't thought of as something to sell becomes a product
Searching for authenticity often simplifies/stereotypes cultures
Often material culture is sold by nonmembers
sometimes the observing the culture is sold
Such as spiritual treks through himalayas with Nepolese guides
Authenticity of Places
guinness and the Irish pub company
They partnered up to create templates for Irish-feeling pubs to be created across the world
How is popular culture diffused?
Hearths of popular culture
Replacing old hearths with new
Diffusion
Technology or lack thereof impacts diffusion greatly, especially in the present
Distance decay- less diffusion when physically farther
Time space compression- refers to the connectivity to visual predicted diffusion
Example of stimulus diffusion: Renren and Kaixin001 as copies of Facebook
Examples of hierarchal diffusion- hip hop, Dave Matthew's band
Hearths globalize local culture
Reterritorialization
Taking a piece of popular culture and making it with aspects of local culture
Hip hop was created in NY and has been reterritorialized for other areas (London, France, Indonesia, etc)
As culture changes, hearths do too
Skateboarding etc
Stemming the tide of popular culture-Losing the local?
Popular culture can act as a new force of assimilation
Local cultures interpret, choose, and reshape popular culture
Influence of US, Europe, Japan, and South Korea across the world
Can displace local culture such as in movie revenue
How can local and popular cultures be seen in the cultural landscape?
Cultural landscape- impact of people on area
Placelessness- not really unique
Architecture styles and planning diffused
Individual businesses and products diffused to far places
Landscaping
Such as the use of skyscrapers
Meant to evoke a different place
Global-local continuum- borrowing and mixing concepts/aesthetics
Glocalization- taking popular culture and adapting it into local culture
Cultural landscapes of popular culture
Example- Morman landscape in Southwest US
Brought unique building styles
Morphology- size and shape of buildings/infrastructure
example: Change in interests in basket ball to videogaming