Outcasts United: popular verses folk culture

Except for one of the remaining chapters of Outcasts United , all of the remaining chapters in the book focus mostly on the story of the Fugees with many of the geography-related concepts mixed in. For this blog post, therefore, I will discuss several concepts that were found in several different chapters.

Have you ever wondered how soccer became the world's most popular sport? In order to understand how this happened, we need to understand the basics of cultural diffusion (the spread of culture). The concept that I will start with first is the difference between folk and popular cultures. In a nutshell, folk culture is local and unique; whereas, popular culture is global and generic. Folk cultural traits are almost always tied to the local environment. That means that material culture is influenced by the climate, vegetation and landscape of a place. People eat foods, wear clothes and have customs (like music, dance and sports) that are connected to their immediate surroundings. People who live in cool climates eat foods like apples and potatoses, wear clothes with fur and do sports like hockey and skiing.
In addition to things that people do, there are customs that are forbidden to do. These are called cultural taboos. One example of a tabboo from chapter 7 is the taboo of eating pork. You may remember that Luma was with Jeremiah in a grocery store. She told him that she did not eat pork, so out of respect for her, he gave up eating pork too. Neither, Muslims nor jews eat pork. The explanation given in the Bible is that pigs are an unclean animal. This might be based on the idea of pigs rolling in mud or because they don't have sweat glands like other animals. Actually, if pigs roll in mud, it is too cool themselves down because they can't do so by sweating. A geographical (environmental) explanation for why Jews and Muslims don't eat pork is that pigs are not well adapted to living in a dry environment. Herding cows and sheep is the most common agricultural activity in the desert. Von Thunen's agricultural theory says that those types of agriculture that require the most land will be located the farthest from cities because the land is cheaper and animals don't spoil until after they are killed. Things like milk, fruits and vegetables that do spoil quickly must be located nearer to cities. Incidently, these types of agriculture do not reaquire as mush land, which is good, because the closer you get to the city, the more expensive land is. So, since grass grows easily, even in dry places (like Utah), grazing these animals over large tracts of land makes sense. Pigs, on the other hand, do not graze on grass over large areas of land. They would be impractical to keep in a desert environment. A geographer would say that is why they are taboo.

You might remember the explanation from chapter twenty-five that many of the poor immigrants to the United States work in pork or poultry processing plants.  The Southern United States does have an environment suited to the raising of these kinds of livestock. Chicken, pigs and more recently cows are fed corn. Places that raise chickens and pigs are usually located near places where corn is grown. Where there is a type of environment that leads to producing certain kinds of food, there must be a large supply of workers to process all of the chickens and pigs that are slaughtered. Going back to a previous post where I talked about the idea of core-perephery, you can understand that those with less skill and education are those on the periphery (margins) that are consigned to the dirtiest, lowest paying jobs. It was said that refugees were desirable to employers at these plants because they needed a steady job and since they were in the United States legally they were attractive to employers. As you know immigration is a big issue in the United States. States along the border, with the demand for these kinds of workers have recently, passed really strict immigration laws. They have increased the penalty for workers and employers who are caught working illegally. Employers are having a hard time finding agricultural workers in states like Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi because many have left for states with less-strict laws about illegal (non-documented) immigrants.

To this point I have explained the parts of the book that deal with culture on a local scale. Cultural traits that are dependent on the natural environment will not spread beyond that environment. On the flip side, cultural traits that are not tied to the local environment are often adopted by other people in far away places. Soccer, is a globally popular sport because there are no environmental contraints that limit its spread. It can be played anywhere. You can use just about anything for a ball. The book talked about how the boys would use rolled up rags or paper bags as a ball. There isn't any expensive equipment. All of these factors lead to a sport that can spread to any country and be played by almost anyone anywhere. You may recall that Luma stumbled upon refugees playing soccer in a parking lot. So whether you think soccer is the best sport ever, that is really not why it is the most popular. It is the most popular sport because it was able to spread easier to every part of the world.
It is the same with American culture. Because the United States has the means to connect to more parts of the world than any other. We not only have the technology (computers, phones and satellite etc) we also, thanks to British Imperialism, can connect to more parts of the world because we speak a language that is understand by more people in more places. (I know, I know Mandarin, Chinese is the first language of more people than any other but English is not only the primary but also the second language of more people than any other). Language is important for the spread of culture because that is how culture is transmitted. As mentioned at the beginning, popular culture is global and generic. You may not think that soccer and American food, clothing and music are generic but when you break it down, the elements of fast food (burgers and fries), clothing (jeans and t-shirts) and music (love songs) are all really very similar. There is not a lot of variety. It has to be that way because in order to be popular it has to appeal to a lot of people and it won't appeal to a lot of people unless it has characteristics that everyone around the world can identify with. That's what makes popular culture popular.