Pop & Folk Geography

1. Pop & Folk Geography Human Geography Mr. Fitzgerald

2. What is Culture? • Culture can be defined as all the behaviors, arts, beliefs and institutions of a population that are passed down from generation to generation. Culture has been called "the way of life for an entire society."

3. What is Cool?

4. Differences between popular and folk culture • Popular culture • Consists of large masses of people who conform to and prescribe to ever-changing norms • Large heterogeneous groups • Often highly individualistic and groups are constantly changing • Pronounced division of labor leading to establishment of specialized professions • Police and army take the place of religion and family in maintaining order

5. Differences between popular and folk culture • Popular culture • Money based economy prevails • Replacing folk culture in industrialized countries and many developing nations • Folk-made objects give way to their popular equivalent • Item is more quickly or cheaply produced • Easier or time-saving to use • Lends prestige to owner

6. Differences between popular and folk culture • Folk culture • Made up of people who maintain the traditional • Describes people who live in an old-fashioned way-simpler life-style • Rural, cohesive, conservative, largely self-sufficient group, homogeneous in custom • Strong family or clan structure and highly developed rituals • Tradition is paramount — change comes infrequently and slowly

7. Differences between popular and folk culture • Folk culture • Little specialization in labor though duties may vary between genders • Subsistence economy prevails • Individualism and social classes are weakly developed • In parts of the less-developed world, folk cultures remain common • Industrialized countries no longer have unaltered folk cultures

8. Differences between popular and folk culture • Folk culture • The Amish in the United States • Perhaps the nearest modem equivalent in Anglo-America • German-American farming sect • Largely renounces products and labor-saving devices of the industrial age • Horse-drawn buggies still used, and faithful own no autos or appliances • Central religion concept of demut, ”humility,” reflects weakness of individualism and social class • Rarely marry outside their sect

9. Differences between popular and folk culture • Folk culture • Typically, bearers of folk culture combine folk and nonfolk elements in their lives • Includes both material and nonmaterial elements • Material culture includes all objects or “things” made and used by members of a cultural group—material elements are visible • Nomnaterial culture, including folklore, can be defined as oral, including the wide range of tales, songs, lore, beliefs, superstitions, and customs • Other aspects of nonmaterial culture include dialects, religions, and worldviews • Folk geography—defined as the study of the spatial patterns and ecology of folklife

10. Culture Regions • Folk Culture Regions • Folk Cultural Diffusion • Folk Ecology • Cultural Integration in Folk Geography • Folk Landscapes

11. Material folk culture regions • Vestiges of material folk culture remain in various parts of the United States and Canada • Material artifacts of 15 culture regions in North America survive in some abundance though they are in general decline

13. Material folk culture regions • Each region possesses many distinctive items of material culture • Germanized Pennsylvanian folk region—has an unusual SwissGerman type of barn • Yankee folk region—traditional gravestone art, with “winged death heads,” and barns attached to the rear of houses