Professional Documents
Culture Documents
What is Culture?
Definition:
the arts and other manifestations of human
intellectual achievement regarded collectively :
20th century popular culture.
• a refined understanding or appreciation of this :
men of culture.
• the customs, arts, social institutions, and
achievements of a particular nation, people, or
other social group : Caribbean culture | people
from many different cultures.
• [with adj. ] the attitudes and behaviour
characteristic of a particular social group : the
emerging drug culture.
Origin:
Middle English (denoting a cultivated piece of
land): the noun from French culture or directly
from Latin cultura ‘growing, cultivation’ ; the
verb from obsolete French culturer or medieval
Latin culturare, both based on Latin colere
‘tend, cultivate’ (see cultivate ). In late Middle
English the sense was [cultivation of the soil] and
from this (early 16th cent.) arose [cultivation (of
the mind, faculties, or manners)] ; sense 1 dates
from the early 19th cent.
What is acculturation?
DEF: Assimilate or cause to assimilate a different
culture, typically the dominant one [ intrans. ] :
those who have acculturated to the U.S.
[ trans. ] : the next weeks were spent
acculturating the field staff | [as adj. ]
( acculturated) an acculturated Cherokee.
Types of culture?
High culture ' Culture'
Low culture 'culture'
High vs low culture = European vs non-European
culture
1960's in the UK
- Historical context - decolonisation
After World War II, Cultural Studies may
have existed in the Caribbean without a
name and even after it was named, people
in different countries/territories used
different names/ terms.
- Stuart Hall ( Jamaican)
- Berningham University in the UK
- first discussions on Cultural Studies
- Emerged to refashion the disciplines as
scholars needed to find solutions for the
disciplinary boundaries i.e. history,
geography, math etc. to a new school of
thought. Different scholars came together
to collaborate and to find solutions that
would go beyond the borders.
"Otherizing"
- Speaking of the other person (i.e. the
one being studied/scrutinized) possibly
in a negative way.
- To make into the “other” to separate
from the ‘our’; to make a distinction
(negative connotation)
- Reducing to a prescribed stereotype
Hegemony
def: leadership or dominance, esp. by one country or
social group over others : Germany was united under
Prussian hegemony after 1871.ORIGIN mid 16th cent.:
from Greek hēgemonia, from hēgemōn ‘leader,’
from hēgeisthai ‘to lead
- Greek origin
- Historical and geographic power
- Geographic power leads/lends itself to
hegemonic power
hegemonic
ruling or dominant in a political or social context : the
bourgeoisie constituted the hegemonic class.
Popular culture
Cultural Hegemony
Origin of hegemony
Hegemony (e.g. plantation society)
- What would be achieved through
cultural hegemony?
- Power – linked to political/economic
- Leadership
Cultural Hegemony
- The influence exerted by the powerful
to the others be it force or otherwise
- Cultural power
- N.B. Geographic power leads/lends
itself to hegemonic power
Status quo
DEF: the existing state of affairs, esp. regarding social
or political issues : they have a vested interest in
maintaining the status quo.
ORIGIN Latin, literally ‘the state in which.’
Tutorial question #1
“Culture is one of the most loaded
concepts today in the Academy ranging
from the cliché to the core of intellectual
discources. Define the term culture and
access the major criticisms.
Culture
- Ways of life