Monday, January 26, 2009

What is popular culture in Latin America.

This weeks reading of "The Faces of Popular Culture" by Rowe William and Vivian Schelling opened my eyes to new prespectives and ideas of culture in Latin America and what that actually entails. From the beggining of the essay it was evidence the importance that spanish conquest has had on Latin America. The realationship between the mix of indigenous and Spanish culture is interesting to analys. Later, the discussion of current urbanization and 'economic development' in Latin America is brought forth. In the essay they referee to a qoute by Taussig's. "A community can in many ways be affected and controlled y the wider capatilist world, but this in itself does not necessarily make such a community a replica of the larger society and the global economy." This shows that even with an evolving urbanazation and economic global 'blending' and interdependence that individuality does and can exist.  The then go on to talk about Folhetos of which I personally find very intruiging. Its almost as if these poems assist in the binding of culture. Along with folhetos i found the discusion of footbal to be very similair. It seems a though simple things such as sports and poems represent larger cultural situations. That it's not just footbal but rather a metaphor of which is representative of culture in Latin America. Envolved in this is the extensive popularity of telenovelas in Latin America. It's as if though again these telenovelas are representative of something much larger. After finishing the reading i came back to the question of what is popular culture in Latin America. I came to the conclusion that there is no conclusion and that there is no definitive answer or definition. Popular culture is based off a continually growing and changing world of which makes it nearly impossible to classify the world culture. The one constant that is attachable to the word culture however is that culture is an individual experience of which is different for everybody and the conotations they attach to the word. Things such as telenovelas and footbal are all stimulators for culture but in the end its how the individual precieves and feels about popular culture that makes it what it is. 

3 comments:

  1. A detail, but the first author's name is William Rowe, not Rowe William.

    Meanwhile, yes, there are no simple answers to the question of popular culture in Latin America. Again, however, this doesn't mean we shouldn't ask. I like your point that "It seems a though simple things such as sports and poems represent larger cultural situations." Indeed, we can see how apparently simple things help us to understand larger realities.

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  2. I definitely agree with you on the point you made about popular culture continually growing and adapting to changes occurring in society. I think that is the beauty of popular culture, is that it reflects what is important to the people, now. I think this idea ties in to the point you brought up about telenovelas and football as being more than just entertainment, but reflections of larger cultural issues. For example, in Spain, the immense popularity of the Barca/Madrid football rivalry represents more than just a sports rivalry. Rather, it represents the rising of the historically-oppressed Catalan people over their oppressors, the Castilian people.

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  3. I like your definition of popular culture in Latin America. Indeed, I totally agree with you when you say that culture is not a fixed concept. Culture changes, popular culture also changes because people who produce it and who receive it change too. I assume that there is not one popular culture in Latin America but many ones. It is a "deterritorialized" concept. First, there are different kind of Latin American popular cultures as regards the countries or the regions. Then, Latin American popular cultures are exported.

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