Johannes Fabian

Relationship between Anthropology and pop culture

Johannes Fabian

Dialectics of movement of freedom

Johannes Fabian

Culture as Praxis

·         Pop culture as Praxis:

1.  Contrasts with culture ‘tout court’ (culture as a thing unto itself)
2. Pop culture is discursive (reached by reason) and can be studied
3. Emphasis is on movements and processes, ie. In terms of contexts

Fabian

Critique of Systemic Approach

Miller and Slater

Critique of Cyberspace and Virtuality (Virtuality as an achievement)

Miller and Slater

Dynamics of Objectification

MIller and Slater

Normative Freedom

How do people engage in the dialectics of freedom and its normative form as they are opened up by the internet.

Trinidad

Aspirations and relations to the internet (3)

Trinidad

Family and social relations in terms of 1. Expansive Realisation and 2. Expansive Potenetial

•   Being able to connect with relatives (to keep the Trini values. IE. The mom that calls her son to say she has checked the weather and her son should wear a coat, or the PhD student who was going to quit until his mother prodded him to go.
•   Gender divisions: women goes to IV league school and is making coffee, or are seen as social secretaries that send the family emails, etc and are put down by the husband.

•   The difference in depth of online relationships and the role of sex and gender
• Virtuality as an achievement.
• Notions of purity of online friendships
• Turning online relationships into offline realities.

Trinidad

The nature of traditional kin dynamics (Transcience and transcendence)

Kottak: Telenovelas

Relation to Brazilian National Identity

·         Urban and national as opposed to rural and regional. (Ideas of progress and modernity are expressed through urbaness). Usually filmed in Rio and show a modern view of Brazil even though much of the viewing population is situated in rural areas.

·         The carnival, soccer and Telanovela are Brazil’s most notable cultural unifiers.

Telenovelas

Success in Terms of Constancy

·         Actors are usually the same (typecast) and the plot follows a formulaic order, the same (popular) writers, actors and directors are re-used. The Actors are written about in magazines using their real names so that the viewers can get familiar with them as they switch roles.

·         6, 7, and 8 o’clock telenovelas have specific audiences, each one with a specific type of show.

·         By adhering to a culturally appropriate, and consistent product rather than an unpredictable and ground breaking program which may offend the viewer.

Telenovelas

Cultural Appropriatness and Mass Knowledge

·         central characters ascending socioeconomic levels, they usually move up through marriage, inheritance or gifts rather than through hard work. Especially women should not try to make something of themselves, as this is a highly hereditary society.

Telenovelas

Mass Culture and Control

Nature of Ethnography by Corporations

Merchants of Cool

Romance Novels (Radway)

Reasons for Popularity

reasons for the popularity;

·         Readers assessment: Novels provide a guilt-free escape and relaxation from real-life’s disappointments (homemaker stereotype vs. Working husband)

Romance Novels

How Meaning is generated in a community

Romance Novels

Rhetoric of Re-interpretation

·         Nurturing is innately a woman’s occupation, the men in the books are nurturing and yet masculine, while women are the objects to be nurtured.

·         Defined in terms of a relationship, not as an individual.Process oriented; transformation of heroine into passive object of hero’s concern and attention. His aggressive actions directed at her before they “fall in love” are motivated out of lack of understanding his love for her. Radway ventures to say that this is a device to help woman justify their own situations with their husbands and male family members.

Romance Novels

Mass Culture and Resistance

Mass culture and resistance

·         The variablitiy of the message as received and the modesty of the potential critique.

·         The rules that the readers have about the heroine, the plot and the hero suggest a great discontentment with Woman’s social role in society, by picking up the book they are re-affirming their right to be self-indulgent and to appreciate the “virtual reality” of the characters.

i) Metapragmatic  and Metalinguistic practices (inc. examples);  

·         Metapragmatic: Careless or purposefully using language in unorthodox ways.Practice about practice.-          Examples: Dolatshahi- on purpose, using language in a low Persian manner to make a point even though she is an intellectual (or at least is familiar with high Persian)-          The Blogger who admits he cannot concentrate on his writing and his messages, and is forced to revise his blogs even after they are “finished”. This effectively recognises the superiority of High Persian.

·         Metalinguistic: Ability to use and comprehend language in fully culturally capable way. Language about language.-          Examples: Shokrollahi- critique of Derakhshan’s comment’s on grounds of un-intellectual script and vulgar content.

ii) Primary(oral, familiar): small talk, jokes etc.  and secondary (formal) speech genres; Journal, poetry, etc.

iii) Aspects of the

1.      ‘inner’ orientations of the Blog as a speech genre: It is a first person declaration which involves the construction of an online self reflected in both context and form:

·        Opinions connected to different classes and their respective ideals (intellectuals versus the non intellectuals) 

2.      ‘outer’ orientations of the blog as speech genre:

a.      It is dialogic (conversational), each blog requires responses and comments by visitors.

b.      It is posted in chronological order and is replaced with new blogs as time passes.

c.       It melds network and status, gains status by linking to other blogs, and writing on others blogs, thus associating the writer with other bloggers in a social structure loop.

*Doostdar argues that the Blog is a new genre of speech which contains elements of both primamry and secondary genres as well as it's own metalinguistic and metapragmatic elements which are constantly under construction*

Ze Frank

Crossover of Online/offline communities & Effects of the Colonial expansion

1. Crossover of ‘online’ and ‘offline’ communities; ·         Runing fool: asks the help of an entire online community to get across America depending only on their good will. Effectively bridging the gap between online and offline communities. 

2. Effects of ‘colonial’ projects of expansion (‘Myspace adoption programme’)

·         Adoption program announced, the adoptees are announced, doesn’t work as the adoptees have reasons for not having so many friends. (Jamie’s story about the man looking for women in London) Show’s the fallout of the colonial expansion because not everyone sees the internet (uses) the same.   

Kroncong Music

Values associated with the Genre

Values associated with the genre;

·         Traditionally sung by women longing for love, then by Portuguese sailors about their homeland and their lovers. In Indonesia became a symbol for masculinity, specifically men on the move, on the fringe of society.

Maleness and Sexuality...

·         these kroncong sensibilia embody and express the emotionally charged irony of human love and longing for love lost and found, a cosmopolitan, urban history, various relationships to a particular modernity and other modern moments in the awakening of the Indonesian national imagination, a nostalgia for the past and the pastoral forged from historical and a local sense of syncretic authenticity and invention.

·         the puppet maker and the men who chose to join in the kroncong rehearsals were drawing upon other sensibilia related to this genre of music, specifically its association with a dangerous, virile sense of masculinity.

Kroncong

Role of Gender relations in the Practice sessions

Role of gender relations in the practice sessions; ·         Men head the public social life, however in the last 20 years women’s nurturing character was popularized (grassroots model for the neighbourhood) and men began to lose power in the neighbourhood realm. This was clearly evident, when one man had stole money from his wife to gamble at the rehearsal... the women in the neighbourhood came together and had the rehearsals shut down.

·         Men’s loss of potency within the house, is regained in aspects of asceticism (staying out late) and the unruly identity projected onto the Kroncong players. Stereotypes known as the Jago (rooster) or buaya (crocodile) personify these qualities.

Kroncong

Social Position of the Host

Social position of host of the sessions.

·         He is a successful businessman in the market, which gave him a successful masculine persona.

·         Pak Wayang was a tangible example that such economic mobility could at least be imagined and possibly also attained. The men in the neighborhood were attracted to him for these reasons, but also because he provided opportunities for them to make small amounts of cash.

Balinese Cockfight (Geertz)

Deep Play (Jeremy Bantham)

Deep Play; (Jeremy Bantham)

·         Chance of ruinious defeat, chance of loss in general is always more than what can seemingly be gained and so is not rational. There are however other gains to be made which are worth more than the rational loss or gain.

·         In Geertz’s Balinese cockfights the stakes are higher than monetary, they involve your public self, the ability to break the power structure temporarily beating your (or your kin’s) enemies.

Balinese Cockfights

relation of animal vs human regarding Balinese ethos

Relation to Balinese ethos regarding animals and humans;

·         Animality is a threat to culture. Crawling infants, incest, bestiality (the worst crime), even eating and defecating are considered to be animalistic and are to be done in private. The identification of a man and the cock is an identification with the dark side of humanity.

Balinese Cockfights

Re;ation of social relations to rules of cockfight

Relation between ‘rules’ of the cockfight and social relations:

·         A man must bet on his kin groups cock, or those associated with his kin relations, if it is too complicated and a man cannot make a choice about who to bet on... he won’t. Betting against your rightful cock is excusable only in minor matches, or to make a definite declaration of splitting of loyalty. Outside cocks are always bet against, and a travelling cock is always a favourite. *internal conflicts are mended by uniting against the outside cock*

Balinese cockfights (Geertz)

Role of Even and Uneven Odds

Role of even odds and uneven odds:

·         Center bets are always even and the peripheral ones always odd. The higher status men always bet on the even center bet and the peripherals are reserved for lower class (the outsider games are for the lowest class) and odds are determined by consensus. They never are separated by more than one 9-8, 8-7, 7-6, etc.

Balinese Cockfights

Shallow and Deep matches

‘Shallow’ and ‘Deep’ matches:

·         The Deeper the match, the closer the identification of a man with his cock... he will be apt to put his best cock forward.

·         The finer the cocks involved, the more equal the cocks will be.

·         The greater the emotional involvement of all participants.

·         The higher the center bet, the more shallow bets around the ring and the closer the secondary bets will be.The deeper the match, the more solid the betters involved, the less it will have to do with economics and more to do with social status.

Sports and Resistance

Hegemony in Gramiscian terms

Hegemony in Gramscian terms;

·         Gramscian: Hegemony is always contested within classes and between them, it responds to changes in the social currents. (IE. Blogestan: intellectual vs. Non-intellectual as to which version of language is proper... by taking sides, the other is validated but also can change over time, Geertz: Animality vs. Manliness and high class bloodsport, Kroncong: music had different meaning woman vs. Man) or Bareknuckle boxing vs. Soccer with metal cleats. Computer gaming...

3 Types of Resistance: 

     1.`self-consiously political protest’; (Use of the audience/spectators of the sport to push a message)·         Olympic “black salute” seen as a disgrace, Moscow boycott, China...

2.      ‘opposition to colonial rule’; ·         (Can be seen through appropriation, re-invention and revival) Example of Trobriand cricket (syncretism), Australia and India: appropriate by playing by British rules and winning.        

3.‘emergent cultural opposition’; ·         (Playful, challenging dominant asthetics) Skateboarding, Earth ball, Pogs... fates of these as they are rationalised.  

Sports and Resistance

Resistance on lines of class, Gender and Ethnicity

Resistance on lines of class,

·         Boxing, based on medical info, exploits the lower class... Culture changed on behalf of acceptable male behaviour. Bare Knuckle boxing, snowboarding into the Olympics.

Gender, and ethnicity;

·         Victorian ideals of middle class women not taking part in physical activity, 80s exercise videos; at first liberating, now sexually exploitive, Criteria for male and female body builders.

Case Studies

 (Pit fights vs. hunting, boxing, bodybuilding, etc.)

*Basically supplements to Sports and Resistance*

Skateboarding and Framing of Pop culture

• Hegemony and resistance:
• Deep Play:
• Dialects of Freedom:
• Miller and Slater Objectification:

Skateboarding and framing of popular culture:·         Hegemony/Resistance: Jeff Ho always wanting to do something different, against the grain. Skateboarders as urban guerrillas, zephyr team at the competition wanting to show their own kind of skateboarding (not the 60s version), Pool boarding.·        

Deep Play: Came from broken homes, a way to let out aggression, gave individuals a collective identity as bad boys.·        

Dialectic of Freedom: Sponsoring broke up the team, pitted them against each other and made the sport a widespread nationwide sport, which took away from the notion of freedom the sport had originally created for the Zephyr boys.·        

Miller and Slater Objectification: Expansive potential: The boys were able to create an identity as bad boys, other kids wanted that same identity. Expansive realisation: extended the Zephyr kids view of themselves as broken home bad boys.