Chapter 4: Folk and Popular
Culture
Unit 3
Culture
• The combination of three things:
1. Values
2. Material artifacts
3. Political institutions
• This chapter focuses on:
• Daily necessities: food, clothing, shelter
• Leisure activities: arts, recreation
• Habit:
• Custom:
Where Are Folk and Popular Leisure Activities
Distributed?
• Two basic categories: folk and popular culture
• Folk culture
• Traditionally practiced by small, isolated, homogeneous groups in rural
areas
• Popular culture
• Characterized by large, heterogeneous groups of people who share
common habits despite differences in other personal characteristics
• Geographers are interested in two aspects of culture:
• Where cultures are located in space
• How cultures interact with the environment
Where Are Folk and Popular Leisure Activities
Distributed?
• Origin of folk and popular cultures
• Folk culture = hearth area; originators are usually unknown
• Popular culture = hearth area comes from more developed
countries (MDCs)
• People in MDCs have disposable income and leisure time that allow for
these innovations
Where Are Folk and Popular Leisure Activities
Distributed?
• Diffusion of folk and popular culture
• Folk culture diffuses slowly, primarily through migration, and at a
small scale
• Relocation diffusion
• Example: Diffusion of Amish culture (p. 138)
• Popular culture diffuses rapidly and over a large scale
• Hierarchical diffusion
• Example: Sports, music
Where Are Folk and Popular Leisure Activities
Distributed?
• Distribution of folk and popular culture
• Popular culture: distributed widely with little regard for physical
factors
• Obstacle: lack of income to purchase the material
• Folk culture: distributed typically in one area, folk cultures typically
isolated
Where Are Folk and Popular Leisure Activities
Distributed?
• Origin and distribution of folk and popular music
• Folk music characteristics
• Tells a story or recounts important life events or activities
• Is personal in nature
• Popular music characteristics
• Written by individuals for the purpose of selling to a large audience
• Highly technical
• Origin and distribution of folk and popular sports
• Soccer:
• Surviving folk sports
Where Are Folk and Popular Material Culture
Distributed?
• Conflicting Folk and Popular Cultural Values
• Elements of Material Culture: Influence of the physical
environment
• Folk culture = close connection to the environment
• Most folk cultures are rural and agricultural
• Clothing is often tied to environmental conditions
• Clothing in popular culture typically reflects what?
Where Are Folk and Popular Material Culture
Distributed?
• Folk food preferences and the environment
• Food preferences are adapted to the environment
• Example: In Asia, rice is grown in milder, wetter environments whereas
wheat is grown in colder, drier environments
• Example: eating animals that signify strength and avoiding those that
signify cowardice
• Food taboos may be especially strong
• People avoid certain foods because of negative associations with that
food
• Examples?
• Terroir = the sum effects of the local environment on a
particular food item
• Soil, climate, etc.
Where Are Folk and Popular Material Culture
Distributed?
• Popular Food Preferences
• Influenced more by cultural values than by environmental
features.
• Popular culture varies more in time than place
• Food customs: consumption of large quantities of snack foods and alcohol
Where Are Folk and Popular Material Culture
Distributed?
• Folk housing and the environment
• Housing = a reflection of cultural heritage, current fashion,
function, and the physical environment
• Two most common building materials = wood and brick
• Minor differences in the environment can produce very
different house styles
• Popular housing:
• Reflects fashion trends since the 1940s in the United States
Why is Access to Folk and Popular Culture
Unequal?
• Diffusion of TV and Internet
• Watching television
• The most popular leisure activity in MDCs
• Diffusion from the United States to the rest of the world = 50 years
• The Internet
• Diffusion from the United States to the rest of the world = 10 years
• Diffusion of Social Media
• Facebook: Est. in 2004
• 2009: 55 million users in the U.S.
• 2014: 152 million users in the U.S.
• Percentage of users in the U.S. has declined, other countries’ percentages have increased
• Twitter: mainly dominated by Americans, but numbers are growing in LDCs
• Why do some countries use other forms of social media?
Why is Access to Folk and Popular Culture
Unequal?
• Challenges in Accessing Electronic Media
• Banned Technology
• Blocked Content
• Violated User Rights
Why Do Folk and Popular Culture Face
Sustainability Challenges?
• Sustainability challenges for folk culture
• Assimilation
• Acculturation
• Syncretism
• Challenging cultural values in folk culture
• Equality of women to men
Why Do Folk and Popular Culture Face
Sustainability Challenges?
• Sustainability challenges for popular culture
• Landscape pollution
• Depletion of natural resources