Posts by Brian:
Jan
30
agency
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In class yesterday, Salvador and Sophie came up with a couple of very good points in our discussion of William Rowe and Vivian Schelling’s Memory and Modernity. Indeed, their criticisms apply to a greater or lesser extent to much discussion of Latin American popular culture, or even popular culture in general.
Salvador’s argument, if I have understood it right (and you both should feel free to correct me) was that Rowe and Schelling downplay the effect of sheer domination. The indigenous peoples of the Americas didn’t just one day decide that they would take on certain elements of Catholicism, for instance: they were forced to do so. If they didn’t then they would (in Salvador’s words) get “their asses kicked.”
Meanwhile Sophie’s point was that in stressing the positive, creative, and resistant characteristics of popular culture, Rowe and Schelling downplay the continued injustices and inequalities that still plague so much of Latin America. Moreover, the implication is that there is little or nothing that can or should be done about the situation of the poor or downtrodden; there is no reason for anyone else to bother about it, let alone intervene in some way.
Again, I think that these are important arguments. But let me argue Rowe and Schelling’s case for a moment…
First, I suggested that they were saying something like “Yes, but…” Yes, the indigenous peoples of Latin America (and by extension all other subaltern and subordinated groups) have historically been the victims of great violence and exploitation, but even so they have managed, against the odds, to continue to resist in often surprising and unexpected ways.
Rowe and Schelling do, after all, acknowledge from the start that “The Conquest had catastrophic consequences for the Andean and Mesoamerican civilizations.” And yet, they continue, “despite this, neither the colonial nor the republican regime has been able to expunge the memory of an Andean, Aztec and Mayan civilization” (49). Indeed, the very notion of resistance implies that there is something to resist. If we see the indigenous (again, or other subalterns) as simply victims, then in some ways we also are ignoring their agency, we also are downplaying their inventive and creative capacities. Precisely the interest of popular culture, for Rowe and Schelling, is that it is here that we can see the evidence of this resistance and creativity; here we can appreciate what those in power have always either ignored or feared, which is that despite it all the subaltern continues to make its presence felt.
Second, I think that Rowe and Schelling would respond in similar ways to Sophie’s argument. If we are only ever thinking about what “we” in the privileged and powerful First World should or can be doing for those in the Third World, then we too are denying those people’s agency. This is not an argument that nothing can or should be done. But in order best to understand the situation, and so the pitfalls as well as the virtues of any action, we also need to be aware of the kinds of struggles that such people are already engaging in, without or without “us.” I think that’s part of what Rowe and Schelling term “subaltern classes ma[king] themselves visible, demanding social recognition” (132). That’s not to say that everything’s AOK, not by a long shot, but to take account of existing expressions of agency and subjectivity. Again, the argument is that such expressions are perhaps best seen in popular culture, which is why Rowe and Schelling want to distinguish popular culture from what they call the “culture industry” or from official, state-sanctioned instances of culture.
Finally, I think that these issues are also relevant to discussion of this letter written by a UBC student on the university’s Terry blog. The letter writer clearly has her heart in the right place. (And incidentally, I don’t agree with the tone of the disparaging comments that she’s received.) But she, too, is worried that she is being self-indulgent. I would go further: we learn from an investigation of Latin American popular culture that the relationship between First World and Third World, or between North and South, is more complicated than a simple dichotomy of victimizer (however unthinking) and victim. There are more complex negotiations and exchanges at work. If we don’t recognize this, then we inevitably end up being patronizing.
Jan
29
neo
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William Rowe and Vivian Schelling’s Memory and Modernity is a hugely ambitious undertaking. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of anyone else who has tried to replicate it: they aim to provide a guide to Latin American popular culture that covers both the gamut of theoretical positions (from within Latin American Studies and outside) as well as detailing, often in quite some detail and historical or sociological depth, an extraordinary range of popular cultural practices. Just in chapter two, “The Faces of Popular Culture,” they move almost seamlessly from Peru to Mexico to Brazil to Argentina, and from Andean oral narratives of Inkarrí to Mexican artesanía to Candomblé to telenovelas to football. It’s astonishingly erudite and impressive, while also remarkably readable; their accounts of critics from Adorno to Taussig to Martín Barbero to Arguedas are deft and decisive. They give a real sense of the texture and complexity both of Latin American popular culture and of the debates that it has provoked.
This book should have the status of a classic of Latin American cultural studies, and it’s a crying shame that Verso seem to have allowed it, along with the other surveys in its Latin American series such as Gerry Martin’s Journeys through the Labyrinth, to go out of print.
Of course, Rowe and Schelling’s approach also has its pitfalls. Especially when it comes to their accounts of critics and theorists, there can be no space for detailed textual analysis, and so their brief judgments are also potential hostages to fortune. Is it really true, for instance, that Michael Taussig’s project can be reduced to “finding in pre-capitalist cultures a source of resistance to capitalism” (73)? Likewise, their analyses of specific cultural histories, though they often extend over several pages, are also dependent on ex cathedra pronouncements rather than sustained argumentation. Their tone tends towards encyclopedic synthesis that threatens to overwhelm their own critical and conceptual narrative.
This narrative is driven by a conception of the popular as counter-culture: “The term popular culture, according to common usage in Latin America, evokes the possibilities of alternaties to currently dominant cultural practices. [. . .] To be of use, the term ‘popular’ must be distinguished from the products of the culture industry and the mass media” (97). And yet in practice they are forced to recognize that difficulties of trying to cordon of the popular as a space for political resistance and creativity. At the same time as they argue for a definition of the popular “in terms of the possibility of a counter-hegemony,” they also have to recognize the intimate coexistence of popular practices with the mass media: “popular cannot mean purity nor the culture industry its loss” (113). Yet it seems to be precisely in the name of at least a vestigial version of such purity that at times they put the popular in scare quotes, so as to indicate practices that are popular but not really they way they would have them be so. For instance, in their discussion of the samba, which “becomes a ‘popular’ and profitable form of entertainment transmitted together with commercial advertisements by radio” and which “was transformed into a ‘popular’ massified genre and an exportable symbol of national identity” (135).
So Rowe and Schelling want both to champion and to distance themselves from the popular, to separate out their own neo-populism from historical and state-supported populisms of Vargas, Perón, or the PRI. In short, they want to differentiate their counter-hegemony from hegemony per se. But it is precisely this gesture that they share with historical populism, which always wants to portray itself as embattled and oppositional, even from a position of state power.
Jan
28
response to javier’s blog
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I don’t know very much about Latin American popular culture either, and I agree that this article provided a lot of information. I still feel like there is so much more I’d need to know to really understand it though. I also wrote about popular Catholicism in my blog- I thought it was really cool how as hard has the Europeans tried to completely eradicate indigenous religions, the people embedded their former religious customs into catholic practice. The shift toward urbanization had interesting effects on popular culture- such as traditional Mexican handcrafts transformed into purely decorative symbols and sculptures. I like how you commented on soccer, and how although Britain introduced the sport to Latin America, it became a huge symbol for national identity, especially amongst Brazilians.
Jan
28
repsonse to anna marieke
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hi! it wouldn’t let me post my comment without a live journal account, so i’m just going to do it here.
I also thought the article was very very long! I feel like it was a lot to take in at once, which may have hindered my comprehension a bit. I was glad though, that Rowe and Schelling provided a region-specific analysis, instead of an essentialist perspective that presents all facets of Latin American culture as one.
Overall I found the article very informative and comprehensive. I really like how you described Latin American culture as a medley of the traditional indigenous and new European influences. Our class discussion yesterday really clarified this for me- how popular culture and aesthetic forms represent the underlying power and class struggles within the region.
Jan
27
Menage a trois? Tradition, Modernity and Memory
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Jan
27
Menage a trois? Tradition, Modernity and Memory
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Jan
27
The Faces of Popular Culture…
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I found this article very long… however also very interesting once I got into it. The way it describes various times in history, customs, traditions, art, ‘culture’ and ways of life really had my imagination working. I could really visualize the plays, poetry, and festivities. It is a difficult task to summarize a culture/popular culture of a single country let alone all of Latin America! I think that this is made possible by the extensive amount of media that people are subjected to and/or have available to them at all times. The media enables the spread of Latin American poplar culture and in turn allows various aspects of popular culture to spread over huge areas faster than ever before and makes the idea of a similar pop-culture covering such a huge land mass more understandable.
I think that Rowe and Schelling’s article did a good job of explaining the variety of different and sometimes very similar popular cultures present in Latin America. From this article I have gathered that…Popular Culture in Latin America consists of a medley or mixing of older and newer ways of living. Basically the way life was before colonization mixed with some new ideas and ways of being that the Spanish brought… and then again mixed with the even more contemporary ideas of today. The idea that popular culture is constantly evolving and developing became clearer throughout the article. Religion is an example of popular culture in Latin America specifically the mixing of indigenous beliefs and European Catholicism.
I really liked the descriptions on page 61 about music and who used the different instruments. I also love that music continues to be included in the cycle of the seasons in the southern highlands of Peru and the altiplano region of Bolivia still today. I found the connections between music and everyday life particularly interesting. The Journey to the museum starting on page 64 was also really interesting when you see the development or incorporation of modern world things like airplanes with the traditional forms of art.
It was hard for me to get through this article, but only because it was so long! I really enjoyed it and I think it will be a great reference for the rest of the semester. I didn’t know much about pop-culture in Latin America before taking this class, but after reading this article I feel like I have a basic idea and place to work from for the coming weeks!
Jan
27
The Faces of Popular Culture
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After three weeks of class discussions and many pages of readings, I’m sure many people will be glad to finally get directly to the question, “What is popular culture in Latin America?” In terms of beginning to answer this extremely complex question, I felt that Rowe and Schelling’s article, “The Faces of Popular Culture” brought up several excellent points that I hope we explore further in class.
The first of these is the concept of dual meanings and subversion in popular culture. As a region of conquest and colonialism, Latin America is a region of extreme cultural interaction. In the present day, several hundred years after the conquest, we can see a subversion or sublimation of many indigenous cultural concepts and ideologies into the predominating Western culture that was imposed upon them. I felt that Schelling and Rowe did a wonderful job of highlighting the process of this sublimation and the dual meanings or hybridized culture that results without removing agency from indigenous people. Too often, the results of the conquest are viewed in terms of victimizer and victimized—an idea that suggests a uni-directional transmission of culture from Europe to the Americas. This article emphasizes the “exchange” part of the so-called “Columbian exchange” and demonstrates that important pieces of “traditional” indigenous culture have survived. In addition, I appreciate that the article’s authors do not try to gloss over the negative aspects of conquest and colonization as well; they do well to point out the negative implications of European conquest while describing the resilience of popular indigenous culture.
Secondly, I found the authors’ description of national “folk-culture” particularly interesting with regards to the way national identity is created. Using the example of Mexico or Guatemala, I feel that when studying Latin America it is extremely important to recognize the national/political dialogue that appropriates indigenous culture and heritage and uses it to create an international image of the country as a whole. Rowe and Schelling discuss the Mexican government’s efforts to represent the nation in terms of its “Aztec” heritage—a concept which seems at odds with the large percentage of the population which is descended from European heritage. Another example of this can be seen in Guatemala’s use of indigenous Mayan identity to represent the nation, while simultaneously persecuting Mayan individuals during the 1980’s civil war.
Although this article was extremely long, I found it extremely helpful in defining (what I hope to be) our course of study for much of the term.
Jan
27
The Faces of the Popular Culture
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Jan
27
Faces of Popular Culture
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While this reading covers a large body of information I don’t think any article could represent the cultural identity or face of a region with so many backgrounds. I thought it was interesting how it focused on the middle ground between the traditional culture and the modern world of media. The connections between rural and urban culture are important because they represent people with different lives working together to sustain an identity for the entire region. These connections can be seen in art, music and religion as well as everyday life. I’m impressed by the way the radio was used to bring people together from very different backgrounds to create a hybrid of culture which could make it easier for everyone understand each other. The People’s Radio is an effort to recover the voice of people, history, tradition, and religion to communicate the hopes and problems of the people. It seems symbolic that the culture and hopes of people in rural areas are transmitted over airwaves so their voices are heard by everyone. These people would not have an opportunity to represent themselves without the opportunity of independent radio as a medium. In the western world opportunities of expression are taken for granted but giving people who haven’t been absorbed by modern culture a voice is unique.
Jan
27
What is popular culture in Latin America?
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The text of Rowe William, who is a professor of religious philosophy, proposes to understand the concept of popular culture in Latin America. In class, we have already discussed about the concepts of culture and people. But, to what extent, popular culture in Latin America is unique?
First, popular culture in Latin America seems to be a mix of three cultures: pre-Columbian cultures, Spanish popular culture and modernism. I think that the plaza of the three cultures in Mexico illustrates well the construction of a popular culture around these three elements. As Rowe explains it, pre-Columbian cultures and their traditions were not totally swept out by Spaniards. In fact, Catholicism who developed in Latin America was influenced by Indian system of beliefs. Thus, popular culture in Latin America is related to religion. It is the result of a cultural syncretism. Thus, the Catholicism of Latin America seems to be unique because it mixes the Catholic official church, the Spanish popular idea of Catholicism and some Indian beliefs.
Moreover, popular culture is not a fixed concept. Indeed, the concept of popular culture evolved. It was sometimes used as a counter culture against the dominance of the Spaniards or as an opposition to modernity. But in the same time, it results to be influenced by these new elements and incorporates them. Thus, popular culture proposes a continuous renewal. Even if, many authors point out that mass production of culture reduce the role of popular culture as a ferment of collective memory, according to Rowe William, it goes on being a fundamental element of collective consciousness.
Rowe also explains that there is a continuation between the rural popular culture and the urban one in Latin America. Indeed, the wave of peasants, going to cities in order to work, brought popular culture from rural sites into cities. However, popular culture in city changed and adapted to new logics based on capitalist system. Nowadays, as three fourth of the Latin American people are urban, we could say that now, popular culture is merely urban. As popular rural culture infers with capitalist system, some changes occurs. The capitalist logic influence popular culture in many fields. These changes have advantages and drawbacks. Generally thinking, popular culture is no longer used only as a vector of a collective consciousness, but also, as an economic product. Thus, the topical issue is: do the changes of popular culture into an economic product reduce its importance as a factor of collective consciousness?
Jan
27
Popular Culture in Latin America
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This week’s reading "The Faces of Popular Culture" by Rowe and Schelling explored the way traditional indigenous cultures of Latin America and modern culture coexist. One often thinks that the isolated native Indian populations of Latin America live suspended in time, untouched by the characteristics of modernization that we in the West are familiar with: Capitalism, urbanization, globalization, etc. Rowe and Schelling show that this notion that these civilizations are unchanging and placid is not always true by exploring how native Latin American culture has evolved with Spanish conquest, religion, modernization, capitalism, etc.
My favourite part of the reading is the description of the transition of Mexican artefacts from everyday indigenous life to the museum. It is interesting to note that many decades ago, Mexico, along with most other Latin American countries, started using their indigenous cultures as the markers of its national identities. One can draw a clear parallel between this and the use of Native culture to represent Canada. It is unusual how the culture of the historically oppressed, low socio-economic indigenous populations is often commodified for tourism’s sake. Indigenous culture is used to represent the countries internationally (the first example coming to mind being the use of the Inuksuk as the Vancouver 2010 Olympic symbol). With regards to the commodification of Mexican artefacts, Rowe and Schelling state that “The urban and tourist consumption of these artefacts causes them to be increasingly decontextualized and resignified on their journey to the museum and the boutique” (p 65). The authors are talking about the way common vessels of indigenous cultures are not being used for practicality or ritual anymore, but for tourism consumption and anthropological examination. I cannot say whether this is a negative thing or not, as there are both pros and cons to the issue. This tourist and anthropological interest in indigenous cultures is not necessarily harmful (although it can be), on the contrary, it promotes protection and general respect of the cultures. However, the “decontextualizing” of the cultures is where there is a problem, as when the culture is commercialized, its physicality, purpose and cultural/spiritual meaning is altered, resulting in the non-original vessel of culture. Maybe the situation is not exclusively positive or negative, as the alteration of indigenous culture is, in some sense, development, as it is not becoming stale and static in the shadow of modernization. The authors go on to describe how Joaquin Lopez Antay, a great escultor creates retablos that have obviously evolved with the interests and demands of the public. I found interesting the claim that Lopez Antay is creative, inventive and even progressive in his craft while retaining the “richness of the tradition”. Alterations for commercial and investigative purpose to indigenous culture render it incongruent to the original, as it is “decontextualized”. However, perhaps this decontextualization is a more desirable alternative than the complete eradication of a culture, or its extinction due to its inability to evolve with the rest of the world.
Jan
27
Popular Culture in Latin America
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Reading Rowe & Schelling work was very interesting to me because I believe it not only touched on many aspects of popular culture in Latin America, but also they demonstrated the complexity of it. I could spend hours discussing about futbol, music and even black culture within the cultural sphere in Latin America, however there is one particular aspect in this paper that grabbed my attention, and that the aspect was resistance in Latin American culture.
This process of syncretism between colonial and pre-colonial culture is very characteristic of Latin American society, particularly that of the worldviews held in Latin America.
Christianity is probably the biggest “remain” left from the colonial period and many people in the region still practice it the same way it was practiced in the past (traditionally). However, as Rowe and Schelling point out, some elements of Christianity have been altered and previous indigenous worldviews have been incorporated. Sometimes these elements are incorporated in order to make better sense of the new worldviews that are being imposed to the indigenous by the missionaries (i.e. Corpus Christi). And in other cases, these elements are incorporated deliberately as a symbol of resistance (i.e. “El Baile de la Conquista” among the indigenous and “El Congo” among the blacks). The former, though maybe not on purpose, is still a form of resistance because it’s not fully accepting Christian worldviews without renouncing to their indigenous worldviews. I believe that it’s this “unconscious-form” of resistance that characterizes many aspects of the culture of Latin America. However, there are still many aspects of resistance within Latin American culture that are a bit more obvious.
In Latin American countries, independence and other national holidays are celebrated very differently from other parts of the world. In many countries of the region (after practicing for 6-8 months) both the students and military from all around the country march in remembrance of the struggles that lead to independence. One particular national holiday of some Latin American countries is the celebration of the so-called “gritos de independencia” (cries for independence). Cries for independence are sometimes considered the official starting points for independence; it is an act of resistance in which a person (or population) calls for independence. Now this is not as subtle as the “unconscious-form” of resistance I mentioned early, rather it is a more obvious form of resistance and many nations adopt this event and make it part of their national holiday. By doing so, this event is now part of the culture of that country because it commemorates that act of resistance. Additionally, this ties in with another of Rowe and Schelling argument which was that part of the culture in Latin America comes from the rural areas. The similarity that the Grito de Dolores in Mexico, Grito de Independencia de la Villa de los Santos in Panama and el Grito de Lares in Puerto Rico have is that they all occurred in towns that are far away from the urban setting.
Jan
27
¿Qué es la cultura latinoamericana?
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Creo que definir la cultura Latino Americana es imposible hacerlo en unas cuantas páginas, porque tal y como se describe en el ensayo, cada ciudad, cada región y cada pequeña parte del continente tiene rasgos, ideas, costumbres, etc. Que forman parte de la cultura latinoamericana.
Existen varias partes de la lectura que llamaron mi atención, desde la introducción en página 50 en la parte que se hace referencia a cómo la colonización influyó en gran medida en el cambio de la cultura que existía en ese tiempo y el surgimiento de una nueva (como una especie de mestizaje) entre lo existente y las nuevas formas de vida traídas de Europa. Y es que al igual que los diferentes ejemplos que cita de la región de los Andes, cada una de las regiones tiene una cultura que ha sido resultado de la evolución de creencias y mitos, aunado a la propia cultura lationoamericana existente antes de la colonización, tal como el ejemplo que se cita en la página 54 de la celebración del Corpus Christi.
Me gusto la descripción detallada de los hechos y la referencia que hace en especial a partir de la página 64 a la cultura mexicana y su “folklore”, y es que México es un país con mucho colorido, además puedes encontrar desde playas, selvas, bosques, grandes montañas, desiertos, en fin todos los tipos de climas, su flora y su fauna son únicas, y qué decir de las tradiciones, comida, etc. De hecho en la lectura se menciona la importancia de las artesanías mexicanas y el origen de éstas y cómo se han convertido en no sólo en una forma de representar al país, sino también un medio de subsistencia para muchos indígenas. México, al igual que la mayor parte de los países latinoamericanos tiene muchas formas de transmitir su cultura, tal y como lo relata el autor, haciendo uso de los famosos “corridos”, cantos populares, obras de teatro como las “pastorelas” (donde se nota la influencia católica traída con la conquista y un recurso que se utilizó desde aquella época para cristianizar a la población), narraciones, etc.
En general, creo que la lectura es una muy buena referencia de lo que es la cultura latinoamericana y los cambios que ha ésta ha tenido a lo largo de la historia, describiendo las principales regiones y aspectos importantes de cada una de las partes. Puedo decir que me gusto, pues lo narra de una forma práctica y fácil de entender.
Bye!
Jan
26
The various faces of popular culture
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After reading the text, we could define popular culture in Latin America as a mix between the rural and the urban culture. Popular culture is both traditional art but also what Rowe and Schelling call the “culture industry”. Peasants who immigrated in cities have imported their handicraft which has been mixed then with the urban mass-media culture. However, it’s worth noticing that even traditional culture is a kind of mixture; for instance, the Indians also import their own music instruments so there is a mix between modernity and tradition. But the problem is when traditional art is decontextualized and turned into a timeless piece of art, “object of aesthetic appreciation”. All this folklore is removed from the historical and social contexts. The authors speak about “folklorization, standardization in conformity with Western tonality and internationalization”.
I would like to focus on the terms “folklorization” and “standardization”. Folklore refers to what is produced by the people: song, ceremonies… and folklorization implies that some people choose what they want to be folklore in a particular culture. What the authors mean by folklorization and standardization is that popular culture in Latin America is always modified in order to fit to the Western standards. Indigenous art is standardized to fit to what the Westerners think it should be so it is no longer art in sense of a true creation. Handicraft is produced to be consumed so the traditional culture does no longer have any sense. Urbanization and the development of the market create a standardized art.
However, Rowe and Schelling show that a traditional rural society could survive by mixing rural and urban culture which means that modernization and urbanization didn’t destroy traditional culture but just changed it. Urbanization created a new kind of popular culture. Most of the peasants who settle in town become very poor and are the main consumers of the culture industry promoted by the communication technologies like the TV or the radio. Football is another aspect of popular culture in Latin America. At the beginning football grounds have been constructing by authorities and factory owners to calm down the strikes led against the expulsion of the poor from the city centre so all these examples show that urbanization provoked a lot of cultural shifts and disruptions. Popular culture has various faces: a traditional, rural, urban and modern one. Culture is not fixed but changing and adapts itself to the society changes. Popular culture is made by the people and evolves with them.
Jan
26
The Faces of Popular Culture
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While this article was very long and covered an incredibly large body of information that was at times a bit daunting, it was nonetheless, very interesting. It would be impossible to attempt to comment on everything so I will comment on a few key themes that I noticed through and through. One point that the author seemed to really drill in is the fact that in Latin America, popular culture is quite often the result of a hybridization between many elements of indigenous and European influence, and as the mixing between the rural and the urban. While very superficially it can be stated that indigenous civilizations were “crushed” in a sense by conquest and colonialism, these indigenous traditions are still very prevalent and are integrated into Latin American Culture.
This hybridization can be seen in many elements of culture including music, religion, story telling, poetry, and theatre, etc. The author speaks of “popular Catholicism” which refers to a type of Catholicism which is popularly practiced that mixes traditions of both “official” Catholicism (ie how the Spanish had perhaps intended the religion to be practiced) and how it has come to be practiced defined by the mixing of many religious ideas coming together. Relics such as The Virgin of Guadalupe and the Day of the Dead festival are examples of how these practices have come together over time.
After reading this article, I feel that I have come to look at popular culture in a different way. Rather than merely accepting it at face value, I feel that this article sheds light upon how much history is directly embedded into the popular cultural practices of today, and how much popular culture is influenced by socio-cultural structures throughout time. Just as Latin America is made up of many different histories (ie indigenous stories, stories of colonization, the idea of the mestizo identity, and differing power structures throughout history) these many elements seem to directly influence popular culture in a way that is often overlooked.
On page 138 the author writes: “…the development of capitalism in Brazil entailed the formation of a black subculture whose response to the harsh reality of discrimination and exploitation led to a rejection of the work ethic and to a counter-culture of idealization and idleness and of the body as a source of pleasure rather than as an instrument of work.” This quote made me think about the concept of culture as a coral reef and how culture does not merely naturally exist and change over time in an almost spontaneous unconcious manner, but rather is defined by a direct reaction to social forces that define reality atat the time and have perpetually defined reality through out history.
Jan
26
The Faces of popular culture
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When I entered this class I sported a very limited amount of knowledge about Latin American Culture and I can honestly say that this article has helped immensely. I enjoyed the article, some areas lost me a bit, like the part about theatrical performances but in all it was a very interesting and informative article.
Jan
26
Popular culture in Latin America
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The Faces of Popular Culture. Chapter 2. Before I started reading this weeks reading I counted how many pages it were, as I usually tend to do. 101 pages. I already anticipated a long read. 101 pages. This is going to take me hours I thought. I should start early. I thought. I kept thinking about this reading and how I should plan out alloted times so that I can finish reading before tuesday. I kept thinking this. So I started friday afternoon. Even as I started reading the pages I kept thinking about how I would finish before tuesday. I had this all planned out. Friday afternoon. One hour passed. Page 68. Despite not making it as far as I’d hope I still felt good that I made some progress. I highlighted parts that I found interesting then I decided to put the reading away for the next day. I hope that then I would be able to get through most of it. Tomorrow that is. I was done for Friday. So tomorrow, saturday arrived and so did my uncle and aunt from Seattle, Ricardo from Peru and my other uncle too. Ok Sophie, Sunday you can do it all. Sunday I got sick. It was sunny. Ok Sophie, Monday you will finish it and what’s more, you’ll write blog. Ah hah! Ok it’s monday night I’ve read up to page 100. I promise myself that tomorrow I’ll get through the last 50. But I reason that I have read enough to retain some understanding of what “popular culture in Latin America” is, or how it has been transformed, created, navigated itself through various economic and political changes.
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Ok I’m done my introduction. Oh no now I’ve set up the expectations for this blog entry. Well at least I’ve given you some of the background in my reading and interpretation of this weeks reading. I found this reading quite interesting though yet sometimes a bit long. I mean I don’t mind lengthy reads, but usually I enjoy them more when its a story, or when it follows a certain character. Relating that to the reading, that is probably why I particularly enjoyed the “Oral Poetry and the Art of Storytelling” component. I can imagine the cantadores reciting poetry from the folhetos or pamphlets in outdoors markets creating this creative atmosphere for the enjoyment of the rural folk. It seems so amazing and wonderful. The “oral literature” which relies on oral transmission rather than written text to pass on legends, teachings, stories, anecdotes, and really the identity and culture is a distinct feature of many Latin American indigenous groups On a side note, its funny how our value towards writing and the written text, (being elite, intellectual, modern or whatever else that sounds good), is unavoidable. We have to attach the word literature to “oral literature” to justify the importance and the significance of these groups way of expression and communication. This actually ties in to the main thesis of this reading, how capitalism and really the economic changes have impacted the lives of the indigenous people living in Latin America and really all over the world. For instance illiteracy. Many indigenous people cannot read, but that’s because they didn’t need to, or they read in a different way, through interpreting stories, or images for instance. But now because of the changes in the economy through capitalism, it becomes necessary to learn to read and write. For educational purposes and to get a job. The industries, firms are coming, are operating next door to the houses of the rural folk and of course in the urban centre. It therefore becomes necessary to speak the dominant language and be able to communicate. But I don’t think its fair to judge indigenous people as inferior or ignorant or unknowing because they cannot read or write in the conventional way. Reading this article I became more conscious and aware of the great knowledge and depth that these people within these cultures have possessed and continue to hold (despite some being in different forms,) in their everyday lives.
Jan
26
Popular Culture in Latin America
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Jan
26
last 201- what is popular culture in latin america?
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What is Popular Culture in Latin America?
“The Faces of Popular Culture” reveals several facets of Latin American culture, so for my blog I will comment on only a few main points. I thought it was interesting how the authors portrayed the modernization and industrialization of the twentieth century not as simply destroying the traditional culture of Latin America, but as creating an infused culture. This infused culture represents both Native and Hispanic, as well as rural and urban influences.
One interesting example of modernization and urbanization transforming the significance of traditional culture is with Mexican handcrafts. The article explains how these handcrafts, although originally sculpted for practical usage, now serve almost purely aesthetic purposes. These crafts, coined “airport art,” have grown to represent traditional culture. Although their initial purpose has significantly changed, natives and tourists still regard them as a symbol of national identity.
I thought the description of popular Catholicism was very interesting. I sometimes associate Christianization with the complete obliteration of Native religions. Therefore, this article provided a new perspective through its description of Catholicism in Latin America being heavily embedded with traditional religious beliefs. This article describes Catholic rituals celebrating patron saints as placing less importance on the traditional priest figure. Instead, the ritual involves a capelao, often an elderly woman who serves as the collective memory of the people. I think this is really interesting, knowing that traditional catholic doctrine is very male-centred. Additionally, this article describes how a sort of mythical or magical undercurrent often accompanies these ceremonies, which is further reflective of traditional spiritual influences.
The last aspect of this article I want to comment on is the significance of soccer in Latin American popular culture. They explain how when the British first brought soccer to Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay in the nineteenth century people considered it a very elite sport. I was a bit taken aback when I read that the players spoke in English to distinguish themselves as gentleman- why should society perceive speaking in English as some sort of highbrow, privileged behaviour? Anyways, I thought it was cool how in Brazil soccer became increasingly popular amongst the working classes, and that it developed into a huge national identity symbol.
Well that’s it for now. I know I didn’t comment on a lot of other interesting examples, but I hope to learn more in class. Bye!
Jan
26
3: Faces of Popular Culture, in Latin America
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How do you describe the popular culture of a place as large and as diverse as Latin America? By writing A LOT.
This weeks reading was long, but it was interesting. I’m not exactly sure how to go about writing a 400 word response to over 100 pages, so I’ll just write about my general feelings about it.
I really liked how it was broken up into rural and urban contexts. The comparing and contrasting of the two instances of popular culture was very insightful. On top of that, I don’t know very much at all about rural or indigenous Latin America, so the first chapter was very informative all at once which led nicely into the discussions of more familiar things like telenovelas, samba and black culture, and football/soccer.
What I particularly found interesting, though, was the recurrent commentary on modernization and massification in popular culture, especially the ideas of Jesus Martin-Barbero relayed on page 98.
Anyway, if it weren’t apparent enough, this reading definitely affirms how the diverse cultures of Latin America meld into what we up North perceive as Latin American popular culture.
Jan
26
Faces of Popular Culture
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This week’s assigned reading concerns the origins of modern popular culture in Latin America and the forces that shaped it. The authors take into account the effects of exposure to Spanish and African cultures, and thoroughly examine the nuances of Latin American culture, which differ from region to region. For example, they discuss both Perú and México in detail; these are two countries which are both inarguably part of Latin America, and are thus similar in many ways. However, they have extremely different histories, and were inhabited by very different people. In Perú, the Incan empire flourished long before the Spanish showed up; and in México, the native population consisted in large part of Aztecs and Mayans, depending on the region.
However, racial origins aside, it is inarguable that the culture of Latin America as a whole shifted drastically with the arrival of the Spanish. A major impact of their presence was that they introduced Catholicism, and forced the native population to renounce their own gods.
African culture also played a significant role in the development of modern popular culture in Latin America. They influenced music rhythms as well as dance styles. Another example of the impact of African culture occurred because of the qualms of the slave owners; as they didn’t understand the religious practices of their slaves, and were thus afraid of them, they forbid non Christian worship. In response to this, the slaves married their African deities with the Catholic saints, and formed Santería, which is fairly widely practiced in Caribbean nations.
All in all, it is very difficult to define precisely what Latin American popular culture is; over the years it has been touched by a wide variety of influences, which have entwined to form a modern culture that is vibrant and alive.
Jan
26
what is popular culture in latinoamerica?
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Latin American culture is very heterogeneous and varies a lot depending on the region, still there are some similarities, that’s why the text uses three big areas on its attempt to describe it, the Andean region, Brazil and Mexico. Ever since the Conquest, Latin America has been changing, but even with all the changes it has had, there are still some rituals and traditions, from our native American ancestors, that are kept, but there are also some bad things, like due to globalization some of the same ancestors are taken aside and exploited or capitalists have taken away their lands. Also the development and social trends of the different areas may vary due to the country that conquer them and to urbanization and industrialization. Another area of Latin American culture that was very affected by the conquest was religion, after they invade America they imposed their religion and tried to change the rituals that were already used, but Europeans had an advantage, that they used written documents, as Indians usually had more a vocal heritage (narrative). Part of the traditions that are kept by some of the Indians are music and poetry, and there still are people that write in their native language, and also they keep native instruments. Another tradition that is trying to be kept is all the artesanias, which have a lot of different meanings, and they were related to religion sometimes, in a bad or a good way, but also, beside their meaning they have become in some cases an income for families. It is really hard to describe a region so vast like Latin America, but I think the authors here gave us very good idea of what in general concepts is Latin America.
Jan
26
Popular Culture in Latin America
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Despite being very long, this journal article was by far the best (out of the ones we have read so far). It captivated me for all 101 pages of it. Some of the pages did drag a tad bit but overall I was very pleased with the read.
The parts I enjoy were the ones in which the author talked about traditional cultures not becoming extinct in Latin America but instead becoming the focus of what is different in Latin America as opposed to North America. Most of information about the Amerindians i knew before, as I have been to Brazil, Venezuela and Argentina, which all have the issues with their native populations being extremely poor (as Schelling and William have stated). For someone who has never been to Latin America or studied Latin American culture this section could have proved very useful.
This essay really takes you to those remote locations of South and Latin America such as Mexico and Bolivia among others. I also enjoyed the parts that explained the Cultural traditions and the ways in which they were created. The parts about the colonial powers and religious institutions playing large roles in both the formation and creation of certain cultural aspects of Latin America.
It’s funny when comparing these cultural rituals and histories to my own North American cultural I find some similarities and many differences. This is because the Amerindians here were not so heavily influential into our infrastructure when we were a young nation, and they did not mix as much with the immigrating population. They still too suffered many of the same unfortunate diseases, weapons and slaver as they’re Latin American counter parts. Its funny because when one thinks about specifically North American culture, people think of fast food and consumerism, but when one thinks about Latin America they picture the natives and the rich ancient history that lies within its holdings.
Jan
26
The faces of pop culture
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Ok so out of all our readings thus far, this is by far my favorite. Although somewhat lengthy, I enjoyed every bit of this reading. Some of it was a little tedious to read but I’d say one out of all the pages one was tedious, in my opinion.
The thing I enjoyed the most was the fact that the author went into great detail about specific Latin American pop culture. For someone who has never taken a course on Latin America and who knows relatively nothing about it, this article made it easier to put a picture to a name.
I am so interested in other cultures and have traveled to many diferent places outside of Canada and the US, and Latin America is one of the places I am most interested in visiting and learning about. I love to learn about the different cultural practices of people far away and relate them to my culture or those I know of.
This essay really brought me to all the little corners of Peru, Argentina and others, places I can only dream about and have. I really enjoyed the background and the history which really put their different cultural practices in a new light. I had so many questions about this population of people that just simply learning about their various ideas of pop culture, wouldn’t give me such an in depth view of them but this essay really helped.
After reading this essay, I now have a better idea of what popular culture really is. The thing that really drove it home for me was how the author explisitly tells us that the ideas of these cultures are imbedded into every day life. That the meaning of every day life is what is popular culture. The seemingly mundane aspects of life have incredible meaning in places where such things aren’t so readily taken for granted. The idea that their history is played out in every day life is a powerful idea. They use oral and written tradition to pass down onto future generations what they think are the most important things in life. The idea that these spoken and written traditions are heavely embedded into their every day lives is important in understanding their way of life.
This essay brought me into their theatre, where history is played out and their songs and music are ways in which they connect with the world around them. The mere thought of having a dance to celebrate the changing of the year and seasons is an amazing thought that brings the world and human nature closer together. In a world where we rarely focus on the earth in our daily lives, this culture/s is deeply intwined with the earth and nature.
Their practices do not just bring them closer with the world around them but connect them with the past and future. Their stories and plays tell the truths of how their political system has come to be, how they have maintained faith and how they associate themselves with the outer world and community. I love that each word they say, eachsond or dance they perform is full of meaning, spilling over into a culture of people who take this meaning seriously.
I compare it to Western culture due to the fact that it seems we are so much the opposite. Not ever in my daily life do I truly encounter anything that makes me think, or question (other than school) our current situation. I am never met by singing people where their words become my own but then if it were my popular culture, I would also be involved. I don’t have any groups of people I sit with and talk about our world and the way it’s come to be and nowhere are there instruments that are connected to the seasons, that I know of in my popular culture. I would love it if my reality was presented in a way such as dance, song and profound lyrical stories, then perhaps I would be more inclined to listen.
Instead I live in a world where danc e and music have become so sexualized that it’s often difficult to find a real story in lyrics and I do listen for them. The reason I dream of their ppopular culture practices is that it seems real. Everything in my reality seems fake, or not tangible. You can’t go to a hockey game and say that that is our reality and our world passed down from generation to generation, is there nothing else? And if there was something else, would anyone listen? Does anyone even care?
I would love to sit on a mountain somewhere and just take it all in, the nature, the realness of it all. In a world where it seems most things are based on superficiality, can we actually see the real from the fake? Now that I’ve finished the reading, I long for other people’s popular culture instead of my own.
