CULTURE

 

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According to Sir Edward B. Tylor, the English anthropologist who wrote Primitive Culture (1871), culture is “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”.

 

Culture can be defined also as “the way of life for an entire society" As such, it includes codes of manners, dress, language, religion, rituals, norms of behaviour and systems of belief.

 

This means that culture is complex, i.e. it is made up of many different parts; it is acquired, i.e. it is not something you're born with, but something you learn; it is connected with a social group. Each society, each group has its own culture.

 

In 2002 UNESCO gave another definition of culture describing it as “the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group; it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs”.

 

 

Contents:

CULTURE The key elements of culture Culture: a dividing or a unifying element? Culture as an ensemble of knowledge Culture according to Geert Hofstede Culture according to Clyde Kluckhonn Culture according to Washington State University Culture according to University of Manitoba Culture according to Dictionary of Modern sociology Culture according to Wikipedia Culture according to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Culture and society Intercultural competence Ethnocentrism Differences between Cultures: High and Low Context Communication Culture in the multiculturalism era Hawaiaan culture Cultural clash Bibliography

 

 

The key elements of culture

 

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The three ways of describing culture that have been mentioned above make clear the meaning of the word and analysing them it can be inferred that the key elements of culture are four:

 

1. values, that is ideas about what in life seems important;

2. norms, that is expectations of how people will behave in various situations;

3. institutions, that is the structures of a society within which values and norms are transmitted;

4. artifacts, that is things, or aspects of material culture.

 

 

Culture: a dividing or a unifying element?

 

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If one thinks that every Nation owns its own culture, i.e. habits, story, language etc, it can be a dividing element.

 

However, culture can also be an element which creates unity: people share their differences in order to get closer to “the others”, people who are different from them. Someone speaks of culture as "fruitful diversity (…) of cultures", as something that can be considered as "common heritage of the humanity".

 

Culture can exist through dialogue, tolerance and the sharing of universal values, "without endangering the fruitful diversity of cultures".

 

 

Culture as an ensemble of knowledge

 

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Culture can also be considered as the "ensemble" of notions acquired during life, i.e. the things one has learnt in school or by direct experience or by sharing life with other people or by education and social life in general. Just like language, culture can shape - a person's thoughts, ideas, ways of coping with life and dealing with other people. That is why we can say that everyone has their own culture.

 

It basically determines most of that person's actions and intellectual positions, including his future social, political involvement, her way of conceiving adulthood, marriage, motherhood, education, work and society on the whole. According to T. S. Eliot, culture "is the one thing we cannot deliberately aim at".

 

 

According to UNESCO, "The world’s cultural wealth is its variety in dialogue.

One of the UNESCO’s missions is to ensure space for and freedom of expression to all the world’s cultures. While each culture draws from its own roots, it must not fail to blossom when crossing other cultures.

Therefore, it isn't a matter of identifying and safeguarding every culture in isolation, but rather of revitalizing them in order to avoid segregation and cultural entrenchment and prevent conflict".

 

Today, one of the most important and difficult challenges people have to face with is Interreligious dialogue, which is also one of the causes for the absence somewhere of dialogue and intercultural exchange.

 

 

 

Culture according to Geert Hofstede

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According to Geert Hofstede, a Dutch expert on culture and author of Cultures and organizations: software of the Mind, culture can be subdivided in two big different layers: a superficial one, called practices, including symbols, heroes and rituals, and a deeper one called values, which are the core of culture. While values are invisible, practices are visible.

 

Going into details, symbols represent the first layer of practices. They include all the signs which are recognized as belonging to a specific group and which communicate a meaning, such as words, gestures, objects, pictures and dress.

 

According to Hofstede, symbols can be easily changed, that is the reason why they are placed in the superficial layer. The second layer of practices is heroes, i.e. real or invented role models. Some heroes are specifically rooted in one particular culture, while others can travel between cultures and emphasize cultural similarities. The third layer of practices is rituals. They are not strictly necessary, but are considered "socially essential" by members of a culture. For example, in every conversation exchange there are some introductory sentences which are used to "break the ice".

 

 

 

Culture according to Clyde Kluckhonn

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In Clyde Kluckhohn’s important anthropological work called "Mirror for Man", the following meanings for culture are suggested:

 

• "the total way of life of a people"
• "the social legacy the individual acquires from his group"
• "a way of thinking, feeling, and believing"
• "an abstraction from behavior"
• a theory on the part of the anthropologist about the way in which a group of people in fact behave
• a "storehouse of pooled learning"
• "a set of standardized orientations to recurrent problems"
• "learned behavior"
• a mechanism for the normative regulation of behavior
• "a set of techniques for adjusting both to the external environment and to other men"
• "a precipitate of history"
• a behavioral map, sieve, or matrix.

 

Culture is the material and immaterial expression of a people, determined by the atavistic and unreproducible combination of many elements which, from a structuralistic point of view, coexist in a compact manner, in the sense that the modication of one of these elements provokes the change of all the remained elements.

 

Culture has to do with the language, the uses and customs, the traditions, the knowledge of a people. It is a shared, learned, symbolic system of values, beliefs and attitudes that shapes and influences perception and behaviour -- an abstract "mental blueprint" or "mental code." It must be studied "indirectly" by studying behaviour, customs, material culture (artifacts, tools, technology), language, etc.

 

Therefore, culture is:

 

• learned. The process of learning one's culture is called ‘enculturation’;
• shared by the members of a society. No "culture of one";
• patterned. People in a society live and think in ways that form definite patterns;
• mutually constructed through a constant process of social interaction;
• symbolic. Culture, language and thought are based on symbols and symbolic meanings;
• arbitrary. Not based on "natural laws" external to humans, but created by humans according to the "whims" of the society (example: standards of beauty);
• internalized. Habitual. Taken-for-granted. Perceived as "natural".

 

 

 

Culture according to Washington State University

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According to the Washington State University, culture can be considered as a body of learned behaviours, common to a given human society, has a predictable form and content. It shapes behaviour and consciousness within a human society from generation to generation.

 

 

 

Culture according to University of Manitoba

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According to the University of Manitoba, Canada, culture can be described as “the system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviours, and artifacts that the members of society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning. This is a complex definition and points to four important characteristics stressed by cultural relativists: symbolic composition, systematic patterning, learned transmission, societal grounding.”

 

 

Culture according to Dictionary of Modern sociology

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According to a quotation you can find in the Dictionary of Modern Sociology, culture can be described as “the total, generally organized way of life, including values, norms, institutions, and artifacts, that is passed on from generation to generation by learning alone”.

 

 

Culture according to Wikipedia

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According to Wikipedia, there are different ways of looking at culture:

• culture as civilization, an idea developed in Europe during the 18th and early 19th centuries that describes one country more civilized than another and therefore its people more cultured than the others; following this idea it exists only one possible culture, so that the concept of different cultures does not exist;
• culture as worldview, German scholars introduced during Romanticism the idea that “a distinct and incommensurable world view characterizes each ethnic group”, an idea that only in the late 19th century was completed by the assumption that each of these ethnic group evolved equally;
• culture as symbols, beliving that men and women who live in a particular society use common symbols to communicate and understand each other;
• culture as a stabilizing mechanism, considering “culture itself is a product of stabilization tendencies inherent in evolutionary pressures toward self-similarity and self-cognition of societies as wholes”.

 

 

Culture according to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

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According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, culture can be defined as

• the beliefs, way of life, art and customs that are shared and accepted by people in a particular society;
• the attitudes and beliefs about something that are shared by a particular group of people or in a particular organization;
• activities that are related to art, music, literature etc;
• society that existed at a particular time in history.

 

 

 

Culture and society

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It is worth noticing that culture and society are not the same thing: cultures are complexes of learned behaviour patterns and perceptions while societies are groups of interacting organisms. However, it is important to specify that they are linked together, because culture is created and transmitted to others in a society.

 

Intercultural competence

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According to Clyde Kluckhohn culture is:"a way of thinking, feeling and believing". On the basis of this definition, it's possible to notice that every human being has their history, their own life, their way of thinking and their culture.

Culture can be different also within the same family and not only between nations and countries.

It's very difficult to accept and live together with a different culture because every person believes his/her own culture is better than all the others.

 

As regards this problem, it's particularly interesting to introduce the concept of "intercultural competence", which, according to Wikipedia, "is the ability of successful communication with people of other cultures. This ability can exist in someone at young age, or may be developed and improved due to willpower and competence. The basis for a successful intercultural communication are emotional competence together with intercultural sensitivity. "Additionally, a non-ethnocentric point of view is fundamental. Therefore, having intercultural competence means also understanding and accepting other different culture.

 

The main characteristics of this topic are communication, respect and understanding of other behaviours or ways of thinking, speaking and living. It's very important that people can express their point of view, respecting opinions of other persons.

Another important point to take into consideration is the flexibility "in communicating and interacting with those who are linguistically and culturally different" and, to conclude, it needs to avoid judgement and criticism and learn to appreciate " the complexities" of a different culture.

 

Three principal domains of ability constitute a person's intercultural competence:

 

1) the ability to develop and maintain relationships with people of a different culture

2) the ability to communicate in a proper and effective way, being able to not distort the original content

3)the ability to obtain cooperation with others.

 

Anyway, these are common rules which should be attained in all interpersonal relationships, also in those between people of a same culture.

To get to have a good intercultural competence (ICC), one needs to develop both language competence and intercultural abilities.

A useful tool to self-evaluate our ICC is the "YOGA" form (which stands for "Your Objectives, Guidelines and Assessment"). It is divided into 5 sections, corresponding to the 5 components of ICC:

• awareness
• attitude
• skills
• knowledge
• language proficiency.

For a description of the rationale behind the YOGA form see http://www.gs.esf.edu.hk/GroupDownloadFile.asp?GroupId=4114&ResourceId=47465">http://www.gs.esf.edu.hk/GroupDownloadFile.asp?GroupId=4114&ResourceId=47465

To fill out the YOGA form see http://faculty.mdc.edu/jmcnair/EDG2701%20All%20Classes/a_central_concern.htm) 

 

ICC is something people can learn; there are many organizations which aim at making people able to cope with different cultures while living, travelling or working abroad. The educational experiences offered by these organizations do not affect only the participants but their family and friends as well.

 

Of course it is hard to define in numbers how interculturally competent a person is, but there are many tools that allow to make a reliable statement:

 

• computer-based questionnaires
• computer-based simulation-tests
• structured interviews
• simulation-games

and more.

 

According to Wikipedia, when assessing a person's ICC, we have to pay attention to "ambiguity tolerance, openness to contacts, flexibility in behaviour, emotional stability, motivation to perform, empathy, metacommunicative competence, polycentrism".

 

 

 

 

Ethnocentrism

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Ethnocentrism is the main obstacle to people's intercultural competence.

It consists in the tendency to judge others cultures in relation to one's own culture.

 

The social evolutionist William Graham Sumner was the person who coined this term and defined it as "the viewpoint that one's own group is the center of everything, against which all other groups are judge".

 

As a matter of fact, each population or ethnic group often tends to consider itself as superior to other groups and its culture as the fairest (and often they do not admit this convinction!). This is the reason why people coming from a specific culture find difficult to agree with some ideas and behaviours of those who belong to a different culture and are inclined to criticize them. The problem with ethnocentrism is that it leads to misunderstanding others: people falsely distort what is meaningful and functional to other peoples, without trying to understand that their actions and thoughts have their meanings in their way to life, just as ours have a function in our culture.

 

Therefore, avoiding ethnocentrism is a precondition for making intercultural communication possible.

 

 

Differences between Cultures: High and Low Context Communication

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In his book Beyond Culture, the American anthropologist Edward T. Hall develops a theory of context in communication which comes in handy when analysing the differences between cultures. According to Hall’s theory, people, groups and cultures have different views on the amount of information (text) that needs to be made explicit for communication to take place successfully. Here text is information which is explicitly conveyed, while context can be defined as implicit information, i.e. the amount of information the other person is expected to possess on a certain subject. The way of dealing with context is a basic aspects of a culture: the members of a culture will share a preference either through communication through the text (Low Context Communication or LCC) or through the context (High Context Communication or HCC).

 

LCC cultures usually have loosely woven social fabric, which can easily stretch to accommodate immigrants and newcomers. Here there is a tendency to explain things further than in HCC cultures. This kind of culture can experience drastical change from one generation to the the next, as well as being more open to social mobility. The United States can be considered an example of a LCC culture.

 

On the other hand, HCC cultures have more solid roots and a strong sense of tradition and history. The social fabric is more tightly knit and more resistant to change. Society is more focused on small groups, which rely on their common background to explain the situation. This is more common among Asian cultures than Western (an example could be the Japanese culture, which is very HCC) and in countries with low racial diversity, such as Italy.

 

LCC cultures usually focus on action, while HCC are more concentrated on a state, or non-action. This can be mirrored by language: it is easy to notice that nominalization is more common in Italian (HCC) than in English (LCC). In LCC cultures it is usually possible to criticize other people’s actions without attacking their identity; criticism involves only behaviour, and feedback is considered an opportunity to improve it. On the other hand, in HCC cultures the criticism of behaviour is always taken personally: calling someone’s ideas crazy is calling them crazy. Members of these cultures tend to avoid direct negative feedback by not stating it, and, if possible, they prefer to be seen complimenting other people rather than criticizing them.

 

 

Culture in the multiculturalism era

 

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In the past the term culture coincided with the nation–state. Under the ideology of nationalism, there was an identification nation-culture which implied unity and homogeneity of social habits, values, language and religion in all the member of a society. The national borders of a country enclosed its culture. Sociologists called this phenomenon monoculturalism.

 

In Europe the situation started to change in the 50s, when the economic boom raised the demand for labour, causing the migration of an increasing number of people to countries which needed it. The United Stated had started to experience mass immigrations long before. In fact, people coming from very different countries started to move there in the 19th century. Even though some communities still live in ghettos which identify their lack of integration, many ethnic groups maintained their cultural identity for some time and then slowly amalgamated in the society without the state intervention. This process has often been described with the term “melting pot”, that implies the idea of a gradual (and natural) assimilation. Reality proved that the integration of different ethnic groups is not that easy and forced many countries to think about a new policy issue in order to help integration respecting, at the same time, the immigrates’ beliefs and needs.

 

The presence of ethnic minorities brought to significant changes in every society. The term multiculturalism was coined only at the end of the 80s to highlight the new situation: the presence of different social groups coincided in Europe with the crisis of the nation-state and therefore the end of monoculturalism.

 

Nowadays multiculturalism has become a serious issue, especially after the September 11 attacks. This and other episodes proved that sometimes it is hard for very distant culture to be able to live together. The debate is open and very actual, as many people have started to fear and to reject multiculturalism because of the revival of national identity but mainly for the concern towards Islam in Europe. In order to try and solve the cultural differences in our everyday life, the issue was included in the agenda of many developed countries that showed three possible solutions:

 

1. some countries, like France, look for assimilation: the immigrant must accept totally the rules of the new country when in the public place, leaving open the possibility of following their own tradition at home;

2. England offered a pluralist solution: every immigrant can maintain its cultural difference both at home and in the public place, the only limit is that they must respect the democratic laws of the country.

3. the third model can be found in Germany: every immigrant is seen as a guest. They can work and live there but they will always be considered as foreigner and therefore they tend to be integrated in every aspect of their working life but not in the culture.

 

Anyway, together with people who reject multiculturalism, another tendency today is to consider it as a value, as cultural difference means to many people who are pro multiculturalism both getting to know new ways of living and getting to know ourselves more deeply.

 

Another important aspect of immigration is that difference is also perceived as a mode, a consumer good with exotic fashion. Kebab, Chinese restaurants, Afro-Caribbean dance are only some examples of what many sociologists consider “the selling” of a culture today.

 

 

Hawaiaan culture

 

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Hawaiaan culture starts first of all from nature and more specifically from the relationship Hawaiians have with the land and the sea; a relationship perceived as atavic origin that determine the whole system of secular beliefs on which is based the spiritual life of natives. For this reason, Hawaiians call themselves keiki o ka'aina, which means "children of the land".

The 'aina means not only soil or sand, but above all the land intended in a mystic-religious manner, ancestral symbol of the primigenial and harmonious union between mankind and nature.

 

Hawaiians are very grateful to nature because it permitted and permits men to live, by virtue of the products (food, clothing, housing, weapons, tools, etc.) which derive from plants, animals or fish.

 

Other interesting aspect of Hawaiian culture is represented by their spirit of cooperation (also called aloha spirit); spirit which comes from the traditional respect towards one's extended family (ohana). In addition, the cooperative afflatus is corroborated by the fact that Hawaiians feel themselves as sons of a unique mother, a sort of Mother Nature; as a consequence, they consider themselves as real brothers.

 

In Hawaiian genealogy the stars in the sky represent the Mother; the sky is the Father; the earth is the Grandmother; the kalo plant is the elder brother; and the islands are the Aunties and Uncles.

The union of Earth Mother and Sky Father gave birth to Hawaiian islands, first among all Hawai'i and Maui. Then rose Ho'ohokukalani and, from the union of Sky Father and his daughter Ho'ohokukalani, the islands of O'hau, Lana'i. They also bore Haloa Naka, a fetus born dead and immediately buried. The burial place coincides with the place where the first Kalo plant(source of life) germinated.

 

Hawaiian love for the land is called aloha'ainaand the same affective manifestation for the sea (water is a fundamental element for Hawaiians) is called aloha kai. This love of theirs induce them to respect some taboos (kapu)consisting in taking from nature only what is strictly necessary for the community. The hawaiian community is very united: the collaborative sense pervades the entire society, whose more typical expression is the 'ohana, a sort of extended family structure recognizable in all the polinesian area.

 

In the Hawaiian society elders have a relevant role: they are possessed of wisdom and knowledge; and for this reason they are respected and treated as influential persons.

Nevertheless, traditional hawaiian society has recently been subjected to a rapid collapse due to the advent of the globalizational and internationalization of the consumer society which has brought its own models and its rat-race.

 

Cultural clash

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(abstract from: "In Doha, beach volleyball bikinis create cultural clash")

 

When Salim Al-Nabit and his friends went out to see beach volleyball for the first time, they left their wives at home. Al-Nabit said he was willing to force himself to watch the skimpily clad women play, but that he certainly wouldn't want his wife watching. He was only there himself, he said, because it was a matter of national honor. "We don't see this a lot in Qatar," Al-Nabit said. "I think most people think it is outrageous. But we accept it because it is important for our country. We want others to see us as a generous and hospitable people, willing to accept their ways, even if we don't agree." Beach volleyball's penchant for bikinis has touched off a bit of a cultural clash in this conservative Muslim city, which by hosting the Asian Games, a regional sports extravaganza, is trying to bolster its bid to bring the 2016 Summer Olympics to the Middle East.

But some things are just too much to ask. Though 16 Muslim nations are represented at the Asian Games, only one, Iraq, is competing in women's beach volleyball. And its team, sisters Lisa and Lida Agasi, are Christians.

Do they feel uncomfortable? "No, not at all," Lida said after her first game on Saturday. But their coach noted they seemed a bit overwhelmed because "all eyes were upon them."Even so, the Iraqis wore considerably more conservative outfits than their opponents, the Japanese. While the Agasis were clad in yellow, two-piece tights that went down to mid thigh and covered most of their shoulders, the Japanese pair's uniforms were so small that the country name had to be abbreviated on their bikini bottoms. The Qatari women are sitting out the event, though Qatar has teams for everything from archery to skeet shooting.

"It's not good," said Parvana Khoory, who watched from the almost-empty stands round the 1,500-seat center court dressed in black from head to toe. "We want a woman to cover all of her body. I think this discourages Muslim women from playing this sport."

Some of the players agree that the outfits don't need to be as brief.

Beach volleyball has strict rules dictating what constitutes proper attire. Women can wear one- or two-piece uniforms, and that usually means they play in bikinis and sunglasses. Competition manager Ramon Suzara, an official with the Asian Beach Volleyball Association, said that allowances have been made for Muslims. "They can wear what they want, so long as it is appropriate," he said.

Suzara added, however, that he hopes Muslims will come to accept the same kind of outfits that the athletes of other nations wear. "This is sport in the 21st century. I think this will be an eye-opener for Doha," Suzara said.

It was for Al-Nabit, who confessed that, in the end, he enjoyed watching the competition. "But I felt very shy about it," he said.

 

See full article: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3335511,00.html

 

What seems to be "innocent and harmless", or pretty normal, in one culture, might be considered inappropriate in another culture. In the article above, there was nothing wrong with sport, or with the volleyball match, but rather with the fact that dozens of young, attractive, female athletes could be watched by everyone without protection.

Books about cultural clash were written. I know one book which explains how to help ease cultural clash in Tibet. Tourism in Tibet has developed in recent years but once, Tibet was an isolated Country that only a few Western people would visit.

This book deals especially with the cultural/religous differences between Tibetan Buddhists and Christians. Tibet is one of those Countries where religion has shaped people's own way of perceiving things and dealing with everyday life. So, for instance,one cannot understand Tibetan culture unless he studies Tibetan Buddhism, that is to say: all aspects of a population's culture are to be examined in order to understand that culture.

 

 

Bibliography

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• What is culture?
• Culture on Wikipedia
• Unesco; see also “cultural diversity”
• Geert Hofstede Home Page
• Clyde Kluckhohn
• Cultural anthropology on Wikipedia
• The Limits of Nature and Culture in Cultural Semiotics
• A Baseline Definition of Culture at WSU
• Culture
• What is culture ?
• Culture
• University of Manitoba, Canada
• Dictionary of Sociology
• T. S. Eliot
• A central concern: developing intercultural competence
• Le società multiculturali, Colombo Enzo, Carocci 2002
• Cultural assilimilation / diversity / pluralism, Globalization, Intercultural Competence on * Wikipedia
• Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
• Surfing for life
• Anthony Giddens, Fondamenti di sociologia, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2000.
• Cultural Clash, a Tibetan example
• High and Low Context Cultures on Wikipedia
• David Katan (1999), Translating Cultures. An Introduction for Translators, Interpreters, and Mediators. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.
• Ethocentrism

 

 

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