Folk and Popular CultureTwo Features of Material Culture:

1. Survival activities

-food, clothing, shelter

2. Leisure activities

-arts, recreation

Habit—a repetitive act an individual performs

I.e.—wearing jeans to class everyday

Custom—a repetitive act of a group, performed to the extent that it becomes a characteristic of the group

I.e.—American college students wearing jeans to class every day

Folk and Popular CultureA custom is a habit that a group of people have widely adopted

A collection of customs produces a groups material culture

A custom refers to a specific element of material culture, whereas culture refers to a groups entire collection of customs

Two basic categories of material culture:

1. Folk culture:

-traditionally practiced primarily by small, homogeneous groups living in isolated rural areas

2. Popular culture:

-found in large heterogeneous societies that share certain habits despite differences in other personal characteristics

Folk and Popular Culture*folk culture typically covers smaller scales of territory than

popular culture

Two Focus Points of Geographers On Culture:

1. Each cultural activity has a distinct spatial distribution

2. The relationship between culture and the physical environment

-origin, diffusion, and integration with other social characteristics

Each cultural group takes certain elements from the environment into its culture and creates landscapes

Folk and Popular CultureLandscapes dominated by a collection of folk customs change relatively little over time

Groups develop distinctive customs in a place that is isolated from other groups

-electronic communications systems facilitate frequent changes in popular customs

Folk culture is more likely to vary from place to place at a given time, whereas popular culture is more likely to vary from time to time at a given place

Because of globalization, popular culture is becoming more dominant, which is threatening the survival of unique folk cultures

Folk and Popular Culture4 Key Issues of Folk and Popular Culture:

1. Where do folk and popular cultures originate and diffuse?

2. Why is folk culture clustered?

3. Why is popular culture widely distributed?

4. Why does globalization of popular culture cause problems?

Folk and Popular CultureWhere Do Folk and Popular Cultures Originate and Diffuse?

Social customs originate at a hearth (a center of innovation)

Folk cultures often have anonymous hearths, unknown sources, unidentifiable dates, anonymous originators

-they may also have multiple hearths, in which they developed independently in isolated locations

Popular culture is most often a product of economically more developed countries

-North America, Western Europe, Japan

-includes popular music and fast food as examples

-result of a combination of advancements in industrial technology and increased leisure time

Folk and Popular Culture*leisure time has increased due to a shift from predominant agricultural work to predominantly service and manufacturing

Origin of Folk Music

Music is a good example to show the differences in the origins of folk and popular culture

The earliest known music invented by the Chinese

-according to legend, in the year 2697BC

-Emperor Huang Ti sent Ling Lun to find a piece of bamboo poles that, when blown into, would produce a sound

matching the call of the phoenix bird

Folk and Popular CultureFolk songs usually have been composed anonymously and have been transmitted orally

-they may be modified from one generation to the next

-content usually about events found in daily life familiar to the majority of the people

Folk and Popular CultureCommon Folk Music Themes:

•Daily activities (farming)

•Lifecycle events (birth, death, marriage…)

•Mysterious events (storms, earthquakes…)

Many folk songs provide advice regarding these events

Geographer George Karney recorded the birth places of country musicians and found that there were four separate hearth regions of country music

Southern Appalachia

Central Tennessee and Kentucky

Ozark and Ouachita uplands of western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma

North-central Texas

These independent origins merged together

Folk and Popular CultureOrigins of Popular Music:

Popular music is written by specific individuals for the purpose of being sold to a large number of people

Originated about 1900 in United Kingdom music halls and United States vaudevilles

Folk and Popular CultureTin Pan Alley—a district found in New York City

-created an industry to provide music to music halls and vaudevilles

-named from the sound of pianos

-home to songwriters, music publishers, orchestrators, and arrangers

-originally tried to sell as many printed song sheets as possible

-after World War II, Tin Pan Alley disappeared as recorded music became more important than printed song sheets

Folk and Popular CultureThe diffusion of American popular music worldwide began when the Armed Forces Radio Network broadcast music to American soldiers and citizens of countries where American forces were stationed

-English became the international language for popular music

-many popular musicians around the world perform in English

-few in their home country may be able to understand the lyrics

Folk and Popular CultureHip Hop—originated in South Bronx in late 1970s

-neighborhood quickly changed from mostly middle-class whites of European origin to predominantly poor African Americans and Puerto Ricans

-late 1980s—hip hop spread to Oakland (CA) and Atlanta (GA)

-then spread to other large U.S. cities

Hip hop is a return to a very local form of music expression

-yet, it has dispersed all over the world

Folk and Popular CultureDiffusion of Folk and Popular Culture:

Popular culture typically follows the process of hierarchical diffusion from hearths (nodes)

Examples of popular culture hearths:

•Film industry (Hollywood, CA)

•Advertising agencies (Madison Ave., New York City)

•Popular music (Tin Pan Alley)

Folk culture diffuses from one location to another, more slowly

-primarily spread through migration rather than electronic communication (relocation diffusion)

Hip Hop is now considered popular music because of the way it has diffused

Folk and Popular CultureThe Amish—Relocation Diffusion of Folk Culture

Good example to show relocation diffusion of folk culture

The Amish have their own distinct clothing, farming, religious practices, and other customs

Folk and Popular CultureThe Amish leave unique patterns on the landscape

-they do not use mechanical or electric power

-travel by horse and buggy and use hand tools for farming

Folk and Popular CultureThere are about 70,000 Amish in the U.S. (.03%)

Amish culture is found in 17 different states

Folk and Popular CultureTwo Main Forms of Amish Migration to the U.S.

1. Early 1700s—settled in Pennsylvania

2. Early 1800s—settled in Illinois, Ohio, and Iowa

Both groups were enticed by cheap land

Migrated to other areas where land was inexpensive

Folk and Popular CultureAmish lived in rural and frontier settlements

-retained their traditional customs (isolated)

Amish communities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Iowa are relatively isolated from each other but share distinct cultural traditions

Amish folk culture continues to diffuse slowly

Amish are leaving their oldest and at one time largest community in Lancaster, PA

Folk and Popular CultureMany are migrating to Christian and Todd counties in SW Kentucky

Amish tradition allows every son to be given a farm when he becomes an adult

-land is becoming too expensive in Lancaster, PA

The Amish are selling their land in PA and buying more land in Kentucky to provide adequate land for their families

Folk and Popular CultureSports: Hierarchical Diffusion of Popular Culture

Organized sports provide examples of how popular culture is diffused

-many sports originated as isolated folk customs

-organized sports diffusion displays characteristics of popular culture

Folk and Popular CultureFolk Culture Origin of Soccer

Soccer originated in 11th century England

English workers began kicking around the head of a dead Danish soldier following the Danish invasion of England

“Kick the Dane’s Head” was imitated by boys throughout England

-used an inflated cow bladder for a ball

A large number of people from two villages would gather together

-the winning side was the one that was able to kick the ball to the center of the rival village

The game was later confined to smaller, vacant field areas

Rules became standardized

Folk and Popular CultureIn the year 1154, King Henry II banned the game from England because it disrupted village life

It was legalized again in 1603 by King James I

At this point in time, soccer was an English folk custom

During the 1800s, football clubs were created throughout Britain

Warrenby Wednesdays Football Team taken about 1890/95

Folk and Popular CultureThese clubs gave factory workers organized recreation during their leisure time

More leisure time for the British allowed more people to participate in these club sports (demographic transition, Guns, Germs, and Steel)

Higher incomes allowed spectators to pay to see first-class sporting events

Players became ‘professional’ and began to get paid to play

1863—British football clubs formed an association

This marks the transition of football from folk to popular culture

Folk and Popular Culture“Association football” was shortened to “assoc” and later changed to “soc-ker”

This activity was different from rugby football

-rugby was created in 1823 when a football player from Rugby College picked up and ran with the ball

Folk and Popular CultureSoccer diffused throughout Europe during the late 1800s

-1870s: game first played in continental Europe by Dutch students who had been in Britain

-1893: game first played in Bilbao, Spain by English engineers

-the game spread worldwide throughout the British Empire

-1887: an English factory manager in Moscow organized a team

-after the Russian Revolution in 1917, this team became known as the Soviet Electronic Trade Union

-became the Moscow Dynamo

Folk and Popular Culture1869: Princeton and Rutgers played the first soccer game in the U.S.

Rutgers defeated Princeton 6 goals to 4In 1873, college reps met to adopt rules

Harvard successfully argued for rugby rules

The colleges also modified these rules

The result was an entirely new game, which became American football

American football has diffused to Canada, Australia, and Ireland