Anthropology of popular culture
Defining the popular
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BELIEFS AND PRACTICES AND THE OBJECTS
THROUGH WHICH THEY ARE ORGANIZED THAT
ARE WIDELY SHARED AMONG A POPULATION
BELIEFS AND PRACTICES THAT COMPRISE OUR
EVERYDAY LIVED EXPERIENCE
Defining culture?
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Geertz – “culture as... the fabric of meaning in
terms of which humans interpret their experience
and guide their actions... ”
culture is in a constant state of becoming/in-themaking
 unitary
set of rules & meanings continually are in-themaking through oppositions & struggles among groups
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Fox – “culture always is, but it has always just
become so”
Popular culture studies
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Cultural studies
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Production of culture
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Popular culture studies
Issues and debates
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Popular culture both reflects and shapes broader
social forces
Popular culture is about which culture and whose
culture should dominate in society
Social subjects distinguish themselves by the
distinctions they make
Cultural objects are rendered meaningful because
of aesthetic valuation
The circuit of culture
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Cultural meaning making functions less in terms of
transmission flow models from producer to consumer
and more like the model of a dialogue – dialogical
5 cultural processes in the circuit
 Representation,
regulation
identity, production, consumption,
Popular music, for example…
 All
humans are capable of dancing, singing, and
making music
 Performing music is part of the process of knowing and
understanding it (like language)
 Distinctions made between creator, performer, and
listener are the consequence of assigned social roles
 Music making can be assigned almost any social
meaning
 produce feelings – move people
 socially accepted patterns of sounds invented and
developed in interactional settings
Making music
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special kind of symbolic activity
Music is the result of certain attitudes, certain specific
ways of thinking about the world, and about the ways
music can be made
The effectiveness of music depends on peoples
relationships to the organization and perception of
musical symbols
Popular music is a category that can be applied to all
musics
Labels such as folk, art, popular tell us nothing
substantive about styles of music as categories of value
that can be applied to any music