I really enjoyed watching the first two ethnography presentations and seeing what cultural group they looked at. Both were interesting because they looked more at a cultural space, rather than a specific cultural group. This made me realize how hard it is to find a clearly defined cultural group. Even groups like Jewish people or Mexicans are not as obviously defined as we might think. There are some people that do not consider themselves part of the group, although they may fit all the criteria. For example, is a student that was raised Jewish, but does not agree with the religion’s beliefs considered part of the cultural group or not? What about someone who is not of Mexican heritage, but has lived in Mexico since they were a child, are they considered Mexican? This goes back to the topic of culture that we talked about in the beginning of the year. What is culture? How can we define it? These ethnography projects reaffirm that culture has many different meanings for many different people.
This connects to our readings about cultural diplomacy. I think that there are so many disagreements about what cultural diplomacy should involve because cultural itself is so hard to define. What aspects of our lives as Americans can be considered our culture, and what parts of this “culture” do we want to share with others? Part of the issue with cultural diplomacy may be that there have only been serious efforts to export American pop culture, but this is only a small part of who we are. We need to try to show the world the more meaningful side of our culture, rather than just violent movies and pop music.
I thought the issues that you brought up concerning the difficulties in deciding who is in a bounded cultural group and who is not were interesting. I think another facet of this debate that also has to be taken into account, however, is who decides who is in a cultural group. For instance, recently in China that was a woman that was half Chinese, half African and she was on the Chinese version of American Idol. In a recent interview, she talked about how she considered herself Chinese but that many people watching the show did not because of the color of her skin (despite having Chinese citizenship). Does the state or the society confer inclusion into the Chinese ethnic group? Just something to consider.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Richie. The issues of defining who goes into what cultural group are very interesting! In fact, over Thanksgiving dinner, my family got into a debate about whether or not someone from the Catholic faith who has been raised Catholic, still goes to church, etc. but who does NOT believe in the Church teachings/policies is really considered a Catholic (who thought to bring up religion? Mon Dieu!). Of course, Rep. Kennedy was mentioned, and we had to decide whether or not he was truly a Catholic or not. How does one go about deciding where to draw the line when discussing the criteria for being in a cultural group?
ReplyDeleteThe debate you bring up here is really interesting and important. It's an issue I have to deal with on a regular basis with the political arena. In the Liberty Movement there are 4 major sub-groups and dozens of groups within those. The question of "Who is really a libertarian" comes up and the debates are often more passion-filled than when arguing with one's political opposite. The pressing issue is whether the Anarcho-Capitalist sub-group(one which many of the most respected people are part of) could be considered within the group or not. Everyone seems to have an opinion and nobody can draw the line. This goes back to the question of who defines the boundaries. Like with other cultural groups, I'm not sure anyone really knows.
ReplyDeleteYou raise a really good point. I know that people identify with multiple cultures, but I didn't realize how contextual it is. As far as religion goes, many people are raised within a certain religion. Even people who no longer practice said religion, still identify with it. For instance, several people in our class called themselves "Irish Catholic" or "Italian Catholic", even though they don't practice that relgion anymore. Also, in a different context or cultural space, maybe these people would identify with another cultural trait. If someone asked me what culture I identified with, just out and about, I would say I am American. If I was at American University, a student; a religious service, Christian; Cross Cultural Communication class, PA Dutch. The context and cultural space is an itegral part of cultural identification.
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