Vernacular Culture Research Articles

Exploring children’s TikTok cultures in India: Negotiating access, uses, and experiences under restrictive parental mediation

TikTok is a popular platform allowing users to view and make short videos. The platform's embeddedness among youth cultures is key to TikTok’s commercial success, to attract and sustain a diverse array of international users. The discourse around children and social media especially TikTok is laced with technopanics, as is the case in India. Although sparse, literature shows children in India want to explore social media but parental mediation usually follows a restrictive style. Using a qualitative approach and multimodal methods, we unpack how children (10–18 years) in a large Indian metropolitan city use TikTok for self-presentation and creative expression while navigating restrictive parental mediation. This article helps gain in-depth understanding of children’s TikTok cultures in India by foregrounding their voices and contributes to larger scholarship on youth digital cultures by focusing on their: (a) vernacular cultures on TikTok, (b) deliberations on safety and wellbeing, and (c) negotiations regarding agency and resistance.

“Go Out and Bring Me Lazarus”: O Brother, Allegory, and a Work Song’s Circuitous Journey

ABSTRACT Sung by convicts and recorded in 1959 at Mississippi’s Parchman Farm penitentiary, the work song “Po Lazarus” keynoted 2000ʹs award-winning soundtrack O Brother, Where Art Thou? and, thus recontextualized, helped spark a folk revival. Like its protagonist, “Po Lazarus” has been “messed with” – captured, preserved, aestheticized, commercialized. It’s also been allegorized: explicitly by African-American ministers and implicitly by the soundtrack, which limns the circular journey of high Romanticism, a trope originating with Plotinus and Augustine. Moreover, the soundtrack evokes the Manichean allegory of European colonialism, working to simultaneously critique and reproduce the racialized imaginary of Southern vernacular culture.

The Spatial Pedigree in Traditional Villages under the Perspective of Urban Regeneration—Taking 728 Villages in Jiangnan Region, China as Cases

In current urban regeneration, the conservation and reuse of traditional village space are significant measures to activate urban-rural development. Traditional villages in the Jiangnan region of eastern China represent the typical vernacular culture of urban-rural settlements, which affects the dynamic development of urban regeneration. Aiming at the disadvantages of the decentralization of research objects and the simplification of spatial characteristics in the research of traditional villages in the Jiangnan region, this paper will construct the spatial pedigrees of villages. This study takes 728 traditional villages in the Jiangnan region as cases. First, through on-site research, the spatial pattern of villages in isolated areas was mapped and drawn. Then, on the basis of on-site review, this study labeled the village space, summarized village space information, and used ArcGIS and BIM to create a 3D model of the village. In ArcGIS platform through SOA to establish criterion framework for recognizing the types of village pedigree. Finally, the classification of villages was spatially visualized, and a pedigree was constructed according to the type context. The research result indicates: (1) The aggregation mode of traditional villages in the south of the Jiangnan region presents the characteristics of local aggregation and partial dispersion, which are directly affected by factors such as elevation, water system, and road system. (2) Analysis of the spatial pedigrees of traditional villages through spatial types and spatial growth patterns revealed four pedigree types, including spatial environment pedigree, the spatial organization pedigree, spatial morphological pedigree, and architectural form pedigree. (3) The pedigree shows and distinguishes independent developmental context and evolved form, presenting an extended pattern of prototypes and sub-types.

Dante’s New Life of the Book: A Philology of World Literature. Martin Eisner. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 259.

<i>Dante’s New Life of the Book: A Philology of World Literature</i>. Martin Eisner. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 259.

Wreckers and Crashers: the Folklore of an Irish Banger Racing Community

ABSTRACT Banger racing is an extreme form of car racing, wherein manoeuvres akin to crashing, ramming and spinning are essential features of the races as well as the overall performances. This study is an ethnologic exploration of the emergent folk culture generated by a small banger racing community located in the Northside of Dublin, Ireland. The racing cars, or bangers, are individually constructed and customized for each race, using an array of car parts found and appropriated by both racers and mechanics. Such distinct social conditions and cultural practices, and the group’s position as a distinctive subgroup within the Irish car enthusiast community, facilitate the creation of its own culture and folklore. While this study outlines aspects of the group’s indigenous vernacular culture, it focuses especially on the ways in which folklore yields distinctive meanings as well as enhancing feelings of both collective and individual identity.

Humor under the Guise of Chan

&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; This article examines a group of Song-dynasty biji 筆記 (miscellaneous jottings) anecdotes featuring the Northern Song literary giant Su Shi 蘇軾 (style name Dongpo 東坡, 1037–1101) playfully engaging with Buddhist encounter dialogues. These religious accounts are well known for their riddle-like language and the baffling effect they create among their readers, prompting the question of whether they were read for humor. Previous scholarship on encounter dialogues focuses on the religious perspective, demonstrating that their perplexing language and rheto- ric serve pedagogical and monastic functions. By contrast, this article explores Chan Buddhist humor from the perspective of the literati and vernacular culture by examining how encounter dialogues were incorporated in Song-dynasty vernacu- lar plays and literati storytelling. Focusing on stories that depict Su Shi’s playful engagement with encounter dialogues as a case study, this article reveals that an important part of Su Shi’s humorous image is inspired and shaped by Buddhism. It also shows that humor in these biji stories is contingent on the readers’ knowledge of Chan literature such as “recorded dialogues” (yulu 語錄) and “transmission records” (denglu 燈錄), which were popular among literati during the Song. The anecdotal materials preserved in biji suggests a mutual influence between Chan literature and vernacular entertainment during the Song. I argue that, in addition to religious functions, literary factors of performance and aesthetics played sig- nificant roles in conditioning the entertaining effect of encounter dialogues, par- ticularly when they were received outside of monastic circles.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D;

The reincarnation of Tiger Mountain: Post-socializing the model opera film

This essay is about the politics of aesthetics in the cinematic making and remaking of the model opera (yangbanxi), a performative genre that was favorably engineered by Jiang Qing so as to facilitate politicized lives of Chinese masses by virtue of igniting and uniting the revolutionary fervor among peasants, workers and soldiers. Through a comparative analysis of the narrative schemas and aesthetic strategies deployed in Xie Tieli’s Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy (1970) and Tsui Hark’s The Taking of Tiger Mountain (2014), this article raises the questions of how a multiplicity of utopian visions has been reincarnated and reembodied through the contemporary remaking of the iconic model opera film. It argues that the practice of cinematic remaking in post-reform China is constituted by the underpinning logics of the politics of nostalgia and the rearticulation of geopolitical desire. Furthermore, it posits the ways that the re-imagination of national popular is enriched with and complicated by the creative impulse of regional vernacular culture and technology of global gesture.

On the So-Called Shamanistic Substratum of European Culture

This article criticizes arguments for a supposed shamanistic substratum in European vernacular culture during the early modern period, especially those set forth by Ginzburg, Pócs, and Wilby. Although their work brings to light important historical material, the data do not support such a wide-ranging theory. Rather it seems to depend on a reified notion of both ‘shamanism’ and Christianity. Certainly, there are phenomenological similarities between the cases they discuss, but these can also be extended to Christianity and other cultures. On the premisses used by the three scholars, Christianity qualifies as a form of ‘shamanism’, and shamanism as a form of ‘religion’—a conclusion which alerts us to the challenges pertaining to the generic use of the term ‘shamanism’ outside the sphere of its cultural origin.

African American Gay Men

African American Gay Men

The paradoxical reality of racism: German soccer and the irreversibility of multiculturalism

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes three domains of German soccer and their role within debates about multiculturalism and race: The vernacular culture as intersection of fan culture and racism highlighted by attacks from the political right; the culture industry’s investigation into the alleged false identity of Bakery Jatta; and soccer’s occupational culture with a focus on racial abuse and denial within both playing and coaching arenas. The contrast of these three discourses reveals that German soccer at once presents itself as a harmonious multicultural microcosm while failing to grasp enduring challenges of racism. But it suggests also that despite claims of a failure of multiculturalism, German soccer may in fact be at the fore of showing German multiculturalism as an irrevocable, if highly contested reality.

The Korean Vernacular Story: Telling Tales of Contemporary Chosŏn in Sinographic Writing

The Korean Vernacular Story: Telling Tales of Contemporary Chosŏn in Sinographic Writing

Adaptive Reuse Strategy for Abandoned Historic Villages in Asir (Saudi Arabia)

How can we reinvent abandoned villages of cultural and historical value that seem of no practical use? How can we sustain unique vernacular cultures in an age of progressive globalization? These are the questions social scientists, urban planners, architects, and archaeologists grapple with around the world in the light of rising urbanization and progressive depopulation of rural communities. This paper describes the traditional architecture of abandoned rural settlements in the southwestern region of Asir in Saudi Arabia and examines the present situation from the residents' viewpoints. Departing from a framework of a dynamic understanding of heritage, the author proposes a process of adaptive reuse and revitalization. The research starts by posing several questions. What future do we imagine for abandoned villages that historically have played a significant role in the civic structure of a community and contribute to forming a society's memory and identity? Can we suppose that the adaptive reuse of abandoned villages makes a positive contribution to the circular economy while solidifying a dynamic understanding of heritage as an ongoing social and cultural process? To this effect, the author conducted a phased research project focused on the adaptive reuse of one abandoned village near the region's capital of Abha. The architectural research entailed architectural surveys and documentation as well as qualitative inquiries. The author hopes that this project and its results will be a further stepping-stone in motivating people to find cultural, social, and economic value in their heritage and to make their properties a vital component of the circular economy by passing on traditional knowledge of vernacular building techniques to younger generations

‘When you realise your dad is Cristiano Ronaldo’: celebrity sharenting and children’s digital identities

ABSTRACT Sharenting, or the practice of sharing one’s parenting or information about one’s children on social media, occurs in an increasingly platformized digital culture, where visual formats are central across participatory and commercial repositories. This paper investigates the articulation between sharenting as performed by celebrities and the wider construction of children’s digital identities. Through qualitative content analysis, this research looks at how Cristiano Ronaldo, the most-followed individual on Instagram since 2018, his partner, and his mother shared information about his children on that social media platform between 2018 and 2020. Through manual exploration, we searched for Ronaldo’s children across a variety of digital spaces. Our analysis reveals that sharenting on Instagram engages audiences through the portrayal of children as the parents’ extended self. Content from Instagram and news media is appropriated in vernacular and commercial digital spaces for conflicting affects: the cute father-son dyad, and the son as extension of the uber-famous, vain father. This extreme case shows how the digital identities of children of celebrities are widely public, formed by the everyday, intimate content of the family’s life, which is persistent and collectively recreated by news media, vernacular culture, and commercial platforms.

Sustainable urban regeneration: the role of cultural heritage in Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES)

It is widely acknowledged that in the last few decades, culture has been playing an increasing role in urban regeneration. However, particularly in the realm of urban policy, the understanding of what culture is seems to be too narrow, often excluding vernacular culture. Why should vernacular culture be incorporated into urban policy and can it effectively contribute to the promotion of urban regeneration? Our case study is on Marvila and Beato (in Lisbon, Portugal), two parishes that share an industrial past and that were neglected in recent decades, but that are currently undergoing a regeneration process. Using the methodology proposed by Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES), we combine both qualitative and quantitative methodologies: a historical and observational approach and a questionnaire survey. Results show that not only tangible but also intangible heritage are key to designing an urban regeneration policy and this requires higher participation by the community and local actors.

Memorials and the Mine Disaster in Monongah, West Virginia: From Trauma to an Italian Global Memoryscape

Memorials and the Mine Disaster in Monongah, West Virginia: From Trauma to an Italian Global Memoryscape

My address is the Soviet Union – or is it? Baltic identity in souvenir production within the Soviet discourse

In the 1960s, tourism in the Soviet Union underwent radical changes. While previously the focus had been on showcasing the rapid modernization of the empire, this new type of tourism focused on introducing foreigners to the regional vernacular culture in the Soviet Union. As the number of tourists increased, the need for wider mass production of souvenirs emerged. This research focuses on the identity of souvenirs produced in Baltic states as a case study for identifying the existence and nature of regionalism within the Soviet system. This study found that within Baltic souvenir production, two separate types of identities manifested. Firstly, the use of national or vernacular symbols was allowed and even promoted throughout the Soviet Union. A famous slogan of the era was ‘Socialist in content, national in form’, which suggested that national form was suitable for conveying socialist ideals. These products were usually made of local materials and employed traditional national ornament. However, this research identified a secondary identity within the souvenirs manufactured in the Baltic countries, which was based on a shared ‘European past’. The symbol often chosen to convey it was the pre-Soviet Old Town, which was in all three states based on Western and Central European architectural traditions. This research suggests that this European identity validated through the use of Old Town as a recurring motif on souvenirs, distinguished Baltic states from the other regions of the Soviet Union. While most souvenirs manufactured in the Soviet Union emphasized the image of locals as the exotic ‘Other’, Baltic souvenirs inspired by Old Town conveyed the idea of familiarity to European tourists.

Breathing Artifacts of Urban BioClimatic Layers for Post-Anthropocene Urban Environment

This article seeks the qualitative synthesis of schools of thought from extreme climate regions that could support urban biodiversity and climate change adaptation through architectural design. It proposes that climate comfort and biodiversity are closely related. This article suggests a possible systemic urban metabolism within a built environment that can support a transition to post-Anthropocene, where humans and other species live together in synergy. This article exemplifies and seeks systemic relations and reflections of gathered field studies documentation of case studies of breathing walls, envelopes, and screens generating bioclimatic layers in the cultural landscape, selected for their penetrability and performance. The samples from diverse study journeys that were codesigned through vernacular cultures and the author’s research by design speculations on the responsive screen ‘Ray’ are investigated and speculated upon through gigamapping (visual complexity mapping). This gigamapping is not to present any hard data model but to relate, inform and speculate on the investigated field that is grounded in research by design on cross-species coliving. This is approached through possible architectures and architectural and urban design parasites, transitioning towards synergetic landscapes of our envisioned colived and cocreated futures.

Contagion of offensive speech online: An interactional analysis of political swearing

Despite their positive effects in promoting participatory politics, digital publics have also manifested an offensive vernacular culture. This study takes a social network analytic approach to explain the contagion of offensive speech in online discussion contexts. The study examines four social interactional mechanisms underlying a user's adoption of political swearing: generalized reciprocity, direct reciprocity, leader-mimicry, and peer-mimicry. The empirical context of this study is a highly popular online discussion forum in Hong Kong. The study examines the effects of social interactional mechanisms on the occurrences of political swearing by analyzing five years of user comments. Findings show that peer-mimicry contributes to the contagion process the most, followed by generalized reciprocity and direct mimicry. The study demonstrates how individual-level speech behaviors spiral into a collective norm that potentially hinders a healthy discussion culture in mediated social spaces.

A Study on Path of Rural Teachers Helping the Inheritance of Vernacular Culture in China

Vernacular culture is the root of Chinese culture, in essence, so the inheritance of vernacular culture is crucial. Rural teachers are the "rural talents" in rural areas and have been playing various roles as cultural inheritors, protectors and leaders. The cultural responsibilities of rural teachers in the new era face many difficulties: the lack of vernacular cultural literacy of rural teachers, the "urban orientation" of rural education, the backward ideology of rural parents, and the lack of funds. Under the call of rural cultural revitalization, rural teachers should re-erect the banner of cultural inheritance and contribute to rural cultural revitalization by focusing on cultivating rural teachers' local cultural literacy, developing school-based cultural curriculum and compiling local teaching materials, collaborating with village schools and making use of the Internet to promote the inheritance and development of vernacular culture.

Hong Kong identities through food: tracing developments and variations of pineapple buns in modern complexities

ABSTRACT This cultural study examines how contradictory yet coherent Hong Kong identities are constructed and solidified through constant interactions between its ethnic community and changing political, economic, and social environments from late colonization to the present. To conduct evidence-based observations and analysis, pineapple bun is selected as the research object. Its historical emergence and modern variations serve as metaphorical representations of Hong Kong vernacular cultures, embodying local people’s negotiations with the land and their identifications toward the collective Self. The paper illustrates that different pineapple buns served in bing sutt, cha chaan teng, nouvelle restaurant, convenience store, and home kitchen signify distinct aspects of Hong Kong identities coexisting within contemporary complexities. These binary oppositions harmoniously imprinted in local ethnicity – flexibility and persistence, nativism and globalism, and utilitarian and hedonism – demarcate Hongkongese as a unique community apart from British colonists and mainland Chinese.