Culture and Superculture in a Displaced Community:

• Main Authors: Tristan Da Cunha, Peter A. Munch
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Tristan; South Atlantic Ocean
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.566.9161; http://www.peacefulsocieties.org/Archtext/Munch64.pdf

Anthropologists—and sociologists who have borrowed the concept—have for a long time been talking about "subculture " in the sense of a partially distinct cultural system within a larger system. I am here offering the concept "superculture, " which is simply the larger system (or certain aspects of it) as seen from the viewpoint of the subculture. No matter how isolated both geographically and socially, every human community is encompassed by, and stands in some relationship to, a larger cultural system, of which it mayor may not form a more or less integral part. When this larger cultural system—Redfield's "greater tradition"—is associated with prestige, authority, or power, as it usually is, it takes the form of a superculture, which may be superimposed upon the little community from outside but usually remains more or less apart and aloof from the local culture and interaction. The relationship between these two cultural systems is in itself an important part of the total cultural situation of any community. The little community of Tristan da Cunha, in the South Atlantic Ocean