Culture:Folk vs Popular, Language, Religion

Culture• shared set of values and meanings practiced in everyday shared set of values and meanings practiced in everyday

lifelife

• displays a social structure – a framework of roles and interrelationships of individuals and established groups.

• transmitted within a society by imitation, instruction, and example (it is learned, not biological).

• Cultural GeographyCultural Geography looks at looks at-how place shapes culture.-how place shapes culture.-how culture shapes place.-how culture shapes place.-how places acquire meaning-how places acquire meaning

CULTURAL IDENTITIESCULTURAL IDENTITIES• LanguageLanguage• RaceRace• ReligionReligion• SubcultureSubculture• EthnicityEthnicity• RegionRegion

Roots of Culture

• End of Ice Age - ~11,000 years ago – plant, animal, and human populations began to spread since they had more availability of land. Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) marks this period – small scattered groups began to develop regional variations. All were hunter-gatherers, tools and traits were indicative of their environment.

Cultural divergence

• Following end of Ice Age, cultures went through periods of cultural evolution from hunt/gather, through development of agriculture and animal domestication (husbandry), to eventually urbanization and industrialization in modern times. Since not all cultures passed through all stages at the same time, or even at all, this divergence became evident

Cultural Hearths • - centers of innovation and invention from which key culture

traits and elements moved to influence surrounding regions.

• Multilinear evolution – each major environmental zone (arid, high altitude, midlatitude steppe, etc) tended to induce common adaptive traits in the cultures of those who exploit it. Idea developed by Julian Steward, anthropologist (1902-72) to explain the common characteristics around the world. Similar traits did not always mean identical traits

• Cultural convergence - sharing of technologies, organizational structures, and cultural traits and artifacts that is evident among widely separated societies in modern world.

Culture is a web of behaviors and attitudes

• habit – action by single person • custom – action by many over time• culture traits – units of learned behavior ranging

from the language spoken to the tools used or the games played.

– object (fishhook)– technique (weaving and knitting of a fishnet) – belief (in the spirits resident in water bodies)– attitude (a conviction that fish is superior to other animal

protein) They are the most basic expressions of culture (building

blocks)

• Culture complex – individual cultural traits that are functionally interrelated.

– keeping cattle was a trait of the Masai of Kenya and Tanzania

• related traits include, measurement of personal wealth by the number of cattle owned, a diet containing milk and the blood of cattle, and disdain for labor not related to herding.

• Cultural systems – grouping of complexes together that have traits in common. Ethnicity, language, religion, define a cultural system

Structure of Culture

• 3 subsystems of culture devised by anthropologists (White and Huxley)

• Mentifacts: Ideological Subsystem – consists of the ideas, beliefs, and knowledge of a culture and of the ways in which these things are expressed in speech or other forms of communication.

– (Myths, theologies, legend, literature, philosophy, folk wisdom).

– These are passed on from generations as mentifacts, or abstract belief systems (or world view),

• tell us what we should believe, value, and how we ought to act. (Language and religion)

• Artifacts: Technological subsystem – composed of the material objects, together with the techniques of their use, by means of which people are able to live. The objects are tools and other instruments that enable people to feed, clothe, house, defend, transport, and amuse ourselves. These basic needs are artifacts aka things people make.

• Sociofacts: Sociological subsystem – sum of those expected and accepted patterns of interpersonal relations that find their outlet in economic, political, military, religious, kinship, and other associations. These are the sociofacts that define the social organization of a culture aka social structures.

Material vs. Non-material Culture• Material culture is made of artifacts (tangible things) and Non-material culture is made up of mentifacts and sociofacts

– a dwelling is an artifact, providing shelter for its occupants. It can also be a sociofact reflecting the nature of the family or kinship group and a mentifact summarizing a culture group’s convictions about appropriate design, orientation, and building materials.

• When cultures change, first thing to go is artifact, then sociofact, then mentifact (ex. Europeans visiting New World – natives give beads, etc)

• Nothing in culture stands totally alone, so when changes occur in the ideas that a society holds, it may affect the sociological and technological systems just as changes in technology force adjustments in the social system. This interlocking nature of all aspects of culture is known as cultural integration.

Cultural Landscape• (Carl Sauer) – a characteristic and tangible outcome of

the complex interactions between a human group and a natural environment

Sauer’s Cultural Landscape Theory

Cultureis the “agent”

Natural areais the “medium”

Cultural landscape is the “result”

How cultureshapes land

French “long lots”system

English grid system

Masai Village, Kenya

Ordinary (Vernacular) Landscapes

Symbolic Landscapes

FOLK CULTURE

•Small homogeneous groups living in isolated rural areas

•Culture derived from local, natural elements

Folk Customs

• Create “material culture”

• Usually agrarian or rural

• Highly regionalized• Adapted to local

conditions• Example: haystackers

Folk Housing

• Constructed of local materials• Adapted to local environmental conditions• Built by hand• Most recognizable by floorplan• Other elements to notice

– Gable position– Chimney position– Roof type– Decorative elements

Folk Housing and LOCAL MATERIALS

Shotgun House

• Common in the American South• Associated with African-Americans and

plantations• Probably derives from Haiti• Design

– Gable front

– Row of rooms extending back from street

• Named because one could fire a shotgun in the front and hit all rooms

Shotgun houses in the South today

FOLK HOUSING STYLESof the Northeastern US

• Cape Cod style house• Salt Box house• Double pile (two

chimney) house• New England “Yankee”

Large House• Front gable and wing

house

MAJOR TYPES

CAPE COD HOUSE

• One and a half stories• Gable to the side• Central chimney

SALT BOX HOUSE

• Gable to side

• 2 ½ stories on street

• 1 ½ stories added behind

DOUBLE-PILE HOUSEor TWO-CHIMNEY HOUSE

• 2 stories tall• 4 rooms on each

floor• Each floor’s ceiling

is same height• Gable to the sides• Chimneys on both

gable ends

YANKEE “LARGE” HOUSEor NEW ENGLAND LARGE

• Two and a half stories

• Two rooms deep

• Gable to side

• Central chimneyJohn Johnson House – from Joseph Smith’s history

FRONT GABLE and WING

• L-shaped floorplan• 1 or 2-story home with

gable to front• Single story wing

extends with gable to side

FOLK CULTURE IN THE US

• No true folk culture still exists in the US

• Folk traditions are practiced only by individuals (mainly as hobbies)

• HOWEVER, regions with some distinctive folk traditions can still be identified

FOLK REGIONS in the US

Cultural RegionAreas in which a particular

cultural system prevails

Dominant cultural practices, beliefs, values

Culture region

• a portion of the earth’s surface occupied by populations sharing recognizable and distinctive cultural characteristics.

– cultural characteristics – political organization, religions, economic form, clothing worn, eating utensils, etc

• Culture traits have an areal extent – can be plotted on maps to show spatial distribution, thus creating culture regions.

Culture realm

• – a set of culture regions showing related culture complexes and landscapes are grouped to form culture realm.

– Transition zones mark their contacts and they change over time

– World Realms – European (Europe), Slavic (Russia), Anglo-America (North America), Latin America (two distinct realms according to some geographers – Middle and South), Islamic (North Africa/SW Asia), Sub-saharan Africa, Indic (South Asia – focused on India), Sino-Japanese (East Asia or Jakota Triangle), Southeast Asia, Austral European (Austral realm), Insular Oceanic (Pacific realm)

Global Culture Realms

Cultural Change (induced by innovation, diffusion, and acculturation)

• – • Innovation – changes to a culture that result from ideas

created within the social group itself and adopted by the culture.

• Primitive and traditional societies are not innovative because they are usually at equilibrium with their environment.

• All societies have a resistance to change, but when a group is inappropriately unresponsive (mentally, physically, economically) to changing circumstances and to innovation, it is said to have cultural lag

Diffusion • Relocation – innovation or idea physically carried to new location by migrant or population that possesses it.

• Expansion – spread of an item or idea from one place to others,

and in the process, the thing that diffuses, remains, and is sometimes intensified in the area.

• Contagious – when expansion diffusion affects nearly uniformly all individuals and areas outward from the source region (direct contact).

• Hierarchical – transferring ideas first between larger places or prominent people then smaller places or less important people.

• Stimulus – spread of an underlying principle, even though a characteristic itself apparently fails to diffuse. It is not always possible to determine point of origin or the routes of diffusion, and it is difficult to tell if a trait in two distinct areas is the result of diffusion or independent (or parallel) invention.

Diffusion

Types of Cultural Diffusion

Cultural Diffusion

• Pop culture diffuses through hierarchical diffusion from nodes of innovation

• Folk culture diffuses through relocation diffusion (migration)

• Acculturation – a culture group goes through changes by adopting some or all of the characteristics of another, dominant culture group.

• Transculuration – equal exchange of traits or influence between two culture groups which are equal in numbers, strength, and complexity

Diffusion barriers

• any conditions that hinder either the flow of information or the movement of people and thus prevent the acceptance of an innovation. (distance decay, distance friction)

• Absorbing barrier – halting the spread (example is distance),

• interrupting barriers – delaying or deflecting the path of diffusion( example is physical earth), permeable barriers – most barriers, they permit passage of at least some innovations.

• Diffused ideas or artifacts usually go through some form of alteration of meaning or form to make them acceptable to the borrowing group, this process is called syncretism.

SUBCULTURES Punk

SUBCULTURES Rap

Spatial Diffusion of Rap:contagious? relocation? hierarchical?

“New” Cultural Geography

Culture is sociallyconstructed

Culture is an arenafor economicand politicalpower

Landscapes (and maps)are “texts” that canbe read to exposepower relationsBrazilian “favela”

(slum)

GLOBALIZATIONAND CULTURE

Globalization changing,shaping local cultures

But local cultures also changing, shapingglobalization

Folk vs. Popular CultureSlow vs. Fast World

Slow vs Fast Worlds

• Fast: people, regions directly involved as producers, consumers in transnational, modern industry, news, entertainment, etc.

• Slow: (85%) limited participation . Periphery, rural areas, slums, etc. bypassed by modern world-systems.

=>Increasing division between slow and fast worlds

Non-Western vs. Western World Views

• Group cooperation• Achievement as it reflects

group• Harmony with nature• Time is relative• Accept affective

expression• Extended family• Holistic thinking • Religion permeates

culture• Accept world views of

other cultures• Socially oriented

• Individual competition• Achievement for

individual• Master and control nature• Adhere to rigid time• Limit affective expression• Nuclear family• Dualistic thinking• Religion distinct from

other parts of culture• Feel their world view is

superior• Task oriented

Jihad vs McWorld

• According to Benjamin Barber… • McWorld: pop culture, shallow materialism,

Western, Capitalist, modernization• Jihad: values underpinned by religious

fundamentalism, traditional tribal allegiances, opposition to Western materialism

• Modernization is understood as Westernization (Americanization)

Jihad vs McWorld

Pilgrims at Mecca KFC…

A Global Cuisine…

                                        

          

   

McNifficaArgentinaMcKroket

Netherlands

McNifficaChile

McRyeFinland

Teriyaki McBurgerJapan

Bulgogi BurgerKorea

Tukbul BurgerKorea

VegiMacSwitzerland

KofteBurgerTurkey

Bacon RollUnited Kingdom

Red Bean SundayHong Kong

McFlurryBelgium

Shake Shake FriesHong Kong

Curry Potato PieHong Kong

BicaPortugal

Dining Habits around the globe

• SF Gate: Multimedia (image)

MATERIAL WORLD

In the early 1990s, after hearing a story about "Material Girl" Madonna's latest self-promotional enterprise, photojournalist Peter Menzel had a vision: Rather than take viewers into the mansions of the rich or the "cribs" of MTV celebrities, he wanted to capture the material life of average families around the globe. His resulting book, Material World, offers extraordinary images of families in front of their dwellings with all (or nearly all) of their possessions. Experts at the United Nations and World Bank helped determine the criteria for average families according to location (urban, rural, suburban, small town, or village), type of dwelling, family size, annual income, occupation, and religion. Here, we present five of the photographs Menzel and his team produced, along with updated statistical data for each country.

CHINA

CHINA: The Wu Family

The nine members of this extended family—father Wu Ba Jiu (59), mother Guo Yu Xian (57), their sons, daughters-in-law, and three grandchildren—live in a three-bedroom, 600-square-foot dwelling in rural Yunnan Province. While they have no telephone, they get news and images of a wider world through two radios and the family's most prized possession, a television. In the future, they hope to get one with a 30-inch screen as well as a VCR, a refrigerator, and drugs to combat diseases in the carp they raise in their ponds. Not included in the photo are their 100 mandarin trees, vegetable patch, and three pigs.

INDIA

INDIA: The Yadev Family

At age 25, Mashre Yadev is already mother to four children, the oldest of whom was born when she was 17. Each morning at their home in rural Uttar Pradesh, she draws water from a well so that her older children can wash before school. She cooks over a wood fire in a windowless, six-by-nine-foot kitchen, and such labor-intensive domestic work keeps her busy from dawn to dusk. Her husband Bachau, 32, works roughly 56 hours a week, when he can find work. In rough times, family members have gone more than two weeks with little food. Everything they own—including two beds, three bags of rice, a broken bicycle, and their most cherished belonging, a print of Hindu gods—appears in this photograph.

JAPAN

JAPAN: The Ukita Family

Like many Japanese women, 43-year-old Sayo Ukita had children relatively late in life. Her youngest daughter is now in kindergarten, not yet burdened by the pressures of exams and Saturday "cram school" that face her nine-year-old sister. Sayo is supremely well-organized, which helps her manage the busy schedules of her children and maintain order in their 1,421-square-foot Tokyo home stuffed with clothes, appliances, and an abundance of toys for both her daughters and dog. She and her husband Kazuo, 45, have all the electronic and gas-powered conveniences of modern life, but their most cherished possessions are a ring and heirloom pottery. The family's wish for the future: a larger house with more storage space.

MALI

MALI: The Natomo Family

It is not unusual in this West African country for men to have two wives, as 39-year-old Soumana Natomo does. More wives mean more progeny—and a greater chance you will be supported in old age. Soumana now has eight children, and his wives, Pama Kondo (28) and Fatouma Niangani Toure (26), will likely have more. How many of these children will survive, though, is uncertain: Mali's infant mortality rate ranks among the ten highest in the world. Some of the family's possessions are not included in this photo—another mortar and pestle for pounding grain, two wooden mattress platforms, 30 mango trees, and old radio batteries that the children use as toys. (Note: The Natomos appear on the adobe roof of their house in Kouakourou. An infant son is nestled in his mother's arms. One daughter is absent.)

UNITED STATES

USA: The Skeen Family

Rick and Pattie Skeen's 1,600-square-foot house lies on a cul-de-sac in Pearland, Texas, a suburb of Houston. The fire hydrant in this photo is real, but not working—a souvenir from Rick's days as a firefighter. Rick, 36, now splices cables for a phone company. Pattie, 34, teaches school at a Christian academy. To get the picture, photographers hoisted the family up in a cherry picker. Yet the image still leaves out a refrigerator-freezer, camcorder, woodworking tools, computer, glass butterfly collection, trampoline, fishing equipment, and the rifles Rick uses for deer hunting, among other things. Though rich with possessions, nothing is as important to the Skeens as their Bible. For this devoutly Baptist family, like many families around the world, it is a spiritual—rather than material—life that matters most.

Number of Films Produced

Films Imported

Televisions per 1,000 Inhabitants (1970)

Televisions Per 1,000 Inhabitants (2001)

Language

Atocha train station, Madrid- messages of peace in memoriam of those killed in the train bombings in 2004

Freezing Eskimos Have 47 Words for “This Sucks”

• Um-waka-waka, Canada – A group of Harvard linguists studying the Eskimos of northern Canada have discovered that in addition to 34 words for snow, the arctic culture has over 47 words meaning “this sucks.”

• Dr. Trisha Dean, who led the team said, “Language, like other social constructs, is environmentally influenced. For instance, there are ten Russian words for ‘starving’ and twelve for ‘mono-brow’. Naturally, the vocabulary of the Inuits reflects that living on frigid, barren glaciers and eating only fish heads for generations after generation is very sucky.”

• She maintains that the many words allow the Inuits to convey rich nuances of suckiness that go unnoticed by English-speakers. Said Dean, “If an American woke up smelling like rotten tuna, he would say ‘this sucks’, the same thing he would say if he smelled like rotten herring instead. However, an Eskimo would say massak about a tuna-stench, while the latter would require the harsher aput.”

Dr. Dean supplied this list of common Eskimo words for suck and their English translations:

• Tingenek This sucks.• Massalerauvok Long ago, my son, it

did not suck, but that’s not really true at

this time.• Mauja For many moons, it has

sucked. Now it is no different.• Akkilokipok It is as if the great-snow tiger of

suckiness has raped my sister.

Over 6,000 Living Languages

Approximately 50% of the world’s people speak Chinese,

English, Spanish,Russian, Hindi, or Arabic

Many smaller languages endangered

Language Family

Ancient commonorigin, split into:

Languagebranches

Languages

RegionalDialects/accents

Major world language families

Indo-European AustronesianSino-Tibetan Niger-Congo Afro-Asiatic Uralic, Altaic, others

Language Families in Africa

Indo-European language family branches

Multiple tongues:Indo-IranianRomantic (Italic)GermanicBalticSlavicCeltic

Unique:AlbanianArmenianGreek

Indo-European Language Family(Kurgan Hearth Theory of diffusion)

Indo-European Language Family(Anatolian Hearth Theory of diffusion)

Indo-European Family of Languages

Romantic Branch of Indo-European Language Family

Germanic Branch of Indo-European

Language Family

Indo-European Language Tree

night

ночь (noch')

noche nuit nótt

natt

noitenox

Nacht nacht

noapte

nocnatë

naktis

νύκτα (nykta)

Finnish (Uralic): yöTurkish (Altaic): gece

raath

Indo-European Language Tree

month

myesyats

mese mois

mahina

månad

mêsmis

Monat maand

mâh

miesiacmuaj

menuo

minas

Finnish (Uralic): kuuTurkish (Altaic): ay

Official languages

Official language not always spoken by all

Official Languages

Lingua franca

A language used informallyfor communication

in a multiethnic place

Often a formercolonial language

English-Speaking Countries

English-Speaking Populations

PopulationsGoogle site languages

English asan official language?

What is English, anyway?

• Bizarre• Chocolate• Hurricane• Petunia• Assassin• Barbecue• Chipmunk• Ammonia• Banjo• Tundra

WHAT DO THE WORDSIN THE LIST HAVE IN COMMON?

What is English, anyway?

• Bizarre (Basque for beard)• Chocolate (Nahuatl, the Aztec language)• Hurricane (Taino, a Caribbean language)• Petunia (Tupi, Peruvian Indian)• Assassin (Arabic, from hashish smokers)• Barbecue (Carib, a Caribbean language)• Chipmunk (Cree, Native American)• Ammonia (Ancient Egyptian for camel dung)• Banjo (Kimbundu in Northern Angola)• Tundra (Saami, formerly called Lapps)

Local Place Names

• Mt. Diablo

• Tiburon

• Las Lomas

• Tahoe

• Devil Mtn

• Shark

• The hills

• Washoe for Big Water

DIALECT(regional differences within a language)

U.S. regional dialects

Urban Dialects in North American English

2. What is this?

3. What is in these cans?

Is it Soda, Pop or Coke ?

Wisconsin Dialect• BUBBLER: “I gotta get me a drink, once. Where's da

bubbler?”• COMEER ONCE "Comeer once and help me lift dis

half-barrel.”• COUPLE-TWO-TREE: more than one; as in “Delmer

and I drank a couple-two-tree beers.”• STOP-AND-GO LIGHTS: “dese lights aren't just stop

lights. Dey tell ya when to go, too, aina?” • YAH-HEY: affirmative, “Koops makes good custard,

hey?” “Yah, hey!”• YEW-BETCHA: affirmative; also you’re welcome, as

in “Thanks for the lift.” “Yew betcha!”

Aussie

Yeggo ninter tan? Alas yatta gepme some ex and rise-up-lides. I’ll be with ya in a garbler mince whenna see emeny I want. Garment see me anile seaward icon do about the dough.

Fune Marvered like tucker mofer wah neefnink we’d laughter seayuz. Butter dunnif wickairn. Altarpants on Marv. Ee sconofer seesoon enya nairtiz snore flotta doota git ready.

Sarn’s calmer nairt. Scona beer gloria sty. Mine jute still scold zephyr. Cheetwas scold la snite. Weller corset saul-wye-school linnermore ninx. Buttered swarm nuddite-time. Spewffle climb a treely.

Scripts (alphabets)Not same as spoken language.

Script families have close relationship to religion:

Roman Western ChristianCyrillic Orthodox ChristianArabic IslamIndian Hinduism/BuddhismChinese East Asian religionsIndependent scripts:

Japanese, Greek, Armenian, Korean, etc.

= Croatian (Roman)

Non-Roman Scripts

Scripts of the Eastern Hemisphere

Religion– Universalizing religion – religion that attempts to

appeal to all people – also called global or universal

– Ethnic – faiths that dominate a single national culture – also called cultural or regional

– Traditional – also referred to as local or tribal religions

• Found in Africa, South America, interior areas of South East Asia, New Guinea, and North Australia – very limited extent

– Secularism – indifference to or rejection of religious ideas in the modern world

Religious Divisions– Religion- system of formal and uniform worship and faith– Branch – large fundamental division within a religion

• Christian– Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox

• Islam– Sunni and Shiite/ Shia

• Buddhism – – Mahayana, Theravada, and Tantrayana

– Denomination – a division of a branch that united a number of local congregations in a single legal and administrative body

• Christianity– Protestants

» Baptists» Methodists» Pentecostal» Lutheran» Mormon

– Sect – Small group that has broken away from an established denomination

WORLD RELIGIONS

Religions today

Religions today

Diffusion of Christianity in the Roman Empire

First Schism: Western (Catholic) vs. Eastern (Orthodox)

Second Schism: Catholic vs, Protestant

Christianity in Europe Today

Christianity in the U.S. Today

Religions in the U.S. Today

ProtestantChristians100 mil.+

CatholicChristians60 mil.+

Muslims 4 mil.Jews 6 mil.OrthodoxChristian 6 mil.

Origin of Islam: Mecca (Saudi Arabia)

Diffusion of Islamic (Muslim) religion

Spatial Diffusion of Islam:contagious? relocation? hierarchical?

Areas under Muslim rule at certain times

Pecs church(former mosque)

Sunni and Shi‘a Muslim Regions Today

Most Muslims are not Arabs. Many Arabs are not Muslim.

Arabic

Berber

Hamitic

Persian

Kurdish

Turkish (Western)

Turkish (Eastern)

Baluch

Caucasian

Greek

HebrewEthnolinguistic Groups of the Middle East

Diverse languages in the Middle East

Muslims in the U.S. Today

AltoonaMosque(formerchurch)

IranianCurrency

• Farsi (Persian), in

Indo-European

language family

• But uses Arabic script

Turkishcurrency

Arabic script

until 1928

• Converted to Roman

• Some former Soviet Muslim states have also converted

Soviet Currency (Russian in Cyrillic script)

Indian Currency(Hindi, other languages mainly in Indian scripts)