A folk culture tends to -stay near its’ hearth-remain isolated-lack of diffusion-homogeneic

ECUADOR, AN OTAUALO WOMAN FROM THE IMBABURA PROVINCE. THE EMBROIDERY ON HER SHIRT SHOWS HER PERSONALITY AND IS USED TO FIND A MARRIAGE PARTNER.

NECKLACE OF GLASS AND GOLD. NUMBER OF STRANDS AND SIZE OF THE BEADS SHOWS STATUS IN INDIGENOUS WOMEN OF ECUADOR

• Folk Culture is the collective heritage of institutions, customs, skills, dress, and way of life of a small, stable , closely knit, usually rural community.

• -tradition controls folk culture and resistance to change is strong.

• Folk life is a culture, composed of tangible (material culture) and intangible (non-material culture) traits.

HTTP://NGM.NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM/2006/06/HUTTERITE-SOJOURN/SLIDESHOW-INTERACTIVE

HUTTERITESAMISH AND MASAIHTTP://NEWS.NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM/NEWS/2004/06/0628_040628_MAASAI.HTML

-THE HOMEMADE AND THE HANDMADE DOMINATE IN TOOLS, FOOD, MUSIC, STORY AND RITUALS.

HOMEMADE ROPES

©Valerie Morgan Mervine ©Valerie Morgan Mervine

©Valerie Morgan Mervine©Valerie Morgan Mervine

STONE BLOCK HOUSES ARE FAVORED NOW, CONCRETE IS CHEAP.

IN THE COASTAL AREA, CORRUGATED ROOFS ARE PREFERRED TO KEEP OUT RAIN, HOUSES ON STILTS TO KEEP OUT ANIMALS AND FLOODS.

©Valerie Morgan Mervine

Building materials• Wood• Brick• Stone• Wattle• Grass and brush

Made from wood andand cedar bark

Carried by migrants

• From East Coast to the west and southward

• Western style houses diffused from west to east across the United States

• Composite cultural landscape

Maladaptive diffusion

NEW ENGLAND SOUTHERN

Houses can be builtusing new materials

but the design is based on the folk

housing traditionalarchitecture

Country music originated in

multiple hearths in the United States

-Southern Appalachia -central Tennessee and Kentucky

-Ozark & Ouachita uplands (Arkansas & Oklahoma)

-north-central Texas

©Valerie Morgan Mervine

- Through relocation diffusion people bring their food recipes

-dancing -traditions -belief systems

All elements of a folk culture which can be preserved even in a world of globalization, dancers in Nepal.

Affects local cultures in 2 ways:1. their material culture, their jewelry and clothing, their food

and games, can be commodified by themselves or nonmembers.

2. Non-material culture, their religion, language, and beliefs can be commodified, often by nonmembers selling local spiritual and herbal cures to ailments.

Entire cultures can be commodified as a whole, tourist buses observing the Amish culture of Lancaster, PA or trekking with “traditional” Nepalese guides on spiritual journeys in the Himalayas.

When commidification occurs, authenticity is in question. Many times an entire culture is typecast by one cultural trait. An authentic culture does not fit into a single experience.

De Blij, Harm, J. (2007). Human Geography People, Place and Culture. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Domosh, Mona, Neumann, Roderic, Price, Patricia, & Jordan-Bychkov, 2010. The Human Mosaic, A Cultural Approach to Human Geography. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.

Fellman, Jerome, D., Getis, Arthur, & Getis, Judith, 2008. Human Geography, Landscapes of Human Activities. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

Pulsipher, Lydia Mihelic and Alex M. and Pulsipher, 2008. World Regional Geography, Global Patterns, Local Lives. W.H. Freeman and Company New York.  

Rubenstein, James M. (2008). An introduction to human geography The cultural landscape. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.