Introduction to Human Geography - 2nd Edition Chapter 4 Folk Culture and Popular Culture

Folk Culture and Popular Culture Ramirez and David Darrell Figure Double Decker Bus Double decker bus referencing the Beatles in , Spain near the historic Camino de Santiago . This is the intersection of two iconic cultural symbols . Both the bus and the pilgrimage route invite the public to take journeys , whether sonic or geographic . Author Ramirez Source Original Work License BY SA STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES By the end of this section , the student will be able to . Understand the origins and diffusion of culture and globalization . Explain how culture changes across space and time . Describe popular and folk culture , diffusion and the changing pace of globalization . Connect globalization and cultural Page 64

INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN GEOGRAPHY FOLK CULTURE AND POPULAR CULTURE CHAPTER OUTLINE Introduction The Cultural Landscape Folk Culture The Changing Cultural Landscape Popular Culture The Interface Between the Local and the Global Global Culture Resistance to Popular Culture Summary Key Terms Works Consulted and Further Reading Page 65

INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN GEOGRAPHY FOLK CULTURE AND POPULAR CULTURE INTRODUCTION What is culture ?

When some people speak of culture , they are thinking of high culture ( ballet or opera ) Others may think of current , prominent topics ( pop culture ) Academic settings , though , are referring to something else . Culture is a learned behavior and a human construct . Culture exists to answer questions . Some of the questions that are answered are philosophical or ideological , for example , Where did we come from ?

or What is acceptable behavior ?

Other questions revolve around daily life . How do we secure shelter , clothe ourselves , produce food , and transmit information ?

Culture provides us with guidance for our lives . It both asks and answers questions . Children , from an early age , start asking What is my place in the world ?

Culture helps to answer that . The word culture itself comes the Latin word , meaning cultivation or growing . This is precisely what humans do with both their material and abstract cultural components . Humans , since early childhood , learn to shape , create , share , and change their culture . Culture is the very vehicle we use to navigate through our environments . Culture is a form of communication and it evolves . And as a type of compass , it leads . Components of Culture At the most simplistic levels , culture can be either concrete and tangible , or abstract . Either way , culture is used to express identity for both individuals and groups . And whether it is concrete or abstract , again it is a human construct used as a way to create a sense of belonging . People convey culture through various outlets such as festivals , food , and architecture . They are able to meet their worldwide fundamental needs while maintaining individual group qualities . Culture can be into three different categories ( ideas or beliefs ) artifacts ( goods or technology ) and ( forms of social organization ) All cultures have underlying beliefs and thought processes . These beliefs include religion ( Chapter ) and language ( Chapter ) but go far beyond that . Other important beliefs include things like nationalism ( see Chapter ) customs or prejudices . These beliefs can be expressed through various avenues , using a variety of auditory , visual , and tactile means . For example , nationalism can be expressed through song , cuisine , dress , and public events . You can hear nationalism in the form of an anthem , see it in the form of a , taste it when you eat a dish that represents a group of people , and feel it in the form of a piece of jewelry . Technology is a human construct . From our earliest inventions ( weapons ) to a supercomputer , the things that people build are products of their perceived needs , their technical abilities and their available resources . Technology includes clothing , foods and housing . Another name for technology is material culture . Think of material culture as the material that archaeologists study . The materials that we use are often left behind for later people to study , like the clay tablets the Sumerians used to record their writing or the remnants of an Page 66

INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN GEOGRAPHY FOLK CULTURE AND POPULAR CULTURE used for shared living . Other components of culture ( like ideas ) leave fewer traces . We can material culture related to burial practices that date back millennia but may not always have the material evidence to show how people grieve . Lifestyle is a component of culture that can be overlooked , but it is vitally important . In many cultures , a family is a very large unit and people can tell in great detail their exact relationship to everyone else in a place . In the modern context , a family could consist of a single parent and a child and it is possible to live in a neighborhood with unrelated people and not know the name of a single neighbor . Culture can be seen either through the lens of a microscope or through that of a telescope . Folk culture is local , small and tightly bound to the immediate landscape . Popular culture is large , dispersed , and . These two forms of culture are not totally separated . They are related and both currently exist in the world . Prior to about 2008 , most people on Earth lived in rural communities , often practicing a folk culture . The world as a whole is moving toward popular culture . Cultural Reproduction As human beings , we reproduce in two ways biologically and socially . Physically we reproduce ourselves through having children . However , culture consists solely of learned behavior . In order for culture to reproduce itself , it has to be taught . This is what makes culture a human creation . How is culture transmitted ?

Human beings are natural mimics . This is the way we learn to speak , and it is the way we learn the rest of our culture as well . We learn through observation and , subsequently , through practice . At another scale , mimicry is the mechanism that drives cultural diffusion . Human beings copy the things we like . The old line Imitation is the sincerest form of , perfectly describes the human desire to incorporate successful adaptations . Figure Ribs restaurant in Madrid , Spain Figure Spanish restaurant in Tivoli Gardens , This restaurant is near one of the busiest tourist areas in the city , but it is on Copenhagen , Denmark a off the iconic Gran Via . Could you imagine this restaurant on a Notice the use of yellow and red ( the colors of the Spanish flag ) street corner in the United States ?

Also , the bull and matador image is prominent . Is that the best way Author Ramirez to promote churros , a typical fried food of Spain ?

Source Original Work Author Ramirez License BY SA Source Original Work License BY SA Page 67 INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN GEOGRAPHY FOLK CULTURE AND POPULAR CULTURE How people have shared culture has changed drastically over time . This can partly be attributed to the channels in which we share culture . In the past , culture was shared orally and in person . Words eventually became written , the written became electronic , and we now have access to things from anywhere at any time . The debate over authenticity has also become a topic of debate . If culture is created , recreated , and is , how can we authenticity ?

Has culture become placeless ?

or the irrelevance of place has become a central topic in the contemporary philosophy of geography . Can people have an dining experience in the heart of Madrid , Spain ?

Can they experience Spanish at a historic theme park in Copenhagen , Denmark ?

As the following pictures show , icons representing other places are now common in the landscape . Culture Hearths Culture Hearths Core Culture warm Rivers Figure Depicts culture hearths and their associated rivers , where applicable Author David Source Original Work License BY SA Human beings have always had learned behaviors , it one of the characteristics of human beings . Cultural evolution describes the increasing complexity of human societies over time . Our earliest cultures were simple . We lived in small groups , ranged across fairly large areas , and lived off the natural landscape . Human impact on the environment is less than it is now , but there was an impact . Earlier peoples burned forests to clear land and game , and in some places hunted the to extinction . Recognizable cultures have places of origin . The word culture refers to cultivation or growing . We care for something , we nurture an idea as it grows . All Page 68

INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN GEOGRAPHY FOLK CULTURE AND POPULAR CULTURE cultural elements have a place of origin . Some places have been responsible for a great deal of cultural development . We call these places culture hearths . Culture hearths provided many of the cultural elements ( technologies , organizational structures , and ideologies ) that would diffuse to other places and later times . Cultural hearths provide operational scripts for societies . Culture hearths are closely associated with the foods that they domesticated . food is an important cultural element due to the fact that it is both a technology as well as form of expression . Although the preceding map shows areas of ancient civilization , these are not the only places that have contributed to contemporary cultures . Ideas can arise anywhere , but ancient ideas collected in these places . Cultures incorporate pieces of other cultures . Some recognizable themes in creation myths are stories of great or other cataclysmic events , and these types of stories recycled through history . Languages without writing will often reuse another language writing system . Once again , desirable characteristics get copied . THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE Cultures beings rely on natural resources to survive . In the case of rural cultures , those resources tend to be local . For urban cultures , those resources can either be local , or they can be products brought from great distances . Either way , cultures landscapes and in turn landscapes cultures . Culture Figure Relationship Author David Source Original Work License BY SA The physical landscape consists of places like the Appalachian Mountains that stretch across a large portion of North America , the grasslands , the Amazon river basin , or any other environment . These are landscapes that have been formed over thousands , if not millions of years by forces of nature . In order to live in places a different as these , humans have needed to adapt their lifestyles . The relationship between people , their culture , and the physical landscape is known as interaction . This relationship is reciprocal culture adapts to a particular place , and that place is changed by people . Cultural ecology refers to the types of landscapes created by the interaction of people and their physical environment . Humans have been thinking about the relationship between people and their environments for a considerable amount of recorded history . In the book On Page 69

INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN GEOGRAPHY FOLK CULTURE AND POPULAR CULTURE Airs , Waters , and Places , the Greek philosopher Hippocrates wrote that different climates produced different kinds of people . He believed that cold places produced emotionally distant people , and hot climates produced lazy , lethargic people . The ideal place ( which coincidentally was his own place ) was in the middle of the known world and produced the best kind of people . These ideas would now be considered environmentally deterministic . Remember that Environmental determinism is the idea that a particular landscape necessarily produces a certain kind of people . Ideas like this were still fashionable into the twentieth century . The problem with the idea is that it simplistic and reductionist . A cold environment doesn force people to be aloof . It forces them to invent warmer clothes . Technology is the difference , not behavior . Instead of determinism , the more common term to use is now possibilism . Physical landscapes set limits on a group of people that may or may not require a large adaptation , or a large of the environment itself . Humans can now survive in very inhospitable environments , most notably , the International Space Station . Landscapes are cultural byproducts . The way that we use the local resources generates the visible landscape . Architecture , economic activities , clothing and entertainment are all visible to anyone interested in looking at a place . Because the physical landscape varies across space , and because culture varies across space , then the cultural landscape is variable as well . Different people can have different adaptations to similar places . Conversely , places far from one another may have similar adaptations to climate or other factors . Cultural landscapes can be considered as both history and narrative . Power is written into the landscape . We make statues to commemorate the wealthy and the politically connected in rich places . We place garbage dumps and airports in poor places . Looking at the landscape as a record of history , power , and representation is known as . The landscape can be read in the same that a book can be read . The largest differences between that we see now are the differences between the rural and the industrial and ' I em ! What is the narrative here ?

How have people between places that are less with the mountainous landscape of the rest of the world and those that are this region of Georgia , USA , to look like a town in ily integrated ( globalized ) Global places are a ' ai Ge a . Author Ramirez Source Original Work License BY SA Page 70

INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN GEOGRAPHY FOLK CULTURE AND POPULAR CULTURE Cultural Change A sensible question to ask might be Where did all the cultures come from ?

As people moved into new places , they adapted and changed , and the new places were changed in turn . People change over time as well . Circumstances change in a place . Groups who move into a forest will need a to adapt if they cut down all the trees . Groups that adopt a new crop will see their lives change . Divergence could be as simple as borrowing a word to describe an invention . All cultures change . Culture Regions We can sort the world into regions based on cultural characteristics . A region is an area characterized by similarity or a cohesiveness that sets it apart from other regions . Regions are mental constructs , the lines between places are imaginary . When someone talks about the world or Latin America , they are referring to culture regions . Cultural Case Study The Diffusion of Dancehall A cultural attribute could diffuse just about anywhere , but that isn how diffusion usually works . Some places are interested in the innovation ( new thing ) and some are not . The following example takes one narrowly cultural attribute and traces a path to other places . Dancehall , a form of reggae , developed in Jamaica in the late and grew over time to prominence on the island . On of main exports is music and Dancehall became an exported commodity like many other musical forms . In the case of Dancehall , the music is to allow us to see where it has diffused to . Large markets like North America are visible to us and we see Dancehall in some of the music of Drake or , but other places may seem less obvious . In Brazil , artists such as Lai Di Dai has taken the genre and adapted it to local tastes ( which may or may not include changing the language of delivery ) Figure Lai Di Dai from the video for na Author Lai Di Dai Source YouTube License Fair Use Page 71

INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN GEOGRAPHY FOLK CULTURE AND POPULAR CULTURE In Germany , the band has found great success with Dancehall . And in Denmark we artists like . Figure Figure from the live video Live 2013 ( from the video Original Bang Ding Author Author Source YouTube Source YouTube License Fair Use License Fair Use This musical style has moved far beyond its origin . Similar diffusion is found with other musical genres , from the earliest forms of pop music through to the present day . FOLK CULTURE The term folk tends to evoke images of what we perceive to me traditional costumes , dances , and music . It seems that anything with the folk refers to something that somehow belongs in the past and that is relegated to festivals and museums . The word folk can be traced backto Old Norse English Germanic and was used to refer to an army , a clan , or a group of people . Using this historic information , folk culture ( folklore , etc . can be understood as something that is shared among a group of people and then with the more general population . It is a form of . Folk is ultimately tied to an original geographic location as well . Folk cultures are found in small , homogeneous groups . Because of this , folk culture is stable through time , but highly variable across space . Folk customs originate in the distant past and change slowly over time . Folk cultures move across space by relocation diffusion , as groups move they bring their cultural items , as well as their ideas with them . Folk culture is transmitted or diffused in person . Knowledge is transmitted either by speaking to others , or through participating in an activity until it has been mastered . Cooking food is taught by helping others until an individual is ready to start cooking . Building a house is learned through participating in the construction of houses . In all cases , folk cultures must learn to use the resources that are locally available . Over time folk cultures learn functional ways to meet daily needs as well as satisfy desires for meaning and entertainment . Folk cultures produce distinctive ways to address problems . Page 72

INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN GEOGRAPHY FOLK CULTURE AND POPULAR CULTURE Houses tend to be similar within a culture area , since once a functional house type is developed , there is little incentive to experiment with something that may not Work . Food must be grown or gathered locally . People prefer variety , so they produce many crops , plus relying on only a few foods is dangerous . Clothing is made from local wool , hides , or other materials immediately available . Local plants serve as the basis of folk medicinal systems . People are entertained by music that reinforces folk beliefs and mythologies , as well as daily life . or folklore exists as foundational myths , origin stories or cautionary tales . Holidays provide another form of entertainment . Special days break the monotony of daily life . A holiday such as Mardi Gras , which has its roots in the Catholic calendar provides an occasion to cultural norms and relieve tension . Another way of providing escape from monotony is provided by intoxicants . Although often not considered when discussing culture , human beings have been altering their own mental states for millennia . The production of alcohol , cannabis , tobacco or coca demonstrates that folk cultures understood the properties of psychoactive substances . Later these substances would be commercialized into modern products . As folk cultures have receded there has been a return to valuing the folk . The movement and the growth of cultural tourism has largely been driven for the desire experience elements of folk culture . As early as the German Grimm Brothers ( Century Germany ) people have wanted to preserve and promote folk culture . John ( traveled the United States trying to record as many folk songs and folk tales ( including slave narratives ) as they faded from human memory . Folk culture can also be expressed as craftsmanship versus factory work . Hand production of goods requires a great amount of knowledge to select materials , fabricate components , assemble and a product . Contrast this with industrial production in workers need to know very little about the product , and have little relationship with it . This difference in modes of production was discussed by Ferdinand and and . These two words denote the relationship between people and their communities , and by extension , their landscapes . is the way life is lived in a small community . is the way that life is lived in a larger society . THE CHANGING CULTURAL LANDSCAPE It is understood that folk culture has been declining in the face of popular culture for some time . What is driving this decline ?

There are many things , with different underlying processes . Politically , in the last few centuries many places have been incorporated into states . These states have often pursued nationalistic policies that made life difficult for minorities of nearly every variety . The growth of a national culture is the beginning of popular culture . Something as innocuous as public schooling or an official language can serve as a vehicle for Page I 73

INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN GEOGRAPHY FOLK CULTURE AND POPULAR CULTURE promoting national values . Even if there is some overlap between the old culture and the new , the old has been prised loose from its central position in communal life . Economics also plays a role . Small , rural communities have been shrinking globally for centuries , since the beginning of the Industrial revolution . Leaving the spatial of a folk culture makes reproducing that culture very , due to its close connection to place . When people migrate to places practicing popular cultures , the pressure to acculturate and assimilate are tremendous . Changes in infrastructure has also aided the diffusion of popular culture . Roads bring in outside people , as well as reduce the friction of leaving a place . The internet has dramatically reduced the friction of distance regarding the diffusion of popular culture . It took decades for tomatoes to diffuse from the Americas to Italy , but we know about a new iPhone months before it even gets released . The United States is huge laboratory of cultural interchange . Innumerable distinctive folk cultures were already in the Americas when the Europeans arrived . Waves of people from folk cultures arrived for decades , and they changed the larger culture of the United States . Places of folk culture aren the only places that are changing . Many places with an established popular culture are subject to interaction between different pop culture spheres . At one time immigrants to the United States came from folk cultures . Now they are often from areas of popular culture . The world has its own pop music stars , and musicians from different countries will often collaborate together garnering airplay and sales around the world . World regional cuisines are subject to becoming fads as well . POPULAR CULTURE Popular culture is culture that is bought . Think about your daily life . You work to buy food and clothing , pay your rent , and entertain yourself . The origin of each ingredient in your food could be hundreds or even thousands of miles in either direction . Your clothing almost certainly wasn made locally , or even in this country . Your house might look just like any house in any subdivision in North America , placeless and with little connection to local resources . Popular culture is driven by marketing . Entire industries exist to convince us that our desires and needs will be best met through shopping . Why is this ?

Because without sales , the companies that produce pop culture will go bankrupt . Popular culture industries must continuously reinvent themselves . Being popular today is not a guarantee of longevity . In order to convince consumers that last year is now unacceptable , it is necessary to promote fashion . Fashion is not just a concept related to clothing . It is the reason that automobile companies make cosmetic changes to their products every year . It is why fast food restaurants continually change some parts of their menus . Without the cachet of fashion , consumers may feel socially disadvantaged . This explains why some people with very limited incomes will spend money on expensive luxuries . Page I 74

INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN GEOGRAPHY FOLK CULTURE AND POPULAR CULTURE In terms of popular culture holidays are simply reasons to sell merchandise . The commercialization of Christmas has been increasing for over a century in western countries . Now it is possible to see Christmas displays in Japan or China , places with few Christians , but many available consumers . The same sort of marketing can be seen in the expansion of Halloween globally , and in the growth of Cinco de Mayo in the United States . Hierarchical diffusion plays prominently in popular culture diffusion . Larger places tend to generate many of pop culture hit songs , clothing styles , and food trends . Diffusion in popular culture is highly related to technology . Although it wasn invented as such , the internet has become a venue for advertisement . headlines and ad revenue have created an atmosphere where every conversation is a sales pitch . This hierarchical diffusion means that innovations tend to diffuse from large , places to other places , then to smaller and smaller places . The gap in time that it takes for a new idea or product is known as cultural lag . In some places , there is almost no cultural lag . To very remote places , some innovations take a very long time to arrive . Bear in mind that there are places in the United states that still have no internet service . Popular culture covers large populations with access to similar goods and services , but the pressing need to sell drives almost incessant , generally at a level . Because of this we usually describe pop culture as stable across space , but highly variable across time . Figure Fast Food Restaurant Where is this fast food restaurant ?

It could be almost anywhere on Earth . In this case it is in , Sweden . Author Ramirez Source Original Work License BY SA The of folk intoxicants mentioned earlier has had a decided effect on the modern world . Low alcohol beers have a minimal effect on the human body compared to commercial distilled spirits . The opium poppy , dangerous enough in its raw form , can be processed into heroin . The same can be said of coca ( now used to produce cocaine ) or tobacco . In folk form , these substances tended Page I 75

INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN GEOGRAPHY FOLK CULTURE AND POPULAR CULTURE to be used for ritual purposes . In the context of popular culture , they are used in great quantity . Nevertheless , old folk patterns are still visible in the pop culture landscape . Italians still drink wine , a product they have produced for centuries , only now it might be bought from somewhere else . The Russian climate was good for producing grain and potatoes , which eventually was distilled into vodka . Selling culture goes well beyond just food and clothing . Popular music and other forms of entertainment ( video games , movies , etc . are huge commercial entities marketing products well outside their places of origin . Movies made in the United States are often being made with the understanding that their international box sales will be larger than their domestic sales . This is also true of other mass media products . These products are often related to other pop culture products . Companies rely on the familiarity consumers will have with a movie character in order to sell clothing , toys , video games , conventions and more movies in that series . Marshall wrote that The medium is the message he meant that television would be able to sell itself . The same expression could be expanded to pop culture in general . The following graphic shows the top ten music charts for the week of September , 2017 . Look closely at them . US Top Ten Top Ten Attention by Charlie No Roots by Alice There Nothing Me Back by Shawn More Thank You Know by Slow Hands by Niall Feels by Calvin Harris featuring Pharrell Williams , Katy Perry , Big Sean Believer by Imagine Dragons New Rules by Strip That Down by Liam Payne featuring Ok by Robin featuring James Blunt Wild Thoughts by Khaled featuring Tiller Mi Gente by Willy William Look What You Made Me Do by Taylor Swift Look What You Made Me Do by Taylor Swift by Luis Daddy Yankee featuring Justin Bieber by No Promises by Cheat Codes featuring Demi Sign Of The Times by Harry Styles . Feels by Calvin Harris featuring Pharrell Williams , Katy Perry , Big Sean . On My Mind by Disciples gems . Colombia Top Ten India Top Ten A by Mi Gente by Willy William Feels by Calvin Harris featuring Pharrell Williams , Katy Perry , Big Sean Walk on Water by Thirty Seconds to Mars Walk on Water by Thirty Seconds to Mars by La by Cali El Dandee by Luis Daddy Yankee featuring Justin Bieber Vivo En Ti by Felipe by Singh by Valentino , Manuel Attention by Charlie Bonita by Randy by Un Beso by Carlos Vives Sebastian Feels by Calvin Harris featuring Pharrell Williams , Katy Perry , Big Sean Shape of You by Ed Mere by Ali Khan . by Nacho . Dusk Till Dawn by Sia . 10 Mexico Top Ten China Top Ten . El by . A Million On My Soul by . Ready For It ?

by Taylor Swift . Remix ) by Luis Daddy Yankee . Una Lady Como Tu by Manuel . Look What You Made Me Do by Taylor Swift . Mi Gente by Willy William . Feels by Calvin Harris featuring Pharrell Williams , Katy Perry , Big Sean . Look What You Made Me Do by Taylor Swift . Attention by Charlie . Un Beso by Carlos Vives Sebastian . Go Away and Fly by in . los by . Me by Danny Ocean . You Be Love by . Bonita by Randy . Mi Gente by Willy William 10 . VVhat Lovers Do by Maroon featuring . Faded by Alan Walker Shape of You by Ed Figure Top Ten Charts for Select Countries Notice the amount of repetition from one chart to the next ?

Not every chart is a copy of the others , but the similarities certainly bear out the idea of an international music industry . Compiled By David Source Original Work License BY SA Page 76 INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN GEOGRAPHY FOLK CULTURE AND POPULAR CULTURE THE INTERFACE BETWEEN THE LOCAL AND THE GLOBAL The basis of popular culture is commerce . As long as a product can be sold , it can survive in the marketplace . This brings up an interesting process . is the process in which a cultural attribute is changed into a product . Bear in mind that the product may not resemble the original product very much . Using a similar model as , Taco Bell sells ostensibly Mexican products across the world with the notable exception of Mexico . Panda Express is similar for Chinese food . These chains are not in the business of making hamburgers , tacos , or orange chicken . They are in the business of making a . Authenticity is irrelevant , and probably harmful in the drive to sell more . The reverse of this process also applies . One aspect of marketing is the incorporation of global products into the local market . Companies will change their products or their entire product lines , if doing so is and generates a good return on investment . There is even a Central fried chicken chain in the United States . Brands like Sony and are highly visible in the American landscape . bands tour suburban arenas that also host Celine Dion and Paul . GLOBAL CULTURE Globalization is the integration of the entire world into a single economic unit . This is associated with frictionless movement of money , ideas , and ( to a lesser extent ) people . This growing reality has created a newer type of popular culture , global culture . Historically , popular culture was restricted to areas the size of States , or at the very most areas within culturally related spheres ( the world ) United States culture was by a set of characteristics ( language , law , settler colonial history , etc . that translated to a few other places , such as Canada or Australia , but mostly remained place bound . This is no longer the case . As was mentioned previously , video games are designed in one country to appeal to a global market . The same is true of music , movies , clothes , smartphones and productivity software . At a level at least , the components of life are becoming more homogeneous across large parts of the world . National popular culture producers are merging into international producers , and these international producers have global ambitions . Any sizable popular culture content distributor ( EMI Records , Sony , Universal , Time Warner and ) is a transnational corporation . In fact , the listed global record labels account for 90 of global music sales . Starbucks , and others have helped reduce the friction of distance by reducing spatial variation . They aren doing this to help people , or to hurt them . Although they will cater to local needs to some degree , they are not in the business of promoting local . Page I 77

INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN GEOGRAPHY FOLK CULTURE AND POPULAR CULTURE William Gibson wrote The future is already here , it just not evenly In terms of globalization , he was correct . There are still people living in remote areas practicing something similar to a paleolithic lifestyle . On the other end of the scale there are people with great wealth who have access to powerful technologies and are able to live anywhere they desire . Sometimes globalization even has an effect on folk culture . In many places , economic realities have forced people to perform religious activities of relive special events for tourist dollars . Attending in Hawaii or watching in in a quest for authenticity is in itself changing the folk culture that is the center of attention . This assessment may seem particularly bleak for folk culture , but it isn necessarily completely bad . People survive , and they try to keep the practices that are most valuable to their lives . Folk cultures have a much longer timeline than pop cultures , and have proven to be resilient . RESISTANCE TO POPULAR CULTURE Although popular culture has been expanding rapidly at the expense of folk culture , it is not without resistance . Although it is not true , global culture is perceived as largely corporate , secular , and western . Each of these aspects have their own critics . fall into two main groups . The are leftists who oppose the power that has accumulated to corporations and the authoritarian state . The other group are who prefer that power be centered at the state level , and who fear that globalization naturally undermines state sovereignty . In some places , globalization is the same thing as modernization is the same thing as westernization which is perceived as secular ( or even atheistic ) materialistic and corrupt . Movements such as or Islamic State are violently opposed to popular culture , although they would not have a problem if their idea of the ideal culture were to become fully global . Rejecting modern popular culture often also involves elevating a nostalgic , often imaginary golden age as the only acceptable model of society . Many people feel that symbols and representations of popular culture are erasing the very personality of regional cultures . Resistance to popular culture can come in many forms . Let us revisit the concept of fundamental needs , which are universal , and how they vary geographically . Locally sourced food products , customs , and recipes are pitted against global giants that provide inexpensive and easy access to food products . There has been an uprising of businesses , the Slow Food movement , and an emphasis on products . SUMMARY Culture , the learned portion of human behavior is a very broad and very deep topic of human study . Historically humans have lived in small groups practicing Page 78

INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN GEOGRAPHY FOLK CULTURE AND POPULAR CULTURE folk culture . This was particularly true of the cultures the sprang from the diffusion of agriculture . Many of the folk culture attributes date to this time of human development . The industrial age also ushered in the era of popular culture . Pop culture provides the cues that people use to live , work , and interact . Relatively recently has been the rise of global culture , a phenomenon in which large numbers of people in diffuse places are committing the same or similar culture practices . KEY TERMS DEFINED The process of transforming a cultural activity into a saleable product . Cultural ecology Study of human adaptations to physical environments . Cultural Landscape Landscapes produced by the interaction of physical and human inputs . Cultural reproduction The process of cultural values into successive generations . Cultural tourism A variety of tourism concerned with exploring the culture of a place . Culture Learned human behavior associated with groups . Culture Hearth Historic location of cultural formation . Fashion The latest and most socially esteemed style of clothing or other products and behaviors . Folk Culture Culture practiced by a small , homogeneous , usually rural group . AKA Traditional culture . Formal region A region that has boundaries , often a governmental unit such as a country , province , or county . Functional region A region by a relationship , such as the market area of a product , a commuter zone or an employment market . Globalization The global movement of money , technology , and culture . Heterogeneous A population composed of dissimilar people . Homogeneous A population composed of similar people . Material culture The objects and materials related to a particular culture . Perceptual region Internally region that exists as the expression of a cultural type . The state of having no place . In the modern context , a place exactly like any other place . Popular Culture Culture created for consumption by the mass of population . Resistance Actively pursuing a policy of obstruction of a particular process or undertaking . Page I 79

INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN GEOGRAPHY FOLK CULTURE AND POPULAR CULTURE WORKS CONSULTED AND FURTHER READING Black , Jeremy . 2000 . Maps and History Constructing Images of the Past . Yale University Press . Catholic Pilgrimages , Catholic Group Travel Tours By Accessed March 16 , Peter . 2014 . Global Shift Mapping the Changing Contours of the World Economy . SAGE . David . 2018 . Using International Content in an Introductory Human Geography In Curriculum Internationalization and the Future of Education . Marie . 1995 . Television , Ethnicity and Cultural Change . Psychology Press . Gregory , Derek , ed . 2009 . The Dictionary of Human Geography . ed . MA . Lucy . 1996 . Working in the Global Food System A Focus for International Comparative Progress in Human Geography 20 ( doi . org 09125960200010 . Knowles , Anne Kelly , and Amy . 2008 . Placing History How Maps , Spatial Data , and GIS Are Changing Historical Scholarship . Doreen . 1995 . Spatial Divisions of Labor Social Structures and the Geography of Production . Psychology Press . Sidney Wilfred . 1985 . Sweetness and Power The Place in Modern History . Viking . Sorkin , Michael , ed . 1992 . Variations on a Theme Park Michael Sorkin . ed . Macmillan . The Global Music Accessed December 13 , specials 1042 . The Internet Classics Archive On Airs , Waters , and Places by Accessed December 15 , Hippocrates . The Medium Is the 2017 . Wikipedia . medium is the message . Data Source World Borders downloads world Page 80