FOLLOW ME HERE
nell haynes
  • home
  • publications
  • projects
  • fieldnotes
  • teaching
  • contact
  • espaƱol

butter pt 5, conclusion

6/12/2011

0 Comments

 
This is the final installment of my blogs on Buttercows (yes, now back to Bolivia...). For previous posts, click here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

The iconicity of the buttercow is even more apparent as it remains in the context of the state fair. As agriculture shifts in the United States, from a family-based mode of production to a more and more mechanized and large-scale industrial complex, the meanings associated with “authentic” representations of agricultural livelihoods change. The icon of the buttercow has shifted from an emblem of pride in the dairy industry’s success to a nostalgic symbol of the disappearing culture of family agriculture. Singer writes that such cultural displays “[cast] much light on the way in which cultural themes and values are communicated as well as on processes of social and cultural change." The context in which butter sculpture now exists gives immediacy to the art form as the social dramatic action of transformed farmland takes shape in and legitimizes butter sculpture as culturally and artistically important. 

Picture
The buttercow, as an icon, also forms the locus for the construction of cultural identity. Identity is, at its foundation, the ways that people index or perform sameness and difference from one another. Scholars such as Clifford have written on the ways that “international” or “non-western” art marks difference by emphasizing the “primitive,” “exotic,” or “tribal” nature of the art. The buttercow works in the converse, illustrating a sense of commonality for its enthusiasts. Bucholtz and Hall suggest that the dichotomy between genuineness and artiface is a key site for the instantiation of identity. The authenticity of the buttercow as confirmed by the context of the state fair, then, is central to the successful performance or indexing of a rural Iowan or Illinoisan identity. To know the buttercow is to say something about your own history, experiences, and values. Not every state has a buttercow. And not everyone in the state even knows what the buttercow is. Like playing euchre in La Paz, it is not just a pastime, but a performance of real Midwestern identity. 

And so I will end with one of my favorite quotes from Renato Rosaldo:
Culture lends significance to human experience by selecting from and organizing it.  It refers broadly to the forms through which people make sense of their lives, rather than more narrowly to the opera or art museums.  It does not inhabit a set-aside domain as does, for example, that of politics or economics. From the pirouettes of classical ballet to the most brute of brute facts, all human conduct is culturally mediated. Culture encompasses the everyday and the esoteric, the mundane and the elevated, the ridiculous and the sublime. Neither high nor low, culture is all-pervasive. (1989: p. 26)  

Picture
The 2011 Iowa State Fair Buttercow

Clifford, James
1991  Four Northwest Coast Museums: Travel Reflections. In Exhibiting Cultures, I. Karp & S. D. Lavine, eds. pp. 212-254. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Rosaldo, Renato
1993  Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis. Boston: Beacon Press.

Singer, Milton
1972  When a Great Tradition Modernizes: An Anthropological Approach to Modern Civilization. New York, Washington, London: Praeger Publishers.

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.


    themes

    All
    Aesthetics
    Authenticity
    Body
    Bolivia
    Chile
    Chola
    Class
    Disaster
    Drugs
    Food Studies
    Gender
    Globalization
    Indigeneity
    Inequality
    Lucha Libre
    Methods
    Migration
    Neoliberalism
    Performance
    Politics
    Protest
    Social Media
    Sport
    Tattoo
    Tourism
    United States
    Violence

    archives

    August 2022
    July 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    May 2016
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    March 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    August 2009
    July 2009

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.