What is culture?

The interconnected nature of the world we live in means that we have more access today to cultures different to our own than at any other point in history. This presents both challenges and opportunities. A report from UNESCO describes cultural literacy as a crucial skill “for transcending the ‘clash of ignorances’” and says it’s as important as being able to read and write¹.

A quick search for ‘culture’ on any social media platform will return hundreds of results. You can feast your eyes on festivals, celebrations, food, music, and traditional clothes; you can listen to people making comparisons about aspects of everyday life in different countries or the behaviours of different generations; the list of topics is seemingly endless.

What social media shows us though are mostly superficial expression of culture, the visible tip of the iceberg – the artifacts and behaviours that can easily be experienced. However, to understand the reasons behind the behaviours, we need to go below the surface and explore the values held by those cultures. Or deeper still, to the unconscious basic assumptions with respect to their relationship with the environment and their understanding of the nature of reality, time, space, human nature, activities and relationships².

Adapted from Schein, E. (1984)²

While there are many definitions of culture, for the purpose of this course it’s useful to think of culture as a “fuzzy set of basic assumptions and values, orientations to life, beliefs, policies, procedures and behavioural conventions that are shared by a group of people, and that influence (but do not determine) each member’s behaviour”³.

The latter part of the definition is crucially important as it highlights the shared nature of culture. Culture only exists in the interaction of individuals, both within and outside a group. Being culturally literate therefore involves learning to interact with ‘cultural others’ – people that are different from ourselves. This is central to the UNESCO Framework for intercultural competences as a way to “bridge differences, defuse conflicts and setting the foundations of peaceful coexistence”.

However, the risk with this approach is the assumption that cultural groups are homogeneous and that culture is uniformly distributed within a group, which can lead to stereotyping and othering. The reality is much messier than that. Despite having shared values and assumptions, cultures are not wholly coherent and so, for example, while ‘community’ might be one of the core values of a social group, it doesn’t follow that there are no individualistic cultural practices within that same group. In addition, while there are many studies that have identified common characteristics of groups of people (the work of Geert Hofstede is commonly used in the field of business), these are only useful at population level.

Researchers such as Holliday and Dahl are critical of those, like Hofstede, who attempt to describe cultures by reducing them to a set of characteristics, as this can lead to essentialising individuals. Culture is not something static that we have, external to us, but something that’s learnt through socialisation within groups. Cultural identities are therefore multiple as we are all members of multiple social groups. Our nationality, ethnicity, gender, and social class will all have different characteristics which, as individuals, we are constantly negotiating within ourselves, as well as the negotiation that happens with cultural others as we interact with them or are otherwise exposed to different understandings of the world.

The UNESCO Framework for intercultural competences calls for the development of intercultural citizenship. “Just as competent citizens engage in activities that help and do not hinder their own cities, states, and countries, competent intercultural citizens must take into account, and show respect for, a continually expanding geopolitical and sociocultural context for their words, deeds, and beliefs. Taking into account the impact of one’s words, deeds, and beliefs on those who reside in other cities, states, and countries, has become an essential element of behaving responsibly in the modern world.”

A quote from Holliday⁴ summarises this in a nutshell:

Culture is not a geographical place which can be visited, but a “fluid, creative social force which binds different groupings and aspects of behaviour in different ways, both constructing and constructed by people in a piecemeal fashion to produce myriad combinations and configurations.”

Think about the core values, traditions, and beliefs that shaped your upbringing. This could include your family life, religion, schooling and friendships. To what extent do these cultural values influence your identity?

References

1. Georges Kutukdjian & John Corbett (eds), Investing in cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue. UNESCO world report, 2009.
2. Schein, E. Coming to a new awareness of organizational culture. Sloan Management Review 25(2): 3–16. 1984
3. Spencer-Oatey, H. Culturally Speaking. Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory. 2nd edition. London: Continuum. 2008
4. Holliday, A., Kullman, J., & Hyde, M. Intercultural Communication: An advance resource book for students (3rd ed.). Routledge Applied Linguistics. 2017