Chapter Introduction
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Folk and Popular Cultures
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No matter where you live, if you look carefully, you will be reminded constantly of how important the expression of cultural identity is to people’s daily lives. The geography of cultural difference is evident everywhere—not only in the geographic distribution of different cultures but also in the way that difference is created or reinforced by geography. For example, in the United States, the history of legally enforced spatial segregation of “whites” and “blacks” has been important in establishing and maintaining cultural differences between these groups.
subculture A group of people with norms, values, and material practices that differentiate them from the dominant culture to which they belong.
In chapter 1 we noted that cultural geographers are interested in studying the geographic expression of difference both among and within cultures. For example, using the concept of formal region, we can identify and map differences among cultures. This sort of analysis is usually done on a very large geographic scale—a continent or even the entire world. Geographers are also interested in analyses at smaller scales. When we look more closely at a formal culture region, we begin to see that differences appear along racial, ethnic, gender, and other lines of distinction. Sometimes groups within a dominant culture become distinctive enough that we label them subcultures. These can be the result of resistance to the dominant culture or they can be the result of a distinct religious, ethnic, or national group forming an enclave community within a larger culture.
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In this chapter, we explore the geographies of cultural difference using two broad categories of classification: popular culture and folk culture. Popular culture, as we will see, is almost, but not quite, synonymous with mass culture and is the dominant form of cultural expression. Folk culture is, to a large degree, distinguished in relation to popular culture.