Hindu Sadhu (Holy Man)
Varanasi, India
Insanely “Radical” Scot, with
Kilt and Classic Surfboard

Beijing, China
2004

• Folk Culture – traditionally practiced by a small, homogeneous, rural group living in relative isolation.
• Popular Culture – found in a large, heterogeneous society that shares certain habits despite differences in personal characteristics.
• Material Culture – the physical objects produced by a culture in order to meet its material needs: food, clothing, shelter, arts, and recreation. Carl Sauer
(Berkeley, 1930s – 1970s).

• Custom – frequent repetition of an act until it becomes characteristic of a group of people..
• Taboo – a restriction on behavior imposed by social custom.
• Habit – repetitive act performed by an individual.

Folk Culture – rapidly changing and/or disappearing throughout much of the world.
Portuguese Fishing Boat
Indigenous Woman,
Guatemala
Northern India, 2009
Bhopal, India, 2009

• Stable and close knit
• Usually a rural community
• Tradition controls
• Resistance to change
Brazilian Rainforest, 2011 (click photo!)
• Buildings erected without architect or blueprint using locally available building materials
• anonymous origins, diffuses slowly through migration. Develops over time.
• Clustered distributions: isolation/lack of interaction breed uniqueness and ties to physical environment.

Effects on
Landscape: usually of limited scale and scope.
Agricultural: fields, terraces, grain storage
Dwellings: historically created from local materials: wood, brick, stone, skins; often uniquely and traditionally arranged; always functionally tied to physical environment.

How did such differences develop?
Ecuador, 2006 (click photo for slideshow)

Fig. 4-6: Annual hog production is influenced by religious taboos against pork consumption in Islam and other religions. The highest production is in China, which is largely Buddhist.

North American Folk Culture Regions

Jews – can’t eat animals that chew cud, that have cloven feet; can’t mix meat and milk, or eat fish lacking fins or scales; Muslims – no pork; Hindus – no cows (used for oxen during monsoon)
Washing Cow in Ganges

Clothing: Jeans, for example, and have become valuable status symbols in many regions including Asia and
Russia despite longstanding folk traditions.

differences from place to place uncommon, more likely differences at one place over time.
only small regional variations, more generally there are trends over time
franchises, cargo planes, superhighways and freezer trucks have eliminated much local variation. Limited variations in choice regionally, esp. with alcohol and snacks.
Substantial variations by ethnicity.

World Cell Phone Subscribers
Cartogram, 1990 & 2002
Territory size shows the proportion of all cellular telephone subscriptions found there in 1990 and 2002.
Source: www.worldmapper.org

World Internet Subscribers
Cartogram, 1990 & 2002
Territory size shows the proportion of all Internet users in
1990 and 2002.
Source: www.worldmapper.org

GSM World Cellular Coverage, 2009
Source: GSM Association. 2009.

Television has diffused widely since the 1950s, but some areas still have low numbers of TVs per population.
Much media is still state-controlled.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Ten Most Censored Countries:
1.
North Korea
Myanmar (Burma)
6.
7.
8.
9.
Turkmenistan
Equatorial Guinea
Libya
Eritrea
Cuba
Uzbekistan
Syria
10.
Belarus
Source: The Committee to Protect Journalists.
2009. www.cpj.org.

The Internet is diffusing today, but access varies widely.

The Internet is diffusing today, but access varies widely. Some countries censor the Internet, but this is difficult to do.

Effects on Landscape: creates homogenous, “placeless”
(Relph, 1976), landscape

Complex network of roads and highways

Commercial Structures tend towards ‘boxes’

Dwellings may be aesthetically suggestive of older folk traditions
• Planned and Gated Communities more and more common

Surfing at Disney’s Orlando Typhoon Lagoon
Are places still tied to local landscapes?
Disconnect with landscape: indoor swimming pools? desert surfing?

McDonald’s Restaurant, Venice
Swimming Pool, West
Edmonton Mall, Canada
Dubai’s Indoor Ski Resort

Muslim Women in Traditional Dress at
Indoor Ski Resort

Often Destroys Folk
Culture – or preserves traditions as museum pieces or tourism gimmicks.

Mexican Mariachis;
Polynesian
Navigators; Cruise
Line Simulations

Change in
Traditional Roles and
Values; Polynesian weight problems
Satellite Television, Baja California


U.S., Britain, and Japan dominate worldwide media.

Glorified consumerism, violence, sexuality, and militarism?

U.S. (Networks and CNN) and British
(BBC) news media provide/control the dissemination of information worldwide.

These networks are unlikely to focus or provide third world perspective on issues important in the LDCs.

Accelerated Resource Use in Consumer
Societies:
• Furs: minx, lynx, jaguar, kangaroo, whale, sea otters (18 th
Century Russians) fed early fashion trends.
• Aggressive consumerism evident in most Western Media , including hip hop and rock and roll.
• Inefficient over-consumption of Meats (10:1), Poultry (3:1), even
Fish (fed other fish and chicken) by meat-eating pop cultures

New larger housing desires and associated energy and water use.
Pollution:
• Water treatment and improved public health may come with higher incomes.
• However, increased waste and toxins from fuel use, discarded products, plastics, marketing and packaging materials, etc.


Increased economic opportunity?

Higher standards of living?

Increased consumer choice

More political freedom?

More social freedom?
Shanghai, China, 2003

Beijing, China
Palm Springs, CA

Forbes Hip Hop Cash Kings, 2007

Fiji

Suburban Sprawl, Arizona

• Protests at WTO and G9 meetings
• Al Jazeera
• Indigenous
Peoples in Latin
America
• Chinese government censorship

Source: Wikipedia. 2010. List of countries by intentional homicide rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

• What do the social sciences tell us about what makes people happy?
• How does happiness vary around the world?
• How does happiness change over time within a country?
• Family and Friends, Exercise, Faith
(Sense of Purpose), Extroversion,
Sufficient Employment and
Increasing Income, Flow and
Balance
• Some regions are clearly more happy than others and there are geographic clusters.
• In Japan, China, Australia, and the
U.S. satisfaction has stayed level or decreased as GDP increased for much of recent history.

The 20 happiest nations in the
World:
Subjective well-being in this study was found to be most closely associated with health, followed by wealth and then education.
1. Denmark
2. Switzerland
3. Austria
4. Iceland
5. The Bahamas
6. Finland
7. Sweden
8. Bhutan
9. Brunei
10. Canada
11. Ireland
12. Luxembourg
13. Costa Rica
14. Malta
15. The Netherlands
16. Antigua and Barbuda
17. Malaysia
18. New Zealand
19. Norway
20. The Seychelles
Other notable results include:
23. USA
35. Germany
41. UK
62. France
82. China
90. Japan
125. India
167. Russia
The three least happy countries were:
176. Democratic Republic of the Congo
177. Zimbabwe
178. Burundi
2006. Adrian White, Analytic Social Psychologist at the University of Leicester produces first ever global projection of international differences in subjective well-being; the first ever World Map of
Happiness.

World Values Survey

1. Denmark
2. Finland
3. Netherlands
4. Sweden
5. Ireland
6. Canada
7. Switzerland
8. New Zealand
9. Norway
10. Belgium
-
Based on data from World Values Survey
Question: “Taking all things together, would you say you are?
1 Very happy
2 Rather happy
3 Not very happy
4 Not at all happy”

Based on data from Gallup World Poll, 2006
Question: “Please imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top.
The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?”

“All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days? Using this card on which 1 means you are “completely dissatisfied” and 10 means you are “completely satisfied” where would you put your satisfaction with your life as a whole?”
Completely dissatisfied Completely satisfied
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Based on data from
World Values
Survey
The WVS has shown that from 1981 to 2007 happiness rose in 45 of the 52 countries for which long-term data are available. Since 1981, economic development, democratization, and rising social tolerance have increased the extent to which people perceive that they have free choice, which in turn has led to higher levels of happiness around the world.

3
2.8
2.6
2.4
2.2
3.6
3.4
3.2
2
1985 1990 1995 2000 mean happiness in China, 1990 - 2006
(1= not at all happy, 4=very happy)
2005 2010
Source: Internet appendix to Inglehart, Foa and Welzel,
“Social Change, Freedom and Rising Happiness,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

3.6
3.4
3.2
3
2.8
2.6
2.4
2.2
2
1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 mean happiness in Australia, 1946 - 2006
(1= not at all happy, 4=very happy)
Source: Internet appendix to Inglehart, Foa and Welzel,
“Social Change, Freedom and Rising Happiness,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

3.6
3.4
3.2
3
2.8
2.6
2.4
2.2
2
1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 mean happiness in U.S., 1946 - 1980
(1= not at all happy, 4=very happy)
2
3.6
3.4
3.2
3
2.8
2.6
2.4
2.2
1990 1995 2000 mean happiness in U.S., 1980 - 2006
(1= not at all happy, 4=very happy)
Source: Internet appendix to Inglehart, Foa and Welzel,
“Social Change, Freedom and Rising Happiness.” Accessed in 2010. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology.
2005 2010

HAPPY PLANET INDEX (HPI)
The new HPI results show the extent to which 151 countries across the globe produce long, happy and sustainable lives for the people that live in them. The overall index scores rank countries based on their efficiency, on how many long and happy lives each produces per unit of environmental damage (ecological “footprint”). Thus, high environmental impact countries drop in ranking.
Map showing countries shaded by their position in the Happy Planet Index (2006).
The highest-ranked countries are bright green; the lowest are brown. www.happyplanetindex.org