Cultural studies closely concentrate on how a certain phenomenon connects to matters of ideology, race, social class and/or gender. Cultural studies expresses concern with everyday life practices and the meaning behind everything. One of the main aims within Cultural Studies is to go deeper with what is known to be natural to society and strong beliefs to society; there will be examples of everyday life practices such as the things we’ve naturally known because society has created meaning to it such as trees, PMS and the biological determinism society once believed to be natural, these examples will show how and why it is important to critically interrogate these practices.
Critical interrogation involves studying the belief closely, pulling it apart and questioning it. It creates different thoughts and expands knowledge about the belief. Everyone in the world is brought up differently, they’re raised to see things in one way, whereas others could have been raised to believe the opposite, not knowing which way is right or which way is wrong. This would be known as the humanist theory. Humanism beliefs and practices are so impacted in our culture it has become natural to the world and becomes invisible, because it is invisible, no one thinks deeper into the belief. This is what we call ‘common sense’. A common example used of a humanist belief would be a tree. In a humanist view, the word tree and the actual object is connected. Once a tree is mentioned the qualities of a tree come straight to our head, we all think of the same thing because it has been implemented in our mind what a tree is. We would right away think of an object that in tall, leafy and comes from the ground. Whereas in the view of a structuralist, a tree is a ...
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.... The dichotomous logic mainly bases on the ranks of the terms. The ranking of the terms makes one become more privileged and the other term becomes the more negative, least important one.
Another theory that is considered while interrogating the natural practice of society is the post structuralism view. It is not an important topic to be discussed as it relates to Cultural Studies. The post structuralism view questions the natural belief and makes it a bigger issue to be discussed and arises many questions for people. The post structuralism view tries to undo all we know and confuse us and fill out head with questions about what we already know from belief and practice within society. It creates a more interesting thought to our minds because it twists what we have thought naturally and forces us to interrogate more into the meaning we thought it actually was.
In the Chapter 3 of “The Reality of Social Construction”, Dave Elder-Vass examines the academic views about culture and rules. He calls cultural realism the view according to which culture and rules exist independently of people. In this chapter, the author explains the reason why he does not agree with the academic view of culture.
In today’s society there are many words that are used or said without giving it complete thought. For example, the word “identity” is something to which I have never really given much thought or even considered how I identify myself.
Chinese Revolution is about making the entire country into Communists and killing each and one the people who hates Mao Tse-Tung. Mao Tse-Tung is the leader of China at this time who believes in equality and everyone should have the same rights. The Red Guards is a military group in which includes a group of children that eliminates the Chinese population due to hatred for Mao. If any of these events happen to our generation, most youth are smart enough to know that Mao is a bad leader and killing innocent people by the case of bitterness for Mao is wrong. The Chinese youth got swept up in the Cultural Revolution by Mao because the youth were easy to persuade into doing something. To expand this idea further, the Chinese youth weren’t old enough, not on this specific age, to realize whether Mao’s actions were virtuous or inaccurate. On the other hand, they thought that working for Mao and joining the Red Guards will help their country out, but they never knew the truth behind Mao’s plans. The truth about the Cultural Revolution was to kill anybody that gets in the way of Mao’s plans and destroying all the old buildings so that it would be replaced with new buildings or reconstruct the old buildings to become brand new again. In addition, the Chinese youth had no idea that joining the Red Guards will give a highly chance of getting killed. In other words, the adults were smarter than the youth because joining the Red Guards means the opposite of helping the country out. Mao just made them think that joining will help their country, even though it was the other way around like someone apologizing to their neighbor in which manipulating their minds that they’re now cool, but they were still rude to them afterwards. To repeat this, t...
... argues that even though our mission is to understand the culture we our studying one cannot make final assumptions about a culture. One has to reflex on the fact that a culture is always changing and that our preparation of our discipline is not often the method one uses in fieldwork.
Whereas, the historical case refers to a contemporary society in which culture plays an unparalleled role in social relations and identities, it is therefore based on observations of changes in social life (Nash, 2001). The outcome of a loss in faith in modern narratives of progress through reason and science and the overall collapse of predominant norms and values is due to a strong emphasis which is placed on fragmentation and individualism (Nash, 2001). Hence, for the longest period structuralist-f...
A few of the most important elements of culture that I identify myself with would be language and values and beliefs. Language is the medium in which societies all over the world can communicate with one another. For example, in Ecuador, the language of Spanish is the means in which everyone can communicate with one another and share their beliefs and values with one another. Language allows us to be able to pass down culture from one time period to the next, which is called cultural transmission. This is vital in order for societies to learn from other’s previous mistakes and be able to succeed and learn. Thus, enabling societies to begin to value certain aspects of life or have beliefs, such as providing equal opportunity to everyone regardless
A cultural assessment interview is very important when taking care of patients or their families who may be from a different culture than the nurse’s. In order to be able to better take care of a patient, we first need to know their own interpretation of disease and illness within their cultural context, values, and beliefs. Since I am Indian and my culture is a mix of the Indian cultural beliefs and my religion Islam, I was looking forward to this interview so that I am able to learn more about different cultures using my assessment.
To understand cultural imperialism is to understand the diaspora of man across the globe along with the socially darwinistic interactions that follow. Modern homo-sapiens left the plains of Africa a mere sixty-thousand years ago. Today mankind populates six continents hundreds of islands with a seemingly endless ethnic diversity. But what comes of a culture that is antiquated on a global scale that comes to interact with a more advanced civilization. The Americas prior to 1492 where home to millions of indigenous people with wide spread and diverse cultures speaking over two-thousand languages. With western colonization of the Americas came disease and enslavement of the indigenous peoples. The enslavement, genocide and oppression the natives faced under the Europeans lasted for over five hundred years. Even the birth of civilized nations did little to stop the oppression as the United States military famously marched millions of natives to reserves in Oklahoma in what became known as the trail of tears. The innate nature of mankind is rather troublesome and largely counter-productive. We are extremely social animals yet instead of
A cultural artifact is something that does not come from nature, it is something that is invented or made and helps tell us about the way the world is. Cultural artifacts can be seen as a good and bad thing; depending on your generation or how you look at how the artifact being used. Cultural artifacts have changed the way the world is and the way the world works. For this paper, the cultural artifact the cell phone has changed the way we communicate and do business. Everything we need is just a few clicks away.
With the popularity of film culture experiencing a drastic increase, a large amount of what happens on screen is mirrored in our society. Movies can evoke thoughts and emotions that shape the average man’s ideals, sometimes even stirring up propaganda that pressures governments to create new laws.
In the end, what we learn from this article is very realistic and logical. Furthermore, it is supported with real-life examples. Culture is ordinary, each individual has it, and it is both individual and common. It’s a result of both traditional values and an individual effort. Therefore, trying to fit it into certain sharp-edged models would be wrong.
In The First Resort of King, Richard Arndt argues cultural diplomacy has been a norm “for humans intent upon civilization” since the Bronze Age, when diplomacy has evolved in parallel with language to facilitate cooperation between large groups defined by customs, therefore, in its earliest form, diplomacy meant relations not between nation-state, but between cultures (1). However, over the course of history, the concept of cultural diplomacy changed. Today, cultural diplomacy is typically viewed as a foreign policy tool, utilized by governments in order to advance specific kinds of interests. This is true according to Yang and Liu, who define public diplomacy as a diplomatic activity organised and conducted by a state government and directed
I guess I should start at the very beginning which would be getting up at 6:45 in order to make lunches for the students going on the trip. I had agreed to help Brenda make sandwiches, but neither of us got the key for the dining hall so we had to break into the dining hall with a clothes hanger, we are now professional picks locks because we finally got it open on the 30th try. At any rate we had fun making bagged lunches and pick on each other in the process. Then all the mission students piled into the vehicles to ride to New Tribes Mission, I always thoroughly enjoy the rides on these trips because we frequently have some lively discussions and this trip was no exception. Upon arriving at New Tribes the only thing on the outside property
Cultural Appropriation versus Multiculturalism In today's society, there are many different cultures that individuals identify with. Culture is very important to many people and is something that helps define who we are. When different cultures are respected and appreciated, it is a beautiful thing, it can bring individuals in society closer to one another. Ideally, this understanding of one another’s cultures can lead to multiculturalism.
There are a lot of different cultures in the world we live in today. Finding the place you belong and discovering your own culture can be a challenge. This is especially true when you look at culture as an individual versus culture in your family, or even within your community. I’ve always been very family oriented, so that plays a big part in who I am and how my family’s dynamic works. I believe that my family has had a huge impact on the development of my culture, and I hope that I have had the same impact on theirs.