Vernacular culture

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Vernacular culture is the cultural forms made and organised by ordinary, often indigenous people, as distinct from the high culture of an elite.^[1] One feature of vernacular culture is that it is informal.^[2] Such culture is generally engaged in on a non-profit and voluntary basis, and is almost never funded by the state.

The term is used in the modern study of geography and cultural studies. It generally implies a cultural form that differs markedly from a deeply rooted folk culture, and also from tightly organised subcultures and religious cultures. In cultural and communication studies, vernacular rhetoric is the discursive aspect of vernacular culture, referring to "mundane, bottom-up, and informal discursive expressions that challenge and criticize the institutional".^[3]