Month: January 2009

Out of the two articles assigned for this week, I found Keesing’s assessment of the term “culture” much more compelling than Williams’ article.  However, I think this is largely a result of the historical context of each article.  I’m a little confused about the date of publication of the first article, but I think it was written in the late 1950’s to early 1960’s.  This would explain the author’s fixation with Marxism and his constant juxtaposition of working-class culture with elite culture in England.  When this article is viewed in a historical context, I find Williams’ criticism of “culture” fairly compelling, yet there seem to be some elements of hypocrisy.  Primarily in the author’s initial description of the “teashop” and its association with an elevated “cultivated people.”  Here, Williams is describing a frustration with the use of the term “culture” in parallel to the term “cultivated” and therefore “educated” (translation: elite).   After explaining his rejection of the term “culture” in this context, he goes on to describe a vision of English culture to which everyone contributes and where cultural meanings are negotiated.  However, the author also refers to a new and “cheapened” version of culture which he links to advertising in mass media.  This type of culture the author proposes to replace with a better, more developed culture of  the future.  I find that Williams’ allegations that popular culture as represented by the mass media is a low and cheapened culture to be akin to the elitism of the teashop use of “culture.”  It seems to me that the author holds some nostalgia for his former days as a boy in rural England and the type of “culture” he saw in this setting and this is (in some fashion) is what he would like to impose upon the “new” developing culture of the time.

In reference to Keesing’s article, I agree for the most part that anthropology has been centered around a quest for the “Other” and an emphasis on difference.  Honestly, I don’t have much to say other than that!  I’ve read a lot of similiar articles in Latin American Studies concerning anthropology and the exoticizing of non-western cultures so I suppose that this article doesn’t propose much that is new information for me.
Sorry I don’t have more to contribute!

I was thrown off by the concept of radical alterity according to Keesing’s article.  I do believe that in the past and frequently nowadays, anthropologists have tried to label other people living in different regions of the world as “others”, specially if they act differently and have different beliefs.  However, in past years, anthropologists have begun to play a much more active role in their line of work: aiding communities that are oppressed or helping people and communities take action against the oppressor, whatever form it may take.  

What is Culture?
Honestly I found the first reading “Culture is Ordinary” by Raymond Williams difficult to understand and to follow. The only part that really drew me in was when he started to use his personal anecdotes of his life before becoming an academic. He does however make some points that allowed me to delve into some critical thought. If what he was trying to convey in this article was that the commonly used rhetoric of the “masses” often presents the notion that those outside of London, I presume, are a large homogenous group of people that all share the same mentality and way of life, i.e. culture, is unfair and untruthful assumption to make, I agree. This in a sense ties into what Roger Keesing was, I think, referring to when he suggests that anthropologists and other scholarly members of society try and paint an “otherness” towards different groups that can contrast to Western society, when doing research and other academic works around the world. ( What I found interesting is that as this has actually backfired on anthropologists and other academics, as they have distanced themselves to a level where the people to whom they are referring to as the “others” claim that in fact these anthropologists are presenting a skewed portrayal of their culture, consequently and unfortunately for the anthropologists discrediting their entire work). But going back to the term the “masses”, presented in the first article, I see it as a parallel to the equally exaggerated alterity of the radical “otherness”, presented in the second article. Both allow for generalizations and assumptions to easily manifest in our minds and perpetuate the falsity that those included in these broad terms (the masses and the others,) have a distinct and uniform culture. This is completely untrue everywhere. This is apparent even in our classroom when we did the first exercise regarding popular culture in Canada. How difficult was it to really pin-point what popular culture existed in Canada. What I am trying to get to is that perhaps there is a dominant culture, but within a dominant culture exists sub-culture. And this is true in every sense. Think of a work place where there is a strong culture on the whole, but within each specialized department, the people working in each department have their own culture defined by their tasks and interests. I believe this is true for a society. A nation like Canada may have its general hockey, molson beer, liberal, non-american culture, yet for me personally I don’t relate to this national culture as much. I relate much more to the culture of my specific community and home. I feel this is the same with many people in Vancouver especially as our city is full of immigrants who bring their culture to the culture of the community. This gets me quite confused when I try and define what these people’s culture truly. This is becomes their culture becomes a sort of hybrid mixing infusion of different cultures from heritage to new settlement.

Ok I now realize that I have written too much but that’s what happens when I start relating it to context of my life. I didn’t even go into globalization which has an enormous impact on culture…

What is culture?
The first article in my opinion was difficult to understand. I am not sure but I think that for the author education is an important aspect of a culture, and in this article for the case of London. I think that the author says that if people develop their skills the society as a whole will be better. I agree with this point because I think everybody should have access to education.
I liked the second article better. I think that the author makes some good points when talking about the creation of the concept of “culture”. I understood that because nowadays because of the global world boundaries are disappearing and we as the people of the society are creating mental schemas to separate the self and the other. I think that years ago when people did not travel as they do now there was not a necessity to define all the aspects that make a culture unique. Nowadays, this has changed because now people need to feel identify to others by sharing practices and believes. When differencing between the self and the other some other issues get involved such as the binaries of what is “normal” and what is “different”. For example, when one compares his/her culture with a different one he or she will see his/her customs as “normal” and the others as “different” or “exotic”.
I think that even though each society shares values and costumes it has also special aspects within it that is why it is not good to generalize all the different cultures. I think that the author in one part of the article explains that it is easier for people to talk about another society by using the word culture because it simplifies that society to general aspects of it.
I liked the second article because the author explains that we should critically see other cultures and to understand that each culture has different aspects and that might seem very simple or different but that is not a reason to see those aspects as less important.