Within every society and every fabric of culture lies a story. These stories portray the very nature of each culture by representing tales of their history, beliefs, and traditions. As individuals recount and pass on the stories of various cultures, the stories represent a different variation that reflects the particular zeitgeist and cultural context of the society in which one tells the story. Society is particularly vulnerable and even impressionable when faced with stories of certain cultures. Often, people judge improperly and prematurely, making one-dimensional views of a culture or society. The goal, then, is to engage the multiple stories within every culture as a method to understand our differences and emphasize the commonalities, which pave the way for greater intercultural dignity and communication.
As technology and the media hurtle society into a global village, making interaction and socialization not only more attainable but more commonplace, the lines between groups of people become blurred. This lends itself to expanding our experience and aids in not overlooking multiple stories of other cultures. As an illustration, Fox Entertainment created the reality television show 30 Days, hosted by Morgan Spurlock, which delves into understanding cultural issues by placing an individual into unfamiliar environments that challenged their own firmly held beliefs about a culture or group of people. The characters, largely, have judgements and world-views that emanate from a one-dimensional story or understanding of a culture of belief that contrasts their own beliefs and often undermines the truth. The episodes are a prelude to inviting a healthy examination of different cultures and beliefs as well as an examina...
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..., social roles, and attitudes, concerning how these elements significantly influence our lives and the lives of others.
Creating multiple stories of culture arguably lends itself to establishing a greater egalitarian perspective. Samovar (2012) provides five ethical practices important to cultural interaction. Creating a multidimensional story depends largely on one of the five aspects, which is respecting cultural differences. In a world where great differences exist not only between cultures but even within our individual cultures, it is then paramount to begin embracing these differences for greater cooperation. There is a necessity to start looking at multiple stories of cultures in order to prevent the adoption of divisive beliefs. Seeing a greater perspective of different cultures paves the way for greater intercultural communication and a global village.
In conclusion, all three stories are unique in their use of culture. Each uses clashes in culture or a unique cultural setting to convey a message. In each story, this culture gives us a unique perspective into other people's lives and the conflicts they face. The way the conflict is handled is a decision left to the individual, who is guided by his cultural upbringing. Each culture handles the problem differently giving us a multitude of different points of view. Three of such perspectives are examined by Everyday Use, A & P, and Blue Winds Dancing.
Cultural diversity is an important element. Often times we acknowledge cultural diversity but we don’t quite understand it simply because we do not live it. With this novel, readers can understand cultural
Culture is a unique way to express the way one shows the world and others how different each one is. Culture affects the way one views the world and others. This is demonstrated in the stories “Ethnic Hash” by Patricia Williams, “Legal Alien” by Pat Mora, and “By Any Other Name” by Santha Rama Rau. These stories come together to show examples of how people of different cultures are viewed by others as different. Mora, Williams, and Rau all have very unique styles, and this is shown throughout the following quotes.
In such a multicultural world, being knowledgeable and understanding of not only your cultural background, but that of others is essential. Building my awareness on cultures different from my own, and how it shapes an individual’s identity, will foster my personal and professional development. Subsequently, I conducted a cultural interview with an individual whose cultural background differed from my own. Several similarities and differences between our cultures were apparent in the interview, specifically in the areas of race, ethnicity, language, values, and worldview.
The word danger probably makes you want to turn away and stop doing whatever it is that you are doing. Well, what do you do when you see the words, “The Danger of a Single Story?” These words had me nervous about what I was going to be watching. However, there was a lot of information that was explained throughout this 20-minute TED talk from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This paper will explore compelling ideas she mentioned that relate to things I have experienced when I went to another culture, the risks of telling a single story narrative in intercultural interactions, ways to protect myself from single story misconceptions, and how I was able to see how a single story might affect the way I communicate with others in different cultures.
It is not uncommon for an individual to describe a culture that is not their own as exotic, unique, or dated. However, they would be overlooking the idea and importance of cultural relativism on a global scale. It is understandable that a cultural aspect, different from what an individual is used to interacting in, seems hard to understand or too complex to recognize, but it is important to look at one’s own culture and others from multiple angles. The lack of familiarity of another culture that often produces words like “exotic” can be put away with a proper amount of time researching, understanding, and appreciating the normal behavior of another culture. In the paper, I will discuss the concepts that go along with cultural relativism and relate these to the stories found in “Nest in the Wind” and examples from our current society.
In the article The Clash of Cultures, William Cronon and Richard White delve into “the interrelations between people and their environment,” (11) specifically, between the American Indians and the Europeans and the Americas. The reason Cronon and White wrote this article was, “In part, a result of our current concern with pollution and the exhaustion of valuable natural resources, but it has also proved to be a valuable way of learning more about how people of past generations and different cultures dealt with nature and with one another.” (11)
Despite the rapid advances of modern medicine, a large portion of developing countries points to herbal remedies as to curing ailments and other sicknesses needing medical attention. People around the world have been using herbal remedies since humans have existed on earth. They have used herbs, plant, and roots during their healing rituals in curing both physical and spiritual illnesses. Countries such as Africa, Asia, and the Mariana Islands still use traditional treatment as their primary healthcare. Guam, one of the most developed islands in the Mariana Islands, has been using traditional remedies since the Spaniards conquered the ancient Chamorros. Ancient Chamorros used plants found around the island to cure the sick and identified the people who used traditional remedies as suruhanus for men and suruhanas for women. They have come to believed that suruhanus or suruhanas as the doctors we have today. Other than the suruhanus and suruhanas, ancient Chamorros also had another type of healers: the makahna and kakahnas. Makahnas and kakahnas, believed by the Chamorros, are shamans who had the connection between in both physical and spiritual worlds, and had magical powers. Reading about these healers had caught my interest in doing an in dept research about the suruhanus of Guam, especially after stumbling upon Ann M. Pobutsky’s “Suruhanas: A Profile of Traditional Women Healers in the Village of Umatac, Guam.” Although stumbling to a chapter based on traditional healers was just pure coincidence, I have come to a decision of researching about these people. Doing this research had helped me identify the major factors leading to a sense of spiritual and ritual identity of Guam. It had aided me to recognize the cultural uniqueness...
Experiencing a society of multi-cultures is beneficial through a variety of concepts to epitomize each individual identity. A person may vary in the degree to which he or she identifies with, morals, or...
However, there are some significant differences, as well, due to the inherently different nature of the society and culture in different countries. One of the major reasons for th...
What do we have to learn through the study of different cultures? I was hoping for some wonderful revelation in the collection of writings. I may have found one. This book was a difficult read for me. I am not sure whether it’s my age or my inexperience with classical readings. I also found it difficult to formulate a report on a collection of readings, the last report I did was on Laura Ingall’s Little House on the Prairie. This reading was a little more challenging. The main point that seemed to jump out at me is that perceptions change, our theory of reality changes with every viewpoint. Every culture can seem primitive, self destructive, nonsensical, immoral or just wrong, depending on who is doing the observation and what perspective they are observing from.
Clifford Geertz once said: “Cultural analysis is intrinsically incomplete. And, worse than that, the more deeply it goes the less complete it is.” I recently spent a short amount of time at a busy 5-way traffic circle near my residence. While sitting in one spot for about 25 minutes, I observed many people doing many different things (mainly driving). Observing the various people made me think of what their particular cultures may have been, and from there, I began thinking of culture in and of itself. What is culture? Culture is defined as: Ideas and behaviors that are learned and transmitted. Nongenetic means of adaptation (Park, 2008). Culture plays a vital role in anthropology. After all, anthropology is the holistic, scientific study of humankind (Park, 2008). One cannot study humans as a whole without studying and understanding their cultures as well.
There are many ways to define popular culture. Many individuals have grappled with the question what is popular culture? And how to critically analyze and deconstruct the meanings. Looking at the root words of popular culture is where to begin. Raymond Williams states ‘popular’ means: “well liked by many people" or “culture actually made for the people themselves (Storey, p.5). This is part with the word ‘culture’ combine to look at how the two words have been connect by theoretical work within social and historical context. John Storey approaches popular culture in six categories, they are as followed: “Popular culture is simply culture that is widely favoured or well liked by many people”, Popular culture is “the culture that is left over after we have decided what is high culture”, Popular culture is “mass culture”, “Popular culture is the culture that originates from ‘the people.” and “Popular culture as a site of struggle
When one encounters a culture that has little in common with own, one may experience culture shock. This is a sense of confusion, anxiety, stress and loss one may experience. One of the barriers in effective intercultural communication is ethnocentrism. It stems from a conviction that one’s own cultural traditions and assumptions are superior to those of others. It leads to a tendency to look the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture. It is one of the fastest ways to create a barrier that inhibits, rather than enhances communication (Jandt, 2012).
Learning is the most essential part of communication it shows that you can process multiple ideas at once and not judge but seek to understand where another person’s ideas are coming from as well. People have their own reasons and narratives that shape what they believe to be their goods and why they protect these goods. Each person’s goods are representative of their culture. Culture is a collection of ones history learned styles, patterns, and perceptions that continu...