Folk and Popular Culture

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Chapter 4 - CULTURE

• Folk and Popular Culture

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1. What is Culture?

• CULTURE A set of values, views of reality, and
  codes of behavior held in common by people who
  share a distinctive way of life the sum of all
  learned behavior
• colere to cultivate, or till the soil
• Middle Ages the refinement of crops
  (agriculture)
• Enlightenment the refinement of people the
  arts (cultured)
• Present learned behavior of a group people
• instinct vs. learned behavior / habits vs.
  customs
• instinct eat to satisfy hunger (habit)
• learned behavior choose recipe, take to the
  store, buy ingredients, cook food in certain way,
  sit down to eat, use manners or some code of
  behavior (custom)
• nature vs. nurture (nurture culture)
• Tabula Rosa John Locke
• because humans can learn so many things they can
  learn to do things differently
• the different learned behaviors create different
  cultures and sub-cultures (cultural divergence in
  isolated culture hearths)
• Culture is learned in 3 ways
• Socialization the process of learning ones
  culture from previous generations if
  socialization fails, culture dies
• Diffusion learn culture from new members of
  society, immigrants
• Acculturation and Syncretism combining of old
  and new

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2. What makes cultures different?

• Components of American Culture

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2. What makes cultures different?

• Components of American Culture

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2. What makes cultures different?

• Hierarchy of Cultural components
• Cultural Trait smallest unit of distinction
  between culture specific characteristics of
  society units of learned behavior
• Culture Complex Cultural Universal set of
  related traits (complimentary characteristics)
• Cultural Region portion of earths surface
  occupied by populations sharing distinctive
  cultural characteristics principal unit of study
  for cultural geographers/anthropologists
• Cultural Realm larger segment of earth set of
  regions showing related complexes and landscapes

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3. Structure of Culture Three Subsystems

• 1. Technological Subsystem Artifacts material
  objects visible objects that a group possesses
  and leaves fro the future (material culture) (Ch.
  4)
• food, clothes, houses, tools, weapons, vehicles,
  art, music, games
• Tangible evidence of human interaction with
  environment cultural landscape built
  environment
• 2. Ideological Subsystem Mentifacts values,
  ideas, beliefs, knowledge, communication,
  abstract belief systems (non-material
  culture) (Ch. 56)
• Language, religion, mythology, legends,
  literature, philosophy, folk wisdom (old-wives
  tales)
• Transmitted through the education and
  socialization process children taught how to
  think and communicate within a society
• 3. Sociological Subsystem Sociofacts
• expected and accepted forms of interpersonal
  relations
• Sociofacts define the organization of and
  accepted behavior within a society family,
  church, school, state (government)
• material and non-material culture

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Key Issue 1 Where Are Folk and Popular Leisure
Activities Distributed?

• 2 categories of Material Culture
• 1. Folk Culture small, homogeneous groups in
  isolated, rural areas
• Exist much in original forms little or no change
  over time
• Limited interaction with outside cultures
• Diffuses mainly by relocation/migration
  threatened by expansion diffusion of popular
  culture thru interaction and communication (tv
  and radio)
• Strong resistance to change celebrate local
  diversity with festivals
• Minimal impact on environment stewards of scarce
  resources and fragile environments

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2 categories of Material Culture

• 2. Popular Culture
• Large, heterogeneous societies share habits
  despite different personal characteristics
• Widespread distribution, greater interaction
• Rapid global connections modern communication
  and transportation (radio, tv, computers,
  internet, Facebook, twitter, instagram)
• Frequently changing trends and fads
• Globalization of popular culture threatens
  survival of folk cultures
• Leads to uniformity (sameness) of cultural
  landscapes
• Less consideration for environment exploitation
  of natural resources for commercial profits