How to Study Culture

How to Study Culture

CULTURE
Culture, in anthropology, the patterns of behavior and thinking that people living in social groups learn, create, and share. Culture distinguishes one human group from others. It also distinguishes humans from other animals. A people�s culture includes their beliefs, rules of behavior, language, rituals, art, technology, styles of dress, ways of producing and cooking food, religion, and political and economic systems. (2)

NOT CULTURED
Educated and sophisticated: generally educated and informed about the arts and related intellectual activity.

ARE YOU CAPABLE OF LEARNING CULTURE

1. Do you need to live in clean hotels or homes?
2. Can you give a three month trip, less than three months is not a cultural study.
3. Mechanical function, to see patterns.

LEARNING THE CULTURE

1. LEARN THE LANGUAGE
   Learn the language to learn the culture
    
2. LISTEN WITH MISTRUST
   Listening to people describe there culture in English or French is not going to teach you, it will teach you want they think should be.
    
3. WHAT YOU SEE - NOT WHAT YOU HEAR
   A culture will tell you what they want to be, however you will see what they are.
    
4. BOREDOM IS NEEDED
   Observation of common characteristics of a culture only starts when the mind has time enough to think, a bored person is going to see what things are common, connecting observances and grouping them into categories.
    
5. NO TRANSLATORS
   A translator will present a world he or she wishes you to know, not the whole spectrum, you will only learn what they present, they are incapable of stopping themselves from hiding dirty laundry.
    
6. GOOD AND BAD
   A culture should see a positive so they can say the bad.
    
7. PHOTOS EXPLAIN CULTURE
    
8. LEADING THE WITNESS
    
9. LEARN THE LOCAL NAMES OF PLACES
    
10. STUDY THE MODERN CULTURE
    - What the modern culture strives to do is their vision of the future. The heroes of the culture are their future.
     
11. INCLUDE ALL PHOTOS
     
12. INTRODUCED TO IMPORTANT PERSON
     
13. INTRODUCED TO PEOPLE WHO SPEAK ENGLISH
     
14. COLLABORATED OBSERVATIONS
    Observe the culture, see if you can see common repeated characteristics.
     
15. THE INVITATION TO SIT
     
16. HOTEL
    - No AC
    - No private bath
     
17. GIVE THEM PERMISSION TO TALK
    - Say hello
    - Stop and play with children, (Can be dangerous)
     
18. DO NOT FORCE TALK
     
19. SELF-PROPHESIZING BY READING BOOKS
     
20. DO NOT EXPLAIN COMPARISONS OF YOUR COUNTRY
     
21. THE BOTTOM - MIDDLE - TOP OF CULTURE
     
22. WALK - DRIVE - OR BUS
    Making choices
    Walk or Drive a car?

CULTURE CHANGES WHEN:

1. Political Districts Change
2. Rivers
3. Mountains
4. Language
5. Country Borders
6.

GLOSSARY

cultural cringe
Australia sociology feeling of cultural inferiority: a sense of embarrassment caused by a feeling that your national culture is inferior to others (2)