What is Culture?
Part II
Problems with the Globalization of Culture
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
Problems with the Globalization of
Popular Culture
Western Media Imperialism?
 U.S., Britain, and Japan dominate worldwide
media.
 Glorified consumerism, violence, sexuality, and
militarism?
 U.S. (Networks, FoxNews, 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.
Environmental Problems with
Cultural Globalization
Accelerated Resource Use through Accelerated
Consumption
• Furs: minx, lynx, jaguar, kangaroo, whale, sea otters (18th
Century Russians) fed early fashion trends
• Inefficient over-consumption of Meats (10:1), Poultry (3:1),
even Fish (fed other fish and chicken) by meat-eating pop
cultures
 Mineral Extraction for Machines, Plastics and Fuel
 New Housing and associated energy and water use.
 Golf courses use valuable water and destroy habitat
worldwide.
Pollution: waste from fuel generation and discarded products,
plastics, marketing and packaging materials
“They’re growing houses in the fields between the towns.”
- John Gorka, Folk Singer
Beijing, China
Palm Springs, CA
Fiji
Marlboro Man in Egypt
How do cultural
traits diffuse?
Hearth: the point of
origin of a cultural trait.
Contagious diffusion
Hierarchical diffusion
How are Local Cultures
Sustained?
Local cultures are sustained by maintaining
customs.
Custom:
a practice
that a group
of people
routinely
follows.
Material and Nonmaterial Culture
Material Culture
Nonmaterial Culture
The things a group of people
construct, such as art,
houses, clothing, sports,
dance, and food.
The beliefs, practices,
aesthetics, and values of a
group of people.
Little Sweden, USA (Lindsborg, Kansas): Is the Swedish Dala horse part of
material or nonmaterial culture?
What do local cultures do to
maintain their customs in a
globalized world?
Local Cultures often have two goals:
1.
keeping other cultures out.
(ie. create a boundary around itself)
2.
keeping their own culture in.
(ie. avoid cultural appropriation)
What role does place play in maintaining
customs?
By defining a place (a town or a neighborhood)
or a space for a short amount of time (an
annual festival) as representing a culture and
its values, members of a local culture can
maintain (or reestablish) its customs and
reinforce its beliefs.
Rural Local Cultures
• Migration into rural areas is less frequent.
• Can better separate their culture from others
and from popular culture.
• Can define their own space.
• Daily life my be defined by a shared economic
activity.
Makah (Neah Bay, Washington)
Why did the Makah reinstate the whale hunt?
Makah (Neah Bay, Washington)
Why did the Makah reinstate the whale hunt?
To reinvigorate the local culture.
Little Sweden, USA (Lindsborg, KS)
Why did the residents of Lindsborg define it as a
Swedish place?
Little Sweden, USA (Lindsborg, KS)
Why did the residents of Lindsborg define it as a
Swedish place?
neolocalism: seeking out
the regional culture and
reinvigorating it in
response to the
uncertainty of the
modern world.
Helen, GA (Alpine Village)
Urban Local Cultures
• Can create ethnic neighborhoods within cities.
• Creates a space to practice customs.
• Can cluster businesses, houses of worship,
schools to support local culture.
• Migration into ethnic neighborhoods can quickly
change an ethnic neighborhood.
For example:
Williamsburg, NY, North End (Boston), MA
Runners of the NYC Marathon run through Williamsburg, (Brooklyn), NY
Hasidic Jewish Neighborhood
Commodification
How are aspects of local culture (material, nonmaterial, place) commodified?
what is commodified?
who commodifies it?
Sun City, South Africa
Authenticity
Claims of authenticity abound – how do
consumers determine what experience/place
is “authentic” and what is not?
What are Cultural Hearths
• Ancient Hearths (locations – source of civilization)
• Hydraulic Civilization Theory (cities able to
control irrigated farming over large hinterlands,
held political power over other cities)
• Modern Hearths (locations) – Eastern
Megalopolis in the United States
How are hearths of
popular culture traits established?
• Typically begins with an idea/good and
contagious diffusion.
• Companies (MTV) and Individuals (Tony Hawk)
can create/manufacture popular culture.
• Hierarchical diffusion: fax machines on a
farm/industrial revolution
• Relocation diffusion: British prisoners to Australia
The hearth of Phish concerts is in the northeastern
United States, near where the band began in Vermont.
With Distance Decay, the
likelihood of diffusion decreases
as time and distance from the
hearth increases.
With Time-Space Compression,
the likelihood of diffusion
depends upon the
connectedness among places.
Which applies more to popular
culture? Time-Space Compression
Factors that Affect Diffusion
• Distance
• Population Density
• Means of Communication
• Nature of the Innovation
• Prestige of the Node
Culture Change and Convergence
• Acculturation -process whereby one culture is substantially
changed through the interaction of another culture
• Assimilation -process where two or more cultures fuse, but
not necessarily cultural characteristics
• Transculturation -changes that occur from the interaction of
cultures that is equal
• Migrant Diffusion -by the time the new ideas and inventions
reach a place, they have faded away at their point of origin
• Ethnocentrism -tendency to evaluate other cultures against
the standards of one’s own
Why are popular culture
traits usually diffused
hierarchically?
How is fashion in popular
culture an example of
hierarchical diffusion?
The “Irish” Pub