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Economic geographer Yuko Aoyama is interested in how technologies such as the Internet can help consumers and producers overcome the contraints of geography and connect in a global marketplace, and how that connection affects cultural identity. |
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Flamenco fever: when local culture goes global
Professor Yuko Aoyama's research
Research question: How does a culture rooted in a particular geographic location survive in the age of globalization?"
Geography professor and student of flamenco dance Yuko Aoyama is still astonished at the popularity in her native Japan of flamenco music, song and dance—artistic traditions firmly rooted in the gitano (gypsy) culture of southern Spain, a country halfway around the globe.
The study of flamenco has become something of a craze in Japan, and has also gained popularity in the United States and other industrially developed countries. Japanese consumers purchase flamenco dance paraphernalia—shoes, castanets, embroidered shawls, fans, and skirts, as well as music CDs and instructional videos and DVDs. Professional Spanish dancers travel to Japan to offer classes, workshops and performances to enthusiastic students and audiences. Accompanying the dancers are guitarists, singers and drummers, all offering their own classes.
Culture is rooted in place
Like all geographers, Aoyama is conscious that culture and its expressive forms—dance, art and craft, music, cuisine, apparel and language—distinguish one geographic region from another. Traditionally, culture and cultural products have been intimately connected to geographical location. In the years before efficient transportation, television, radio, and the World Wide Web, people wanting to experience different cultures had to travel to the heartlands of those cultures. Then, to eat sushi one traveled to Japan; to hear gamelan music one went to Indonesia; to watch flamenco dance one visited Spain.
A paradox: the global marketplace can preserve local culture
Some people worry that as economic globalization increases, cultural diversity will be erased and people everywhere will eventually eat the same food, wear the same clothes, and speak the same language. Using flamenco as a case study, Aoyama concludes that connecting a geographically-rooted culture with the global marketplace may actually be critical to preserving and perpetuating that culture both inside and outside its original location. Londoners wanting sushi can find sushi restaurants in London, and even learn to prepare sushi themselves. New Yorkers can purchase and learn to play gamelans without leaving New York. Dancers in Japan can study flamenco with dancers trained in Spain. Perhaps by exporting teachers, performers, products and information, local cultures can reach out to audiences and potential participants far beyond their borders, generating income and keeping their identities alive.
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Culture as a product for international consumers
Aoyama's research points out that much of the demand for culturally-unique products like flamenco is generated by people in first world countries with leisure time and spare cash who want to experience other cultures, particularly those they perceive as exotic or romantic. Thanks to the global marketplace, that demand can now be satisfied, at least to some degree, without leaving home.
Aoyama is particularly interested in the role played by the World Wide Web in the transmission of culture. The Web connects the local with the global by creating a virtual space that transcends the limitations of geography to a degree unheard of before. Aoyama's research suggests that the Web plays a key part in facilitating communication between producers of culture, in this case, flamenco artists, and consumers wanting to partake of it.
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Indigenous art versus commercial product
Does the commercialization of flamenco or any other cultural product automatically destroy its artistic integrity, as some have suggested? Does the type of consumer/participant—gitano or foreign, paying or non-paying—alter the way the artist expresses his or her art? While the origins of flamenco and its host population, the gitanos of southern Spain, are contested, Aoyama points out that at least where flamenco is concerned, performances for tourists were taking place as far back as the 19th century. For a performance art like flamenco, is it useful, in terms of understanding its nature, to distinguish between performance for the locals and for paying foreign tourists?
Aoyama notes that the way flamenco is "used" by foreign consumers may be different from that of the local artists. For many gitanos, who have historically been marginalized and often impoverished, flamenco is a cathartic art based in the expression of strong emotion. It has, in fact, been called "the blues of Spain," in reference to its themes of suffering and oppression.
This cathartic effect, which can satisfy an emotional need for both performer and audience, may not be relevant to some foreign consumers. Aoyama notes that, for some students, flamenco dance provides another option in their exercise repertoire or a "fun" hobby. She claims a preference in the global marketplace for types of flamenco that are more festive and faster paced. Ultimately, how much will flamenco reshape itself to fit the tastes of a foreign consumer market?
Finding information for this research
Some of the sources that Aoyama has turned to for information include:
- Companies that manufacture flamenco costumes, accessories, shoes, musical instruments, CDs, videos and DVDs
- Service establishments: retail outlets where one can purchase flamenco-related products and entertainment venues where one can watch flamenco performances
- Organizations that support the art of flamenco and provide instructional resources
- Internet sites devoted to flamenco
- Government agencies in Spain—especially those related to tourism and culture
- Interviews with flamenco students and teachers
- Her own observations in the course of taking flamenco classes in the United States, Japan and Spain.
Professor Aoyama's research is funded by the Committee for Research & Exploration of the National Geographic Society.
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Additional Resources
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Japanese flamenco dance instructors, Lina (top) and Takako (bottom), in Kyoto, Japan. Photographs and permission provided courtesy of Flamenco Studio Fortuna where Professor Aoyama took courses in 2002.
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Andalucia is the heartland of Spanish flamenco culture.
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