Chapter 4: folk and popular culture

Case study:

Aborigines from Australia visited the Lincoln center in new York and danced/performed.

• "Aborigine" means indigenous or autochthonous- native to a particular place
  
• These aborigines and their dances represented folk culture while the Lincoln center reflects pop culture
  

Culture-the body of customary beliefs, material traits, and social forms that together constitute the distinct tradition of a group of people

What people care about

• Ie: customary ideas, beliefs and values.
  

What people take care of

• Ie: food, clothing, shelter, and other material wealth
  

Culture is distinguished by…

• Habit- a repetitive act that a particular individual performs
  
• Custom- a repetitive act of a group performed to the extent that it becomes characteristic of the group.
  
  • A collection of social customs produces a groups material customs
    

There are two types of material culture

• Folk cultureà Practiced by a small, homogenous, groups living in isolated, rural areas. The scale of territories is small.
  
  • Ie: in Malaysia, they wear a sarong and in india, they wear a sari
    
• Pop cultureà found in large heterogeneous societies that share certain habits despite differences in other personal characteristics. The scale of territories is large.
  
  • Ie: mcdonalds.
    

Cultural geography and anthropology

Anthropology- the scientific study of the origin and of the physical, social, and cultural development and behavior of mankind.

Origins of folk and popular culture

    Folk customs generally have anonymous hearths

    Most popular customs come from hearths in north America, western Europe, and japan.

• Ie: Popular music and fast food
  
• Popular customs arise from advances in technology and increased leisure time
  

Industrial technology allows people to produce large quantities of uniform objects

Origins of folk music

    Most folk music is composed anonymously and is transmitted orally

Most songs based on daily activities (ie farming) or Life-cycle events(ie: births and deaths) or mysterious events (weather)

Sometimes folk music has multiple hearths

George Carney- the geographer who identified four major country music hearths in the US

1. Southern appalachia
   
2. Central Tennessee and Kentucky
   
3. Ozark and Ouachita uplands of Arkansas
   
4. Eastern Oklahoma and north central texas
   

• Nashville is the relative center of all of these hearths
  

Popular music is written by specific individuals for the purpose of being sold to large audiences

In the US, modern pop music started in Tin Pan Alley. They wrote for music halls (England) as well as for vaudeville (US)

    English is the universal language of pop music

Diffusion of folk popular cultures

    Folk culture diffuses slowly on a small scale from one location to another

• Folk culture spreads through migration, aka relocation diffusion
  
  • Ie: the amish in the US
    

Popular culture diffuses quickly on a large scale from prominent nodes of innovation

• Popular culture spreads through expansion diffusion, aka hierarchical
  

 

Essay possibility 1: Diffusion of Soccer

Soccer called 'football' outside US

Folk culture originated in the 11^th century in England when british soldiers found a dane's head and was copied by a little boy who used an inflated cow's bladder instead of a head

• "kick the dane's head"
  

Rules were standardized in the 12^th century

Henry II said that soccer disrupted village life and banned it.

King james I brought the sport back in 1603 but it was still a folk custom

    Globalization of soccer into pop culture

• Foot ball clubs were formed in the 1800s and professional leagues formed in 1863. this marked a transition into popular culture
  
  • more leisure time for spectators and participants
    
  • football association, the overall rule-making body, was formed with the professional league
    

they called it "association football"à assoc à soccer

• this distinguished it from rugby football
  

eventually soccer diffused from England à Europe à world via the british empire

• and the 20^th century radio and television increased the popularity of the sport
  

not as popular in the US

1^st college game was Princeton vs Rutgers

1873 all the colleges that were playing soccer, got together to do some rule changes and Harvard moved to drop soccer at that time and make some adjustnments to rugby instead. That became American football.

Pele was a Brazilian player who lead his team to win 3 world cup competitions.

David beckham- UK

The world cup

• happens every 4 years
  
• has a tv audience of over 2 billion, more than any other sporting event in history
  

 

End EP 2

 

More soccer

    Success of US Women's soccer

• has won the world cup and the Olympics
  
• title IX has evened the playing field for both men and women in sports
  

Thug problems in Britain

• the football war- 1969 between Honduras and El Salvador
  
• in Colombia, when the world cup was hosted by the US, the US won. The defender, Escobar, scored a goal against his own team and that was the difference in our wining. Escobar was gunned down outside of a Colombian bar
  

other popular sports

    cricket

    ice hockey

martial arts

baseball

basketball- NBA has international players

football- NFL Europe

lacrosse

    invented by the Iroquois confederation

folk culture sport

there is now a lacrosse world championship

NCAA now recognizes and so does high schools in USA

Sports and the spread of popular culture

    Athletes make money off of brand names and endorsements

• Michael Jordan
  
• Wheaties
  

Why is folk culture clustered?

    Has unknown origins amongst groups living in isolation

It diffuses slowly through relocation diffusion

    Isolation promotes cultural diversity

    Unique folk customs develop in isolation, but when observed at a point in time can vary

    Widely ,even in nearby places

Religion and art in the Himalayas

P karan and cotton mather studied the geographical area that encompasses Bhutan, Nepal, northern india and Pakistan, southern Tibet (china), to Myanmar (burma)

1. Tibetan Buddhist in the north
   
2. Hindus in the south
   
3. Muslims in the west
   
4. Animist in southeast asia
   

Culture and the physical environment

    Environmental determinism vs. possibilism

• Folk customs that deal with food, clothing, shelter are influenced by climate, soil and vegetation
  
  • For example, one adaptation that's been made by people who live in Holland, farmers wear wooden shoes that are cured in such a way that the shoes are water proof. This is useful because the Netherlands are below sealevel.
    

Folk food habits

    Distinctive food preferences

• Vidal de la blache- "food preferences connect people more than any other environmental connection"
  

    Geophagy- eating dirt.

• The main dirt of choice is kaolin
  
• Kaopectate contains kaolin
  

Qat (chat)- a narcotic leaf that is grown in Yemen

Around the world, people eat plants and animals determined by soil, climate, terrain and vegetation.

• Soybeans- people in asia made bean sprouts, soy sauce, and bean curds, and edamame
  

Food attraction

    

Food taboos

    Ainus in japan because otters cause forgetful

    Early Europe they wouldn't eat the skins of potatoes because it looks like leprosy

    Hebrew jews- don't eat animals that don't chew cud, with cloven feet, fish lacking fins or scales,

pigs.

    Pork spoils in warm climates because muslims have similar pork taboo

    India, many hindus are strict vegetarians and don't eat cows

    Many geographers try to interpret cow reverence. Like milk from cows.

    Cows are a source of oxen(the traditional work animal in india)

    In the US, eating insects is a taboo.

Folk and popular housing

    No class lecture

    Study pictures in TB and BR vocabulary

EP-2 NOT: The role of TV in diffusing popular culture

Watching tv is the most popular leisure activity in MDCs and is the most important mechanism by which popular culture is diffused across the earth

• The US public first saw the TV in the 1930s
  
• WWII blocked the diffusion of the invention of the TV
  
• In the early 1950s you could find TV in 20 countries
  
• In the early 1960s it had grown to 62 countries
  
• In the late 1960s it had spread to 91 countries
  
• Some geographers categorize nations by tv service
  

1. Nearly every household
   
2. Common but not universal
   
3. TV exists but is not widely diffused
   
4. Few tvs
   

Government control

• Taliban outlawed TV
  
• US, most channels are privately owned but some are public
  
• Most countries who have TVs channels are run by government
  
  • These countries' tv is run by taxes
    
• BBC sells liscenses to put programs on TV
  
• In western Europe, some private channels are allowed
  
• Tv has been used to control populations in totalitarian government
  
  • But changing technology (satellite dish) became a force for political change vs. stability because people learned to smuggle in satellites.
    
• Satellite dishes have been banned in china and Singapore. Saudi Arabia bans them because they don't want to be shown "un-islamic" teaching.
  
  • Problem in banning dishes, not easily enforced
    
• Some people even attribute the fall of communism in eastern Europe to the satellite dish.
  

END EP @ NOT.

Internet

    Diffusion of the internet took a similar pattern to tv

 

EP3: changes in the traditional role of women

The global diffusion of popular culture threatened subservience of women to men – a major folk custom around the world,

• Women stay at home. If they did any outside work, restricted to agriculture and handicrafts
  

  Extreme à Taliban à Black Chador
  

Advancement & Empowerment of Women

    Early History:

• Low Levels of education
  
• Victimization- often by husbands
  

In MDCs today_ Popular Culture

• Legal equality
  
• Economic and social opportunities outside the home
  

Even in MDCs there is still discrimination

In LDCs popular culture has helped but there are still negative aspects:

• Prostitution
  
• Sex Tours
  
  • Major source of foreign currency so police look the other way
    
  • Men in MDCs for women in LDCs
    

Global Interaction

    Women are equal at home in MDCs

    Some folk cultures of LDCs view women as objects money can buy

End EP3

 

Threat of Modern Media Imperialism

    3 MDCs dominate the TV industries in the LDCs

• United States, United Kingdom, and Japan
  

News Media is under Western Control

• Associated Press (AP)- U.S
  
• Reuters- British
  
• Visnews Ltd. is a joint British and American organization that supplies most of the world's television news videos
  
• Worldwide Television News (WTN)- similar joint organization
  
• BBC World Service offers a shortwave radio service- helps for traveling reporters
  

 

Environmental Impact of Popular Culture

    Modification of Nature

• i.e. diffusion of golf- changes landscape
  
  • studied by John Rooney
    

Uniform landscape

    Distribution of popular culture tends to produce more uniform landscapes

    Part of the desire for uniform landscape is for product recognition

    Fast food restaurants are main proponents of uniform landscape

Franchise- a companies agreement with local business men to market that company's product

• ie,Great clips, Sams club
  

negative environmental impact

    depletion of scarce natural resources

• if people ate the grains instead of the animals that eat the grain, we'd have more food.
  
• Popular culture has brought a high volume of waste in solids liquids and gases
  
  • Ie, Fast food waste discards more than recycles
    

Case study

    Contrast- folk culture and popular culture

 

 

 

    

 

 

Chapter 3: migration

Migration- a permanent move to a new location

Case study- Ukraine-> Italy. There are tensions in western Europe over immigration

Migration…

    Immigration- to

Emigration- from

Ravensteins laws

1. The majority of migrants only travel short distances
   
2. Migrants proceed step by step
   
3. Migrants who do move long distances usually move long distances.
   
4. Each current of migration produces a countercurrent
   
5. Natives of towns are less migratory than those in rural areas
   
6. Females are more migratory within a country of birth. Males are more migratory internationally
   
7. Most migrants are adults
   
8. Large towns grow more by migration rather than natural increase- ravenstien was studying censuses from 2^nd stage
   
9. Migration increases in volume and industry and commerce develops
   
10. Migrants move from areas of agriculture to areas of industry and commerce
    

In ravenstiens time, all of these were true, but today geographers also add social and political factors. Even though laws have been modified over time, they have not been disproven.

Exceptions: forced migration and exodus from large cities.

 

Essay possibility 1: migration theory

    Push factor- induces people to move out of their present location

    Pull factor- induces people to move into a new location

    3 types of push pull factors

• Economic push/pull factors
  
  • Ravenstien law 11: people leave for economic reasons
    
  • From a place w/ few job opportunities to a place with better job opportunities
    
  • Sometimes resources are a pull factor (oil)
    
• Cultural push/pull factors
  
  • Most are a result of forced international migration
    
    • Slavery
      
    • Political instability due to cultural diversity and wars.
      
    • Ie…. Cuba/Haiti… "wet feet/ dry feet policy"
      
  • "cultural refugee"-people who have been forced to migrate from their home country and cannot return
    
  • Refugees can be of race, religion, nationality, membership, and politics
    
  • 2 largest groups of international refugees are Palestinians and afghans. Afghanistan because of Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
    
    • Mujahedeen: holy warriors who fought against the soviet union
      
    • Many afghan refugees went to live in Pakistan and iran. Some afghans returned when Taliban took over in 1990's
      
    • Fall of communism in soviet union and eastern Europe pushed people out of western Europe and pulled people in. Similar situations occurred in congo, and Iraq, and Uganda
      
  • 2 largest groups of internal refugees found in sudan and Columbia
    
• Environmental push pull
  
  • Water, too much or too little
    
    • Too much: new Orleans, Katrina/ charapunjee india (gets the most rain in the world)/ Bangledesh , (monsoons come and cause flooding)(atlas page 21)
      
    • Too little: dust bowl in the USA
      

Intervening obstacles

• Some immigrants end up not going to where they want to go due to intervening obstacles (an environmental or cultural feature that hinders migration)
  
• physical environment: mountains, deserts, bodies of water
  
• however, those features that used to be intervening ocstacles have now been overcome by transportation and technological improvements.
  
  • Ie: heat and air-conditioning eliminated some intervening obstacles
    
• Political intervening obstacles
  
  • Passports and visas
    
• Human intervention- scams
  
• Also intervening opportunities!
  

End essay possibility 1

 

 

Internal migration

    A permanent movement within the same country

    Internal migrants are more numerous than international migrants

Short distances are more normal except in large countries (united states and Russia ie: florida to alaska)

    2 types of internal migration:

• interregional migration- movement from one region to another
  
• intraregional migration- movement within one region
  

international migration- a permanent movement form one country to another

voluntary (economic) migration – a voluntary movement to improve ones economic situation

• economic push-pull factors
  

forced (involuntary) migration- the migrant has been compelled to move by cultural factors

• cultural push-pull factors
  

migration transition

    Wilber Zelinsky wrote the migration transition and it is based on the demographic transition

• He said that international migration is primarily a function of stage 2 countries on the demographic transition. Internal migration is more important in stages 3 and 4
  

    Stage 1:

• People are unlikely to migrate permanently
  
• High daily or seasonal migration in search of food and water
  

Stage 2

• International migration begins
  
• Also interregional migration from rural to urban
  

Stages 3 & 4

• These become the destination of international migrants from stage 2 countries
  
• Intraregional migration from the cities to the suburbs
  

Gender of Migrants

• Ravenstiens law #6: Males are more international, females are more internal.
  
  • This fact was true in most places in the world until the 1990's when women became 55% of US immigrants
    
  • This is partially true because of the changing role of women in Mexican society.
    

Where are migrants distributed?

• 3% of the worlds people are international migrants.
  
  • US has the largest number of migrants
    
  • The largest number of immigrants to the US is from mexico because it is a stage 2 country
    
  • There is a slarge flow of Mexican immigrants into the four border states of califorina, texas, Arizona and new mexico
    
    • the majority of the immigrants to the 4 border states are undocumented agricultural workers
      

global migration patterns

• the regions of asia, latin America, and Africa, are all experiencing net out-migration
  
• the regions of north-america, Europe, and oceania are all experiencing net in-migration
  
• the three largest flows of immigration
  
  • asia to Europe
    
  • asia to north America
    
  • latin America to north America
    
  • merdium in-migration from:
    
    • Europe to north America
      
    • Asia to oceania (ie Fiji- mostly made up of india)
      
  • Lower levels of net migration
    
    • Latin America to oceania
      
    • Africa to Europe, north America, and oceania
      

 

• LDC's to MDC's
  

Immigrant statistics

• 12% if US population
  
• US- largest number of immigrants but a smaller percentage from other countries
  
• Middle eastern countries have the highest percentage
  
• United erab emirates- 74% immigrants
  
• Most immigrants attracted to middle east because of petroleum job oppurtunities
  

 

NOT Essay Possibility 2- Ravenstien and the gravity model

    Ravensteins law #1

• There is an inverse relationship between the volume of migration and the distance between the source and destination
  
  • That means that the number of immigrants declines as the distance they must travel increases
    
  • This is called distance decay principle
    

Ravenstiens principles were built on the "gravity model" written by Henry Carey

• This model was written in "the principles of social science"
  
  • In this book he took the ideas of newton and applied them to human actions
    
  • The gravity model predicts interaction on the basis of the size of population in the respective places and the distance between them
    
  • The gravity model states that special interaction is directly related to the populations and inversely related to the distance between them
    

end NOT
essay possibility 2

 

The tyranny of distance

• Geoffrey blainey wrote this book about Australia because it was one of the most isolated countries in the world during the 18^th century due to distance factors
  
• In the 19^th century, australia's wool industry was able to overcome distance obstacles
  
• Transportation improvements is one of the main factors contributing to australia's population growth
  

History of Immigration to the US

• Text book pages 88-94
  
• Countermigration- when governments send immigrants back who were caught entering their countries illegally
  

Obstacles to migration

• The biggest obstacle of today is host country policies and gaining entry permission with a visa.
  
  • Most countries have visa quotas
    
• A lot of people accuse the US of creating a brain drain
  
  • When a lot of talented people leave the country
    
• Some countries allow people to immigrate as temporary workers or guest workers. These people have to do the menial jobs
  
  • Especially true in Europe and middle east
    
• In asia they have time-contract workers
  
  • They work for a fixed time period most of the time in mines or on plantations
    

 

Essay possibility 3: Economic migrants vs. refugees

Refugees- people who have been forced to migrate from their home country and cannot return for fear of persecution

• Permanent refugees have become integrated into the host countries national life
  
  • Ie Palestinians in Jordan
    
• Temporary refugees are those waiting in refugee camps for resettlement
  

Three characteristics of refugees

• Move only with property they can carry or transport
  
• The first step, on foot
  
• Come without official documents
  

The US looks at Cuba differently than Haiti

CUBA

• since castro took over as dictator in 1959, there has been a large flow of refugees from cuba coming into the US
  
• in 1980 out of spite, he let political prisoners, criminals and mental patients leave cuba to come to the united states. This event is called the mariel boatlift.
  
  • 125,000 cubans fled to the united states
    
  • They kept them in the orange bowl stadium
    
• In 1987, the us set a quota that 20,000 cubans could come over per year in accordance to the wet feet/dry feet policy
  
• Cubans from the US from cuba makes you a political refugee
  

HAITI

• The duvaliers (papa doc and baby doc)
  
• Many people fled from Haiti during their reign and were considered political refugees during that time
  
• In 1991 there was a coup and jean-bertrand aristide was kicked out of Haiti
  
• In 1994 there was a us invasion and we reinstated that guy.
  
• Now, since there is a more democratic government, Haitians are viewed as economic migrants instead of political refugees and will be sent back
  

Vietnam Boat People

• From 1975 to 1980, south Vietnamese people who feared persecution would float out into the south china sea and would hope to be picked up by US navy
  
• However, navy guys weren't allowed to pick them up because they were considered economic migrants instead of political refugees
  

End essay possibility 3

 

Video- cash flow fever

• Remittances- money that is sent by an immigrant living in a host country back to his family in a home country
  
• This video is a bout a family in El Salvador
  
• United States
  

Video questions

• How do the remittances impact the migrants' homes and villages in El Salvador?
  
• What sacrifices are made by the migrants to the united states and their families still in el Salvador?
  
• How are banks trying to capitalize on remittances?
  

Interregional migration- rural to urban

• In the us, northeast to south and west "rustbelt to sunbelt"
  
• In brazil, they changed the capital from rio de janeiro to a brand new city called brasilia an example of a …
  
• Forward capital- a capital that is moved closer to borders of others country in a region in order to have more influence
  

Intraregional migration- from urban to suburban

• Augusta- martinez- evans
  
• Atlanta- Marietta
  
• Late 20^th century- counterurbanization- a move from urban to rural
  
• Urban to rural telecommuting
  

Case study

• Statue of liberty