Finishing up

1
Finishing up

• Emic and etic units general principles/cultural
  specifics
• Culture wars importance of culture

2
Their looking at ritual

• Find the various phenomena in the Turner and
  Bogatyrev books among their interviewees
• Reversal and communitas sometimes intentional
  and often not
• Appeal of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richey go to
  Arkansas
• Use of space as symbol, vegetation symbolism
• Culturally appropriate, as Bogatyrev would
  predict American focus on wealth, prosperity

3
Rituals promote, teach cultural norms

• Like wealth and prosperity for Americans
• Focus on land, soil, agriculture for Slavs
• This phenomenon analogous to legends about
  spirits, unclean force promoting, teaching,
  reinforcing social norms
• Like ritual permits expression of the opposite
  release of tension
• Norm upheld in the end

4
The -emic and the -etic

• One could be called the process like the ritual
  process, or the need for magic, or the need for
  narrative about cultural issues
• The process is universal characteristic of all
  human though emic
• What is conveyed by process is culturally
  specific like wealth for Americans tie to land
  for the Slavs etic

5
Emic/etic in first ½ of course

• All cultures will use space as symbol
• But Slavs see enclosed space and Americans see
  open
• Slavs see place as a living thing ancestors
  live in the land American see land as an it to
  be exploited
• Emic slot etic content inserted in the slot

6
Unconscious use of slots

• This is what people do as in the collecting
  that they did on new festivals, organized by
  community
• What if people used the slots consciously and
  intentionally for political purpose?
• Soviet yearly cycle rites
• American culture wars

7
Soviet yearly cycle rites

• First no rites at all advanced society should
  have no need for this
• Then historical only commemorates Revolution,
  Victory in WWII
• Finally yearly cycle, but with Soviet ideals
• Workers days, days of the various professions
• May Day, Womens Day

8
Culture wars from the diaspora side

• How do those who leave the Soviet Union fight
  Soviet rule?
• Political action?
• Cultural preservation!
• But which culture? Regional, social strata
  differences
• Special position of folklore good and bad

9
What is occurring in villages what people want
to occur

• Urban/rural conflict
• The 2 cultures and different attitudes of the
  authorities
• Diaspora culture/culture back home
• Biggest republic of USSR joke
• Introduction of global/Western culture

10
Steffi a German Barbie clone
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16
Is the introduction of Barbie a natural cultural
process?

• Anti-Barbie protests
• Older Western doll stories
• Is marketing the use of processes like the ones
  in Turner, Bogatyrev?

17
Humphrey looking at post-Soviet world

• Note the beliefs, processes seen in this course
• Use of space, exclusion as punishment
• Sacred rock
• Market economy problems, barter, coupons
• Special value attached to small things all the
  big stuff collectively owned
• Return of folk medicine, even in cities