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| Cultural Tourism |
Cultural tourismCultural tourism (also culture tourism) is the subset of tourism concerned with a country or region's culture, especially its arts. Cultural tourism includes tourism in urban areas, particularly historic or large cities and their cultural facilities such as museums and theatres. It can also, less often, include tourism to rural areas; for outdoor festivals, the houses of famous writers and artists, sculpture parks and landscapes made famous in literature. It is generally agreed that cultural tourists spend substantially more than standard tourists do.
See also
- Heritage tourism
- Bookstore tourism
Tourism
Category:Tourism
Tourism
Tourism.]]
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:"Tourist" redirects here; for the album by Athlete, see Tourist (album)
Tourism is the act of travel for the purpose of recreation, and the provision of services for this act. A tourist is someone who travels at least eighty kilometres (fifty miles) from home for the purpose of recreation, as defined by the World Tourism Organization (a United Nations body).
A more comprehensive definition would be that tourism is a service industry, comprising a number of tangible and intangible components. The tangible elements include transport systems - air, rail, road, water and now, space; hospitality services - accommodation, foods and beverages, tours, souvenirs; and related services such as banking, insurance and safety and security. The intangible elements include: rest and relaxation, culture, escape, adventure, new and different experiences.
Many countries depend heavily upon travel expenditures by foreigners as a source of taxation and as a source of income for the enterprises that sell (export) services to these travellers. Consequently the development of tourism is often a strategy employed either by a Non-governmental organization (NGO) or a governmental agency to promote a particular region for the purpose of increasing commerce through exporting goods and services to non-locals.
Sometimes Tourism and Travel are used interchangeably. In this context travel has a similar definition to tourism, but implies a more purposeful journey.
The term tourism is sometimes used pejoratively, implying a shallow interest in the societies and places that the tourist visits.
Tourism Classification
Tourism may be classified into the following types:
- Inbound international tourism: Visits to a country by nonresident of that country
- Outbound international tourism: Visits by the residents of a country to another country
- Internal tourism: Visits by residents of a country to their own
- Domestic tourism: Inbound international tourism + internal tourism
- National tourism: Internal tourists + outbound international tourism
Required factors
The following are required, to make travel possible:
# Discretionary income, i.e. money to spend on non-essentials
# Time in which to do so.
# Infrastructure in the form of accommodation facilities and means of transport.
Individually, sufficient health is also a condition, and of course the inclination to travel. Furthermore, in some countries there are legal restrictions on travelling, especially abroad. Communist states restrict foreign travel only to "trustworthy" citizens. The United States prohibits its citizens from traveling to some countries, for example, Cuba.
History
Wealthy people have always travelled to distant parts of the world to see great buildings or other works of art; to learn new languages; or to taste new cuisine. As long ago as the time of the Roman Republic places such as Baiae were popular coastal resorts for the rich.
The terms tourist and tourism were first used as official terms in 1937 by the League of Nations. Tourism was defined as people travelling abroad for periods of over 24 hours.
Health tourism & leisure travel
It was not until the 19th century that cultural tourism developed into leisure and health tourism. Some English travellers, after visiting the warm lands of the south of Europe, decided to stay there either for the cold season or for the rest of their lives. Others began to visit places with supposedly health-giving mineral waters, in hopes of relieving a whole variety of diseases from gout to liver disorders and bronchitis.
Leisure travel was a British invention due to sociological factors. Britain was the first European country to industrialize, and the industrial society was the first society to offer time for leisure to a growing number of people. Initially, this did not apply to the working masses, but rather to the owners of the machinery of production, the economic oligarchy, the factory owners, and the traders. These comprised the new middle class.
The British origin of this new industry is reflected in many place names.
At Nice, one of the first and most well established holiday resorts on the French Riviera, the long esplanade along the seafront is known to this day as the Promenade des Anglais; in many other historic resorts in continental Europe, old well-established palace hotels have names like the Hotel Bristol, the Hotel Carlton or the Hotel Majestic - reflecting the dominance of English customers.
Winter tourism
Winter sports were largely invented by the British leisured classes initially at the Swiss village of Zermatt (Valais), and St Moritz in 1864.
The first packaged winter sports holidays (vacations) followed in 1903, to Adelboden, also in Switzerland.
Organized sport was well established in Britain before it reached other countries. The vocabulary of sport bears witness to this: rugby, football, and boxing all originated in Britain, and even Tennis, originally a French sport, was formalized and codified by the British, who hosted the first national championship in the nineteenth century, at Wimbledon. Winter sports were a natural answer for a leisured class looking for amusement during the coldest season.
Mass travel
Wimbledon, Italy.]]
Mass travel could not really begin to develop until two things occurred.
- improvements in technology allowed the transport of large numbers of people in a short space of time to places of leisure interest, and
- greater numbers of people began to enjoy the benefits of leisure time.
A major development was the invention of the railways, which brought many of Britain's seaside towns within easy distance of Britain's urban centres.
The father of modern mass tourism was Thomas Cook who, on 5 July 1841, organized the first package tour in history, by chartering a train to take a group of temperance campaigners from Leicester to a rally in Loughborough, some twenty miles away. Cook immediately saw the potential for business development in the sector, and became the world's first tour operator.
He was soon followed by others, with the result that the tourist industry developed rapidly in early Victorian Britain. Initially it was supported by the growing middle classes, who had time off from their work, and who could afford the luxury of travel and possibly even staying for periods of time in boarding houses.
However, the Bank Holiday Act 1871 introduced a statutory right for workers to take holidays, even if they were not paid at the time.
The combination of short holiday periods, travel facilities and distances meant that the first holiday resorts to develop in Britain were towns on the seaside, situated as close as possible to the growing industrial conurbations.
For those in the industrial north, there were Blackpool in Lancashire, and Scarborough in Yorkshire. For those in the Midlands, there were Weston-super-Mare in Somerset and Skegness in Lincolnshire, for those in London there were Southend-on-Sea, Broadstairs, Brighton, Eastbourne and many others.
In travelling to the coast, the population was following in the steps of Royalty. King George III is widely acknowledged as popularising the seaside holiday, due to his regular visits to Weymouth when in poor health.
For a century, domestic tourism was the norm, with foreign travel being reserved for the rich or the culturally curious. A minority of resorts, such as Bath, Harrogate and Matlock, emerged inland. After World War II holiday villages such as Butlins and Pontins emerged, but their popularity waned with the rise of package tours and the increasing comforts to which visitors became accustomed at home. Towards the end of the 20th century the market was revived by the upmarket inland resorts of Dutch company Centre Parcs.
Other phenomena that helped develop the travel industry were paid holidays:
- 1.5 million manual workers in Britain had paid holidays by 1925
- 11 million by 1939 (30% of the population in families with paid holidays)
Outside Britain
Similar processes occurred in other countries, though at a slower rate, given that nineteenth century Britain was far ahead of any other nation in the world in the process of industrialisation.
In the USA, the first great seaside resort, in the European style, was Atlantic City, New Jersey.
In Continental Europe, early resorts included Ostend (for the people of Brussels), and Boulogne-sur-Mer (Pas-de-Calais) and Deauville (Calvados) (for Parisians).
International mass tourism
Increasing speed on railways meant that the tourist industry could develop internationally. By 1901, the number of people crossing the English Channel from England to France or Belgium had passed 0.5 million per year.
However it was with cheap air travel in combination with the package tour that international mass tourism developed after 1963. For the worker living in greater London, Brindisi today is almost as accessible as Brighton was 100 years ago.
Recent developments
There have been a few setbacks in tourism, the latest being related to the September 11, 2001 attacks and terrorist threats to tourist destinations such as Bali and European cities. Some of the tourist destinations, including the Costa del Sol, the Baleares and Cancun have lost popularity due to shifting tastes. In this context, the excessive building and environmental destruction often associated with traditional "sun and beach" tourism may contribute to a destination's saturation and subsequent decline. This appears to be the case with Spain's Costa Brava, a byword for this kind of tourism in the 1960s and 1970s. With only 11% of the Costa Brava now unblemished by low-quality development (Greenpeace Spain's figure), the destination now faces a crisis in its tourist industry.
Attempts to move towards "quality tourism" are difficult given competition from cheaper, unspoilt holiday destinations on the one hand and the legacy of decades of over-exploitation on the other. Tenerife provides an example of the negative impact of mass tourism. Organizations like Greenpeace and [http://www.atan.org/en ATAN] are particularly critical of development on the island, arguing that Tenerife's current tourism industry is both economically and environmentally unsustainable.
Receptive tourism is now growing at a very rapid rate in many developing countries, where it is often the most important economic activity in local GDP.
In recent years, second holidays or vacations have become more popular as people's discretionary income increases. Typical combinations are a package to the typical mass tourist resort, with a winter skiing holiday or weekend break to a city or national park.
On December 26 2004 a tsunami, caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake hit Asian countries bordering the Indian Ocean, and also the Maldives. Tens of thousands of lives were lost, and many tourists died. This, together with the vast clean-up operation in place, has stopped or severely hampered tourism to the area.
Special forms of tourism
For the past few decades other forms of tourism, also known as niche tourism, have been becoming more popular, particularly:
- Adventure tourism: tourism involving travel in rugged regions, or adventurous sports such as mountaineering and hiking (tramping).
- Agritourism: farm based tourism, helping to support the local agricultural economy.
- Armchair tourism and virtual tourism: not travelling physically, but exploring the world through internet, books, TV, etc.
- Bookstore Tourism is a grassroots effort to support independent bookstores by promoting them as a travel destination.
- Cultural tourism: includes urban tourism, visiting historical or interesting cities, such as London, Paris, Cracow, Rome, Prague, Beijing, Kyoto, Warsaw, and experiencing their cultural heritages. This type of tourism may also include specialized cultural experiences, such as art museum tourism where the tourist visits many art museums during the tour, or opera tourism where the tourist sees many operas or concerts during the tour.
- Dark tourism: is the travel to sites associated with death and suffering.
- Disaster tourism: travelling to a disaster scene not primarily for helping, but because it is interesting to see. It can be a problem if it hinders rescue, relief and repair work.
- Drug tourism: for use in that country, or, legally often extremely risky, for taking home.
- Ecotourism: sustainable tourism which has minimal impact on the environment, such as safaris (Kenya), Rainforests (Belize) and hiking (Lapland), or national parks.
- Educational tourism: may involve travelling to an education institution, a wooded retreat or some other destination in order to take personal-interest classes, such as cooking classes with a famous chef or crafts classes.
- Gambling tourism, e.g. to Atlantic City, Las Vegas, Macau or Monte Carlo for the purpose of gambling at the casinos there.
- Heritage tourism: visiting historical (Athens, Cracow) or industrial sites, such as old canals, railways, battlegrounds, etc.
- Health tourism: usually to escape from cities or relieve stress, perhaps for some 'fun in the sun', etc. Often to "health spas".
- Hobby tourism: tourism alone or with groups to participate in hobby interests, to meet others with similar interests, or to experience something pertinent to the hobby. Examples might be garden tours, ham radio DXpeditions, or square dance cruises.
- Inclusive tourism: tourism marketed to those with functional limits or disabilities. Referred to as "Tourism for All" in some regions. Destinations often employ Universal Design and Universal Destination Development principles.
- Medical tourism, e.g.:
- for what is illegal in one's own country, e.g. abortion, euthanasia; for instance, euthanasia for non-citizens is provided by Dignitas in Switzerland.
- for advanced care that is not available in one's own country
- in the case that there are long waiting lists in one's own country
- for use of free or cheap health care organisations
- Perpetual tourism: wealthy individuals always on vacation, some of them, for tax purposes, to avoid being resident in any country.
- Sport tourism: skiing, golf and scuba diving are popular ways to spend a vacation. Also in this category is vacationing at the winter home of the tourist's favorite baseball team, and seeing them play everyday.
- Space tourism
- Vacilando is a special kind of wanderer for whom the process of travelling is more important than the destination.
Trends
The World Tourism Organization forecasts that international tourism will continue growing at the average annual rate of 4 percent [http://www.world-tourism.org/market_research/facts/market_trends.htm]. By 2020 Europe will remain the most popular destination, but its share will drop from 60 percent in 1995 to 46 percent. Long-haul will grow slightly faster than intraregional travel and by 2020 its share will increase from 18 percent in 1995 to 24 percent.
Since e-commerce has taken of on the internet, tourism products have become one of the most traded item on the net. Tourism products and services have been made available on the net at bargain prices through intermediaries like expedia.com or travelocity.com. In recent time, tourism providers (hotels, airlines, etc.)have started to sell their services through the internet. This has put pressure on intermediaries from both the virtual and the traditional brick and mortar stores.
Space tourism is expected to "take off" in the first quarter of the 21st century, although compared with traditional destinations the number of tourists in orbit will remain low until technlogies such as space elevator make space travel cheap.
Technological improvement is likely to make possible air-ship hotels, based either on solar-powered airplanes or large dirigibles. Underwater hotels, such as Hydropolis, expected to open in Dubai in 2006, will be built. On the ocean tourists will be welcomed by ever larger cruise ships and perhaps floating cities.
Some futurists expect that movable hotel "pods" will be created that could be temporarily erected anywhere on the planet, where building a permanent resort would be unacceptable politically, economically or environmentally.
See also
- Backpacking
- Hospitality Services
- Hotel
- Passport
- Pilgrimage
- Tourism in literature
- Tour guide
- Transport
- World Tourism Organization
- World Tourism Rankings
- List of popular tourist regions
- List of types of lodging
- List of international travel guides and web sites
External links
- [http://www.holidaysforum.com/ Holidays Forum] (Tourism discussion).
- [http://www.altaionline.ru./ Tourism in Siberia] (Tourism in Siberia).
Category:Service industries
Category:Recreation
Category:Entertainment
ko:관광
ms:Pelancongan
ja:旅行
simple:Tourism
th:การท่องเที่ยว
Culture:For other uses of Culture or Cultures, see Culture (disambiguation)
The word culture, from the Latin root colere (to inhabit, to cultivate, or to honor), generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. Different definitions of "culture" reflect different theoretical orientations for understanding, or criteria for valuing, human activity. Anthropologists most commonly use the term "culture" to refer to the universal human capacity to classify, codify and communicate their experiences symbolically. This capacity is a defining feature of the genus Homo.
Defining culture
Different definitions of culture reflect different theories for understanding - or criteria for valuing - human activity.
Sir Edward B. Tylor wrote in 1871 that "culture or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society", while a 2002 document from the United Nations agency UNESCO states that culture is the "set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, and that it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs". http://www.unesco.org/education/imld_2002/unversal_decla.shtml UNESCO, 2002 While these two definitions range widely, they do not exhaust the many uses of this concept - in 1952 Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of more than 200 different definitions of culture in their book, Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions [Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952].
Culture as civilization
Many people today use a conception of "culture" that developed in Europe during the 18th and early 19th centuries. This idea of culture then reflected inequalities within European societies, and between European powers and their colonies around the world. It identifies "culture" with "civilization" and contrasts the combined concept with "nature". According to this thinking, one can classify some countries as more civilized than others, and some people as more cultured than others. Thus some cultural theorists have actually tried to eliminate popular or mass culture from the definition of culture. Theorists like Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) or the Leavises regard culture as simply the result of "the best that has been thought and said in the world” (Arnold, 1960: 6), thus labeling anything that doesn't fit into this category as chaos or anarchy. On this account, culture links closely with social cultivation: the progressive refinement of human behavior. Arnold consistently uses the word this way: "...culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world". http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/nonfiction_u/arnoldm_ca/ca_all.html Arnold, 1882
In practice, culture referred to élite goods and activities such as haute cuisine, high fashion or haute couture, museum-caliber art and classical music, and the word cultured described people who knew about, and took part in, these activities. For example, someone who used 'culture' in the sense of 'cultivation' might argue that classical music "is" more refined than music produced by working-class people such as punk rock or than the indigenous music traditions of aboriginal peoples of Australia.
People who use "culture" in this way tend not to use it in the plural as "cultures". They do not believe that distinct cultures exist, each with their own internal logic and values; but rather that only a single standard of refinement suffices, against which one can measure all groups. Thus, according to this worldview, people with different customs from those who regard themselves as cultured do not usually count as "having a different culture"; but class as "uncultured". People lacking "culture" often seemed more "natural", and observers often defended (or criticized) elements of high culture for repressing "human nature".
From the 18th century onwards, some social critics have accepted this contrast between cultured and uncultured, but have stressed the interpretation of refinement and of sophistication as corrupting and unnatural developments which obscure and distort people's essential nature. On this account, folk music (as produced by working-class people) honestly expresses a natural way of life, and classical music seems superficial and decadent. Equally, this view often portrays non-Western people as 'noble savages' living authentic unblemished lives, uncomplicated and uncorrupted by the highly-stratified capitalist systems of the West.
Today most social scientists reject the monadic conception of culture, and the opposition of culture to nature. They recognize non-élites as just as cultured as élites (and non-Westerners as just as civilized) - simply regarding them as just cultured in a different way. Thus social observers contrast the "high" culture of élites to "popular" or pop culture, meaning goods and activities produced for, and consumed by, non-élite people or the masses. (Note that some classifications relegate both high and low cultures to the status of subcultures.)
Culture as worldview
During the Romantic era, scholars in Germany, especially those concerned with nationalist movements - such as the nationalist struggle to create a "Germany" out of diverse principalities, and the nationalist struggles by ethnic minorities against the Austro-Hungarian Empire - developed a more inclusive notion of culture as "worldview". In this mode of thought, a distinct and incommensurable world view characterizes each ethnic group. Although more inclusive than earlier views, this approach to culture still allowed for distinctions between "civilized" and "primitive" or "tribal" cultures.
By the late 19th century, anthropologists had adopted and adapted the term culture to a broader definition that they could apply to a wider variety of societies. Attentive to the theory of evolution, they assumed that all human beings evolved equally, and that the fact that all humans have cultures must in some way result from human evolution. They also showed some reluctance to use biological evolution to explain differences between specific cultures - an approach that either exemplified a form of, or legitimized forms of, racism. They believed that biological evolution would produce a most inclusive notion of culture, a concept that anthropologists could apply equally to non-literate and to literate societies, or to nomadic and to sedentary societies. They argued that through the course of their evolution, human beings evolved a universal human capacity to classify experiences, and to encode and communicate them symbolically. Since human individuals learned and taught these symbolic systems, the systems began to develop independently of biological evolution (in other words, one human being can learn a belief, value, or way of doing something from another, even if the two humans do not share a biological relationship). That this capacity for symbolic thinking and social learning stems from human evolution confounds older arguments about nature versus nurture. Thus Clifford Geertz (1973: 33 ff.) has argued that human physiology and neurology developed in conjunction with the first cultural activities, and Middleton (1990: 17 n.27) concluded that human "'instincts' were culturally formed".
People living apart from one another develop unique cultures, but elements of different cultures can easily spread from one group of people to another. Culture changes dynamically and people can (must?) teach and learn culture, making it a potentially rapid form of adaptation to change in physical conditions. Anthropologists view culture as not only as a product of biological evolution but as a supplement to it, as the main means of human adaptation to the world.
This view of culture as a symbolic system with adaptive functions, and one which varies from place to place, led anthropologists to conceive of different cultures as defined by distinct patterns (or structures) of enduring, arbitrary, conventional sets of meaning, which took concrete form in a variety of artifacts such as myths and rituals, tools, the design of housing, and the planning of villages. Anthropologists thus distinguish between material culture and symbolic culture, not only because each reflects different kinds of human activity, but also because they constitute different kinds of data that require different methodologies.
This view of culture, which came to dominate between World War I and World War II, implied that each culture had bounds and demanded interpretation as a whole, on its own terms. There resulted a belief in cultural relativism; the belief that one had to understand an individual's actions in terms of his or her culture; that one had to understand a specific cultural artifact (a ritual, for example) in terms of the larger symbolic system of which it forms a part.
Nevertheless, the belief that culture comprises symbolical codes and can thus pass via teaching from one person to another meant that cultures, although bounded, would change. Cultural change could result from invention and innovation, but it could also result from contact between two cultures. Under peaceful conditions, contact between two cultures can lead to people "borrowing" (really, learning) from one another (diffusion or transculturation). Under conditions of violence or political inequality, however, people of one society can "steal" cultural artifacts from another, or impose cultural artifacts on another (acculturation). Diffusion of innovations theory presents a research-based model for how, when and why people adopt new ideas.
All human societies have participated in these processes of diffusion, transculturation, and acculturation, and few anthropologists today see cultures as bounded. Modern anthropologists argue that instead of understanding a cultural artifact in terms of its own culture, one needs to understand it in terms of a broader history involving contact and relations with other cultures.
In addition to the aforementioned processes, migration on a major scale has characterized the world, particularly since the days of Columbus. Phenomena such as colonial expansion and forced migration through slavery became prominent. As a result, many societies have become culturally heterogeneous. Some anthropologists have argued nevertheless that some unifying cultural system bound heterogeneous societies, and that it offers advantages to understand heterogenous elements as subcultures. Others have argued that no unifying or coordinating cultural system exists, and that one must understand heterogeneous elements together as forming a multicultural society. The spread of the doctrine of multiculturalism has coincided with a resurgence of identity politics, which involve demands for the recognition of social subgroups' cultural uniqueness.
Sociobiologists argue that observers can best understand many aspects of culture in the light of the concept of the meme, first introduced by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Dawkins suggests the existence of units of culture - memes - roughly analogous to genes in evolutionary biology. Although this view has gained some popular currency, anthropologists generally reject it.
Culture as values, norms, and artifacts
Another common way of understanding culture sees it as consisting of three elements:
# values
# norms
# artifacts.
(See Dictionary of Modern Sociology, 1969, 93, cited at [http://www.info.gov.hk/coy/eng/report/doc/Youth_Statistical/2002/app/Chp6_Cultural_Capital.pdf])
Values comprise ideas about what in life seems important. They guide the rest of the culture. Norms consist of expectations of how people will behave in different situations. Each culture has different methods, called sanctions, of enforcing its norms. Sanctions vary with the importance of the norm; norms that a society enforces formally have the status of laws. Artifacts — things, or material culture — derive from the culture's values and norms.
Julian Huxley gives a slightly different division, into inter-related "mentifacts", "socifacts" and "artifacts", for ideological, sociological, and technological subsystems respectively. Socialization, in Huxley's view, depends on the belief subsystem. The sociological subsystem governs interaction between people. Material objects and their use make up the technological subsystem. [http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~aforsber/ccsf/culture_defined.html]
As a rule, archeologists focus on material culture whereas cultural anthropologists focus on symbolic culture, although ultimately both groups maintain interests in the relationships between these two dimensions. Moreover, anthropologists understand "culture" to refer not only to consumption goods, but to the general processes which produce such goods and give them meaning, and to the social relationships and practices in which such objects and processes become embedded.
Culture as patterns of products and activities
In the early 20th century, anthropologists understood culture to refer not to a set of discrete products or activities (whether material or symbolic) but rather to underlying patterns of products and activities. Moreover, they assumed that such patterns had clear bounds (thus, some people confuse "culture" with the society that has a particular culture).
In the case of smaller societies, in which people merely fell into categories of age, gender, household and descent group, anthropologists believed that people more-or-less shared the same set of values and conventions. In the case of larger societies, in which people undergo further categorization by region, race, ethnicity, and class, anthropologists came to believe that members of the same society often had highly contrasting values and conventions. They thus used the term subculture to identify the cultures of parts of larger societies. Since subcultures reflect the position of a segment of society vis a vis other segments and the society as a whole, they often reveal processes of domination and resistance.
The 20th century also saw the popularization of the idea of corporate culture - distinct and malleable within the context of an employing organization or of a workplace.
Culture as Symbols
The symbolic view of culture, the legacy of Clifford Geertz (1973) and Victor Turner (1967), holds symbols to be both the practices of social actors and the context that gives such practices meaning. Anthony P. Cohen (1985) writes of the "symbolic gloss" which allows social actors to use common symbols to communicate and understand each other while still imbuing these symbols with personal significance and meanings. Symbols provide the limits of cultured thought. Members of a culture rely on these symbols to frame their thoughts and expressions in intelligible terms. In short, symbols make culture possible, reproducible and readable. They are the "webs of significance" in Weber's sense that, to quote Pierre Bourdieu (1977), "give regularity, unity and systematicity to the practices of a group...".
Culture as stabilizing mechanism
Modern cultural theory also considers the possibility that (a)
culture itself is a product of stabilization tendencies inherent
in evolutionary pressures toward self-similarity and self-cognition of societies as wholes, or tribalisms. See
Steven Wolfram "A new kind of science" on iterated simple algorithms from genetic unfolding, from which the concept of culture as an operating mechanism can be developed, and Richard Dawkins "The extended phenotype" for discussion of genetic and memetic stability over time, through negative feedback mechanisms, such as Wikipedia.
Cultural change
Cultures, by predisposition, both embrace and resist change dependence of culture traits. For example, men and women have complementary roles in many cultures. One sex might desire changes that affect the other, as happened in the second half of the 20th century in western cultures.
Cultural change can come about due to the environment, to inventions (and other internal influences), and to contact with other cultures. For example, the end of the last ice age helped lead to the invention of agriculture, which in its turn brought about many cultural innovations.
In diffusion, the form of something moves from one culture to another, but not its meaning. For example, hamburgers, mundane in the United States, seemed exotic when introduced into China. "Stimulus diffusion" refers to an element of one culture leading to an invention in another. Diffusions of innovations theory presents a research-based model for why and when individuals and cultures adopt new ideas, practices, and products.
"Acculturation" has different meanings, but in this context refers to replacement of the traits of one culture with those of another, such as happened to certain Native American tribes and to many indigenous peoples across the globe during the process of colonization.
Related processes on an individual level include assimilation (adoption of a different culture by an individual) and transculturation.
Propagating culture
Insofar as culture grows and changes naturally within human society, it requires little or no formal propagation. Families or age-based peer-groups will instinctively foster (and develop) their own cultural norms.
But few cultures act in such a laissez faire manner. Most societies develop some sort of religion or similar basis for inculcating and preserving established or "correct" cultural behavior. And many societies take the task of education out of the hands of priests and shamans and place it on a wider footing, so that the young (at least) gain a practical and emotional identification with a standardised version of their nurturing culture.
Groups of immigrants, exiles, or minorities often form cultural associations or clubs to preserve their own cultural roots in the face of a surrounding (generally more locally-dominant) culture. Thus the world has acquired many Garibaldi Clubs, Pushkin Societies, and underground schools.
On a broader scale, many countries market their cultural heritage internationally. This occurs not only in the promotion of tourism (importing money), but also in cultural development abroad (exporting ideas). Note the roles of cultural attachés in embassies and the function of specific organizations devoted to propagating the mother-culture, its language and its ideologies abroad, for example the work of:
- the Alliance française
- the British Council
- the Fulbright Program
- the Goethe-Institut
- the Instituto Cervantes
Cultural studies
Cultural studies developed in the late 20th century, in part through the re-introduction of Marxist thought into sociology, and in part through the articulation of sociology and other academic disciplines such as literary criticism. This movement aimed to focus on the analysis of subcultures in capitalist societies. Following the non-anthropological tradition, cultural studies generally focus on the study of consumption goods (such as fashion, art, and literature). Because the 18th- and 19th-century distinction between "high" and "low" culture seems inappropriate to apply to the mass-produced and mass-marketed consumption goods which cultural studies analyses, these scholars refer instead to "popular culture".
Today, some anthropologists have joined the project of cultural studies. Most, however, reject the identification of culture with consumption goods. Furthermore, many now reject the notion of culture as bounded, and consequently reject the notion of subculture. Instead, they see culture as a complex web of shifting patterns that link people in different locales and that link social formations of different scales. According to this view, any group can construct its own cultural identity.
Sample list of cultures
Cultures of contemporary countries and regions
Main article: List of national culture articles.
Contemporary local cultures
- Culture of New York City
- Culture of Stockholm
- Culture of Sydney
Other contemporary cultures
- Cassette culture
- Deaf culture
- Drug culture
- Esperanto culture
- Hacker culture
- Queer culture
- Underground culture
- Working-class culture
- Youth culture
Historic cultures
- Assyro-Babylonian culture
- Clovis culture — pre-historic in North America and Central America from about 13,500 years ago
- Indus Valley Culture
- Cemetery H culture
- La Tene culture — from the Iron Age in parts of Europe
- Natufian culture — in the Mediterranean more than 10,000 years ago
- Paideia — Classical Greek culture
- Romanitas — Roman Imperial culture
- Weimar culture
- Western culture
See also
- Acculturation
- Cross-cultural communication
- Cultural bias - cultural diversity - cultural evolution - cultural imperialism
- Culture theory - Culture war - Culture jamming
- Dominator culture
- European Capital of Culture — city chosen by the European Union for a year at a time to showcase its cultural life
- Kulturkampf — a specific cultural fight in 1870s Germany
- Organizational culture
- World Values Survey
- Free Culture Movement
References
- Arnold, Matthew, Culture and Anarchy, 1882. Macmillan and Co., New York. Online at [http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/nonfiction_u/arnoldm_ca/ca_titlepage.html].
- Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. 1977.
- Cohen, Anthony P. The Symbolic Construction of Community. Routledge: New York, 1995 (1985).
- Geertz, Clifford. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York. ISBN 0465097197.
- Hoult, Thomas Ford, ed. (1969). Dictionary of Modern Sociology. Totowa, New Jersey, United States: Littlefield, Adams & Co.
- Kroeber, A. L. and C. Kluckhohn, 1952. Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.
- Middleton, Richard (1990/2002). Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press. ISBN 0335152759.
- [http://anthro.palomar.edu/tutorials/cultural.htm Cultural Anthropology Tutorials], Behavioral Sciences Department, Palomar College, San Marco, California, United States, as of December 12, 2004.
- UNESCO, "[http://www.unesco.org/education/imld_2002/unversal_decla.shtml UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity]", issued on International Mother Language Day, February 21, 2002.
External links
- [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-72 Dictionary of the History of Ideas:] "Cultural Development" in Antiquity
- [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-73 Dictionary of the History of Ideas:] "Culture" and "Civilization" in Modern Times
- [http://samvak.tripod.com/class.html Classificatory system for cultures and civilizations], by Dr. Sam Vaknin
zh-min-nan:Bûn-hoà
ja:文化
simple:Culture
MuseumA museum is typically a "permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education, enjoyment, the tangible and intangible evidence of people and their environment." This definition is taken from the International Council of Museums (ICOM) Statutes, article 2, paragraph 1, and is regularly reviewed and modified at the triennial ICOM General Assemblies. The italicized tangible and intangible was substituted for the previous material at the last triennial General Assembly in Seoul in 2004, pending ratification at the next General Assembly in Vienna in 2007. (The new wording was introduced in the revised ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums, which is another of the museum profession's core normative instruments.)
Museums are usually not run for the purpose of making a profit, unlike galleries which engage in the sale of objects. There are governmental museums, non-governmental or non-profit museums, and privately-owned or family museums.
Modern museums concentrate on a particular subject, and most museums belong to one or more of the following categories: fine arts, applied arts, archaeology, anthropology, ethnology, history, cultural history, science, technology, natural history. Within these categories many museums specialize further, e.g. museums of modern art, local history, aviation history, agriculture or geology. A museum normally houses a core collection of important selected objects in its field. Objects are formally accessioned by being registered in the museum's collection with an artifact number and details recorded about their provenance. The persons in charge of the collection and of the exhibits are known as curators.
Open-air museums collect and re-erect old buildings at large outdoor sites, usually in settings of re-created landscapes of the past. The first one was King Oscar II's collection near Oslo in Norway, opened in 1881. In 1891 Arthur Hazelius founded the famous Skansen in Stockholm, which became the model for subsequent open air museums in Northern and Eastern Europe, and eventually in other parts of the world. Most open air museums are located in regions where wooden architecture prevail, as wooden structures may be translocated without substantial loss of authenticity.
A more recent but related idea is realized in the ecomuseums, which originated in France.
Early museums began as princely collections of art and rare or curious natural objects and artifacts. These were often displayed in so-called wonder rooms or cabinets of curiosities.
cabinets of curiosities]
Museums are usually open to the general public, sometimes charging an admission fee. Some museums have free entrance, either permanently or on special days, e.g. once per week or year.
The museum is usually run by a director, who has a curatorial staff that cares for the objects and arranges their display. Large museums often will have a research division or institute, which are frequently involved with studies related to the museum's items, as well as an education department, in charge of providing interpretation of the materials to the general public.
Objects come to the collection through a variety of means. Either the museum itself or an associated institute may organize expeditions to acquire more items or documentation for the museum. More typically, however, museums will purchase or trade for artifacts or receive them as donations or bequests.
For instance, a museum featuring Impressionist art may receive a donation of a Cubist work which simply cannot be fit into the museum's exhibits, but it can be used to help acquire a painting more central to the museum's focus. Larger museums may have an "Acquisitions Department" whose staff is engaged fulltime in this kind of activity.
Museums often cooperate to sponsor joint, often traveling, exhibits on particular subjects when one museum may not by itself have a collection sufficiently large or important. These exhibits have limited engagements and often depend upon an additional entry fee from the public to cover costs.
The word "museum" comes from the Latin museum, plural musea, which is in turn derived from the Greek mouseion, which refers to a place or temple dedicated to the Muses, the patron divinities in Greek mythology of the arts.
It is said that there are more museums per person in Finland than in any other country in the world.
A recent development with the expansion of the web, is the establishment of virtual museums, typically with no counterpart in the real world.
Further reading
- Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics, Routledge 1995
Museum designers
Notable international museum designers include Ralph Appelbaum and Edwin Schlossberg.
See also
- List of museums
- List of notable museums and galleries
- List of transport museums
- Art museum
- Maritime museum
- Science museum
- Open air museum
- Virtual museum
- Wax museum
External links
- [http://www.globalmuseum.org Global Museum]
- [http://www.museumnews.net/ Museum News]
- [http://vlmp.museophile.com/ Virtual Library museums pages] (VLmp)
- [http://icom.museum/ International Council of Museums] (ICOM)
- [http://about.museum/ The .museum top-level domain] (Dot-museum)
- [http://www.molli.org.uk/ MOLLI] (Museum On-Line Learning Initiatives)
- [http://www.insecula.com/ Great Museums in the World]
- [http://www.greece-museums.com/ Museums in Greece]
- [http://www.chinamuseums.com/ Museums in China]
- [http://www.censusfinder.com/guide_to_historical_museums.htm US Historical Museums Guide]
- [http://schulmuseum.net/ Schulmuseen in Europa]
- [http://www.aam-us.org/index.cfm/ American Association of Museums]
- A
Category:Buildings and structures
ms:Muzium
ja:博物館
th:พิพิธภัณฑ์
Theatre
:For other usages see Theatre (disambiguation)
Theatre
is that branch of the performing arts concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience using combinations of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound and spectacle — indeed any one or more elements of the other performing arts. In addition to the standard narrative dialogue style, theatre takes such forms as opera, ballet, mime, kabuki, classical Indian dance, Chinese opera, mummers' plays, and pantomime.
Overview of theatre
"Drama" (literally translated, is defined as: Action) is that branch of theatre in which speech, either from written text (plays), or improvised is paramount. "Musical theatre" is a form of theatre combining music, songs, dance routines, and spoken dialogue. However, theatre is more than just what one sees on stage. Theatre involves an entire world behind the scenes that creates the costumes, sets and lighting to make the overall effect interesting. There is a particularly long tradition of political theatre, intended to educate audiences on contemporary issues and encourage social change. Various creeds, Catholicism for instance, have built upon the entertainment value of theatre and created (for example) passion plays, mystery plays and morality plays.
There is an enormous variety of philosophies, artistic processes, and theatrical approaches to creating plays and drama. Some are connected to political or spiritual ideologies, and some are based on purely "artistic" concerns. Some processes focus on a story, some on theatre as an event, some on theatre as a catalyst for social change. According to Aristotle's seminal theatrical critique Poetics, there are six elements necessary for theatre. They are Plot, Character, Idea, Language, Song, and Spectacle. The 17th-century Spanish writer Lope de Vega wrote that for theatre one needs "three boards, two actors, and one passion". Others notable for their contribution to theatrical philosophy are Konstantin Stanislavski, Antonin Artaud, Bertolt Brecht, Orson Welles, Peter Brook, Jerzy Grotowski.
The most recognisable figures in theatre are the directors, playwrights and actors, but theatre is a highly collaborative endeavour. Plays are usually produced by a production team that commonly includes a scenic or set designer, lighting designer, costume designer, sound designer, dramaturg, stage manager, and production manager. The artistic staff are assisted by technical theatre personnel who handle the creation and execution of the production.
Styles of theatre
technical theatre (1909).]]
There are a variety of genres that writers, producers and directors can employ in theatre to suit a variety of tastes:
- Musical theatre: A theatrical genre in which the primary means of performance is through singing and music.
- Rock opera: Same style as opera, except that the musical form is rock music.
- Comedy: Comes from the Greek word komos which means celebration, revel or merrymaking. It does not necessarily mean funny, but more focuses on a problem that leads to some form of catastrophe which in the end has a happy and joyful outcome.
- Farce: A comic dramatic piece that uses highly improbable situations, stereotyped characters, extravagant exaggeration, and violent horseplay.
- Pantomime: A form of musical drama in which elements of dance, puppetry, slapstick and melodrama are combined to produce an entertaining and comic theatrical experience, often designed for children.
- Romantic comedy: A medley of clever scheming, calculated coincidence, and wondrous discovery, all of which contribute ultimately to making the events answer precisely to the hero's or heroine's wishes, with the focus on love.
- Comedy of situation: A comedy that grows out of a character's attempt to solve a problem created by a situation. The attempt is often bumbling but ends up happily.
- Comedy of manners: Witty, cerebral form of dramatic comedy that depicts and often satirises the manners and affectations of a contemporary society. A comedy of manners is concerned with social usage and the question of whether or not characters meet certain social standards.
- Commedia dell'arte: Very physical form of comedy which was created and originally performed in Italy. Commedia uses a series of stock characters and a list of events to improvise an entire play.
- Musical comedy: Comedy enacted through music, singing and dance.
- Black comedy: Comedy that tests the boundaries of good taste and moral acceptability by juxtaposing morbid or ghastly elements with comical ones.
- Melodrama: Originally, a sentimental drama with musical underscoring. Often with an unlikely plot that concerns the suffering of the good at the hands of the villains but ends happily with good triumphant. Featuring stock characters such as the noble hero, the long-suffering heroine, and the cold-blooded villain.
- Tragedy: A drama that treats in a serious and dignified style the sorrowful or terrible events encountered or caused by a heroic individual.
- Tragicomedy: A drama that has a bitter/sweet quality, containing elements of tragedy and comedy.
- Domestic drama: Drama in which the focus is on the everyday domestic lives of people and their relationships in the community that they live in.
- Fantasy: The creation of a unique landscape on a which a hero goes on a quest to find something that will defeat the powers of evil. Along the way, this hero meets a variety of weird and fantastic characters.
- Morality play: A morality play is an allegory in which the characters are abstractions of moral ideas.
- Physical theatre: Theatrical performance in which the primary means of communication is the body, through dance, mime, puppetry and movement, rather than the spoken word.
- Theatre of the Absurd: Term coined by Martin Esslin, theatre in which characters are engaged in an absurd, that is meaningless, activity or life. Related to existentialism.
- Meta-Theater: A genre of theater made popular with mostly modern audiences, although it did start back in the Elizabethan Era. Meta-Theater is when a play often completely demolishes the so called "fourth wall" and completely engages the audience. Often times about a group of actors, a director, writer and so on. It usually blurs the line between what is scripted and what goes on by accident.
This list is not only somewhat incomplete and eurocentric, but none of the genre listed are actually mutually exclusive. The richness of live theatre today is such that its practitioners can borrow from all of these elements and more, and present something that is a multi-disciplinary melange of pretty much everything.
Theatre or Theater?
The traditional spelling of this word in Commonwealth English is theatre.
In the United States, the alternative spelling theater has become more common. The general consensus of most American style guides is to use this spelling unless the word is part of the proper name of a performing arts facility or company, as some venues are branded with "theatre" [http://www.newpaltz.edu/styleguide/editorial/t.html] [http://www.buffalostate.edu/collegerelations/x593.xml] [http://www.utexas.edu/visualguidelines/tricky.html]. However, both spellings are in widely accepted when referring to the branch of the arts.
For some people in the U.S., the two spellings carry different meanings. In this case, "theatre" denotes a branch of the performing arts, whereas "theater" refers to the building in which performances or other entertainments are presented. However, among theatre professionals in the U.S., "theatre" is common for both the art and the building.
Theatre venues and styles
- Broadway and the West End
- Off-Broadway and the London fringe
- Off-Off-Broadway
- Regional theatre
- Repertory theatre
- Summer stock theatre
- Community theatre
- Improvisational theatre
- Fringe festival
- Postmodern theater
- Proletcult Theatre
- Street theatre
- Physical theatre
- Temple dance
Awards in theatre
- European Theatre Award
- Laurence Olivier Awards (United Kingdom)
- Tony Award (USA)
- Golden Mask Award (Russia)
- Molière Award (France)
- Hans-Reinhart-Ring (Switzerland)
- Lucille Lortel Award (USA)
- Drama Desk Award (USA)
See also
- List of theater terms
- Theater in the United States
- History of theatre
- Theatre technique
- Suspension of disbelief
- Stagecraft
- Epic Theater
- Irish theatre
- Movie theater
- Puppet theater
- Tableaux vivant
- Mask Sound & Dance Theater
- Digital theatre
- Theater in architecture
- Opera house
- Dramatist
- List of playwrights
- List of theatre directors
- List of Irish dramatists
- :Category:Stage terminology
External links
- [http://webcdi.com/theater/theatre.php Theatre or theater?]
- [http://www.mugss.org/useful/dictionary/ Theatre terms dictionary]
- [http://www.bris.ac.uk/theatrecollection/ University of Bristol Theatre Collection]
- [http://www.ibdb.com/ Internet Broadway Database]
ko:연극
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simple:Theater
Bookstore tourismBookstore tourism is a type of cultural tourism that promotes independent bookstores as a group travel destination. It started as a grassroots effort to support locally owned and operated bookshops, many of which have struggled to compete with large bookstore chains and online retailers.
The effort was initiated in 2003 by Larry Portzline, a writer and college instructor in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania who led "bookstore road trips" to other cities and recognized its potential as a group travel niche and marketing tool. He promoted the concept with a how-to book and a Web site, and groups around the U.S. soon began offering similar excursions, usually via a chartered bus, and often incorporating book signings, author home tours, and historical sites. The [http://www.scbabooks.org Southern California Booksellers Association] embraced bookstore tourism in 2005, offering trips to independent bookstores in Los Angeles and San Diego. As of Fall 2005, other regional booksellers associations around the U.S. were considering ways to join the effort and capitalize on the trend.
The movement encourages schools, libraries, reading groups, and organizations of all sizes to create day-trips and literary outings to cities and towns with a concentration of independent bookstores. It also encourages local booksellers to attract bibliophiles to their communities by employing bookstore tourism as an economic development tool. Others benefiting include local retailers, restaurants, bus companies, and travel professionals.
The effort also provides organizations with an outreach opportunity to support reading and literacy.
In 2006, Portzline plans to launch the National Council on Bookstore Tourism, a nonprofit association that will partner with booksellers, libraries, educators, literary festivals, the travel industry and economic development agencies at the national, state and local levels to promote the concept.
See also: Bookstore; Tourism; :Category:Travel
External Link: [http://www.BookstoreTourism.com BookstoreTourism.com]
Category:Cultural geographyCategory:Human geography
Geography
Geography
Category:TourismTourism can be defined as the act of travel for the purpose of recreation, and the provision of services for this act.
Category:Service industries
Category:Recreation
Category:Entertainment
ja:Category:旅行
Category:CultureLink title
Category:Top 8
Category:Society
Category:Anthropology
Category:Portals
ko:분류:문화
ja:Category:文化
GM Gilbert
Gustave Mahler Gilbert, (auch GM Gilbert) geb. 1911 in New York als Kind österreich-jüdischer Einwanderer, gest. 1977.
Gilbert, der an der Columbia University 1939 in New York im Fach Psychologie promoviert hatte, kam als Übersetzer, später als Gefängnispsychologe zum Internationalen Militärgerichtshof nach Nürnberg und betreute dort die Angeklagten des ersten, Hauptkriegsverbrecherprozesses.
Als späterer Professor für Psychologie in Brooklyn, New York sagte er im Eichmann-Prozess in Jerusalem aus.
Literatur
- Gustave Mahler Gilbert: Nürnberger Tagebuch, ISBN 3-596-21885-3, (1962)
Gilbert, Gustave M.
Gilbert, Gustave M.
Gilbert, Gustave M.
Kategorie:Geboren 1911
Kategorie:Gestorben 1977
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Holm, Sir Ian
Sir Ian Holm CBE (born September 12, 1931) is a British actor.
Born as Ian Holm Cuthbert in Goodmayes, Essex,
he was educated at Chigwell School and then the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Holm was an
establishe
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Clerides, Glafkos John
Glafkos Ioannou Clerides (Greek: Γλαύκος Ιωάννου Κληρίδης) (b. 24 April 1919) is a Greek-Cypriot politician and former president of the Republic of Cyprus.
Clerides was the eldest son of the lawyer and stateman Yiannis Clerides.
During World War II, he served in the British city and a commune of the canton of Jura, Switzerland which has preserved its medieval character. The city contains many historical curiosities (collègiales, a cloister, ruins of a castle, a hermitage). The River Doubs makes a loop by Saint-Ursanne before flowing into France. Additionally, the city is famous
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Holyoake, Sir Keith J
The Right Honorable Sir Keith Jacka Holyoake, KG, GCMG, CH, QSO was a New Zealand politician. He was National Party Prime Minister from September 20,
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