Trying to define culture can be a very hard task because I guess nobody really knows what it is. Everybody has a different definition for culture and so to come up with a precise definition of culture would be someting very difficult. From the first reading by Williams I liked how he said that culture is "ordinary" and that it is everywhere and not only in museums or teashops or elite schools or as being part only of high education. Culture is ordinary. Everybody has a different definition to what culture is.
I liked more the second reading as it was more about anthropology. Last semester I took a class about anthropology in Latin America and we were taught how anthropologists would go there and do their research, some of them already with preconceived notions which were mostly negative, some labelling these cultures as "primitve" ones. Also I got to see how this anthropologists had a role in shaping outsiders views about these cultures and how they can help these cultures in their different struggles. Anyway, what I liked most about this reading was Keesing's radical alterity notion. I would agree with Jean Sebastien when he said that most people ditinguishes themselves from others in order to find the uniqueness of their own culture. When I go on trips and later come back I can't help but to compare and think of the differences that I or my culture has with others. I guess it's just natural for us to do this.
5 comments:
Sebastian, a reminder: please label your post last201. Otherwise it will not show up at the class blog.
Your second point is relevant to me and another example of what makes culture an issue about power. After all, Western anthropologists invented the term of culture and examined communities according to this term. When saying that any people share any culture, they might be creating something that has not necessary a social reality. They are certainly giving a name that will influence the idea these people have about their own way of life and their own society. Labelling is a powerful vector of influence and our anthropologists also have their own cultural representations that make their judgment kind of subjective!
I also like what Williams says about culture being “ordinary,” meaning that it is everywhere and all individuals within a society experience it. However, I feel that his elevated, somewhat arrogant writing style weakens his argument, as it resembles the “teashop culture” he claims to detest. I also find Keesing’s article on radical alterity interesting, and have encountered this concept in another one of my courses as well. I’m taking a class in medical anthropology, and I feel our text presents non-western medical systems as radically different, and often less valuable, than our own. I like how you mentioned what Jean Sebastien says, because I completely agree that we look for differences in other cultures to distinguish our own. When I go abroad, I also concentrate on what makes that culture different from my own, and focus less on the similarities… I have no idea why.
I also liked the anthropological stance that the Keesing article took. Initially, I had a hard time understanding what the article was getting at through the terms and jargon that were so heavily embedded in the writing, however after class I felt that I gained a much better understanding of his points. I think that the coral reef metaphor was quite interesting: that anthropologists used to view cultures as a natural and intentional formation of many small particles coming together. However, I too see fault with this lens in the sense that so much of culture is sculpted and altered by the intentional acts of humans. For example, colonialism, modernization, globalization, counter cultures, and wars and are examples of a certain human intent that shapes not only our own culture but the cultures around us. This is not a necessarily 'natural' process, but rather something that happens out of human intent. Also, the concept of "othering" is quite interesting and prevalent in society. When looking at other cultures people tend to see what they want to see, whether romantic or demonizing or exotic in a very subjective manner.
I'm agree with about the idea that the concept of cultural can be very different from each person, accord to the time, contry, ideas, ... But I think that all arround us is culture, sometimes we can't see that ...
William said: "the culture is ordinary", and I'm agree with that. Sometimes we don't know what is our culture, by example in the exercise of class some don't know ...
Good day!
Post a Comment