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I found both articles that we read this week both challenging and insightful. The first was confusing for me to follow, but nonetheless, offered an interesting outlook of culture that seemed very relevant to our discussion in class last week. I did find it slightly ironic that his main point was that culture is ordinary and accessible, and that education too should be accessible, however his style of writing was so complex that it seems like it could only be truly digested by a very specific, and well educated sector of society. The second article also made interesting points, but was so infused with jargon and theory that it too was hard to follow at times. It is interesting that while culture is something that is experienced by everyone and infused in both the identity of the individual and of a larger society, it remains a concept that is very difficult to define. These articles attempted to broaden our notions of what culture is. I think that both articles aimed to suggest that culture is not something that exists in a far away, out of reach, elite, or ‘tribal’ sector of society, but rather, as something experienced by everyone all the time. Culture is defined in everyday encounters. This brought me back to the discussion we had in class about the differences between ‘high culture’ and ‘popular culture.’ It made me reflect upon my own culture, American culture, and question: what is more telling of American culture? Fast-food, hip-hop and Hollywood, or fine literature, fine arts, and free jazz? Is it possible that both categories are definitive of culture only in different ways? I think that this relates to the Keesing article in the sense that when we look at different societies in an attempt to better understand their cultures, we have a tendency to ‘other’ them and create binaries and contained categories of what elements of culture we perceive as ‘valid,’ and what elements we overlook altogether. “…this pursuit of the exotic Other is still a persistent theme, and “culture” is a powerful device for its perpetuation” (6). We have a tendency to reduce cultures to a set of artifacts that we consider to be ‘authentic,’ often leaving out the more everyday and ‘ordinary’ elements that also define culture.

Hello all!!

My name is Laura Lopez, I´m an exchange student from Mexico. My major in Mexico is Industrial Engineer but here I´m studying in Arts.
Good luck!!!

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.

Keesing’s statements of culture for me had more impact than that of Williams. Williams take on culture as “ordinary” was very interesting and I do agree with the notion that culture is everywhere, however it didn’t have as much as Keesing’s article. I guess mostly because he tackles the notions of the culture through the anthropologist lenses, which is something I’ve been familiarizing for the past year or so. There are two of Keesing’s arguments which I particularly liked; one was on radical alterity and the other one was the notion of culture as composed of small things which are not necessarily “theirs” or “ours”.

What I liked about this radical alterity notion is that I believe we do this a lot. I think that we distinguish ourselves from other cultures, in an attempt to find the uniqueness of our own culture. (Whether these distinctions are “radical” or not, depends on the cultures we are distinguishing). These distinctions of the “otherness” of different cultures can work like a process of elimination which in its final outcome will leave you with characteristics of your own. When in class we tried to highlight aspects of Canadian culture, I particularly named objects which to me were representative of Canadian cultures. My group did not agree with some of the things I named, but as a foreigner these things were characteristic of Canadian culture. Essentially, what Mounties, moose and maple syrup had in common, in my perspective, is that these objects are absent from where I come from and here there are more common. Hence, I related them as part of the Canadian culture.

I believe that it is definitively the small things that make one’s culture so characteristic, even though some of these distinctions were “taken” from a different culture and incorporated into one’s. If you really think about it, the things that identify a particular culture (for example, that of your own country) are small things like places, language and/or music. Whereas the States has McDonald’s, Canada has Tim Horton’s, Panama has Pio Pio. These places have been incorporated as elements that now represent a particular culture. Similarly, Panamanian culture also highlights an example of elements “taken” from a different culture and incorporated into one’s own. Reggae and its genres are characteristic of the Caribbean and during the construction of the canal many Caribbeans were hired and brought with them their culture, including their music. Over time Panamanians started to sing reggae (in Spanish) and essentially, we ended up borrowing this aspect of the Caribbean culture and incorporated it into our own. Today, Spanish reggae is very characteristic of Panama, especially that of the Atlantic provinces.

Keesing suggests in his article that culture and cultural ought to be re-conceptualized, as to incorporate the essentials of a more holistic representation of society (beyond the specificities that might become solely exotic in the approach from an ethnographer’s voyage to a distant village for example) so to enable the social theorists to analyze the production of knowledge, ideological forces, peculiarities of community structure and tradition, and the interconnectedness to other global tendencies. A critique to the radical alterity quest in anthropological studies is acceptable in cases in which subjects and peoples are undermined or culturally stereotyped but this is actually not the feeling I get from recent ethnographies I have read such as Tsing 2004 about forest conservation in Indonesia. Also, there is a value in ethnographic approach to cultural studies that holds uniqueness in methodology that differentiates, in my opinion, anthropology from other social sciences. Hence, ethnographic research proposes this approach from the everyday lives characteristics and description of experiences of cultural immersion based on extensive use of interviews and so forth.

The tendency for the social sciences to assimilate from each other is evident in the use of notions of place and space in cultural anthropology. However, the discourse on what is that culture means might blur the very notion that culture is alive and basically inseparable from human nature. I find specifically interesting the reference to the tendency for anthropology to draw from cognitive science and languages, merging concepts that explain the intrinsic relationship between the body and mind in creating what we experience and think as culture.

The approach Williams take to the discussion of culture differs from the representations in social sciences presented by Keesing. Williams is more preoccupied not so much to how we define and think of culture but the way in which culture corresponds to our realities and our imagined conceptions of ideals to our society. I find interesting the discussion on how the educated elite tries to create an exclusionary result by ascribing high culture to the concept of culture. The nature of the post-industrial British society obscured the common qualities and moral values still existent in the countryside, creating the urban exclusions that distinct the social common from the cultural. The paradigm lays in how the capitalist society controls the means that produce culture and assesses an identity of mass representations. The interest and financial investment that is concentrated in advertisement and consumption outcomes the common education.

It is something to let expand in our minds: how the society we live in creates individualistic values that make humans, who are fully capable of understanding the basic notion of democracy, to be passive in face of so much contradiction in even the most ordinary things.

As a couple of individuals said before I found it hard to understand Williams journal entry, he word choice in describing the struggles he had with self identity in Cambridge are a little too much. I did however understand the overall message which the title clearly stated. The typical views on culture are somewhat wrong, especially those which ethnocentrism is based upon. I connected well with Raymond Williams when he makes points about how culture is whatever you make of it, because every little community, in every city or town, in every country has its own unique culture. At times Williams lost me when he had to go into intense detail about describing how Marxists view people and culture. Which he then goes on to argue are wrong and somewhat ignorant to what Industrialism has created for the majority of the world in terms of revolutionizing Culture.

Roger M. Keesing journal essay was much more complex, which I found much more interesting. He give some excellent metaphors for how to look at culture and the way culture has been shaped. The comparison of culture to a coral reef was especially well written, because it explained how cultures are a accumulation of past events and acts that have created a larger picture of identity. Keesing also writes about how the improper use of culture has been attributed to its colonial history. He states that when the first colonial powers conquered new lands they saw the peoples customs as a way to over generalize them and create a culture that was not unique to individuals. I also enjoyed his little discussion about his friend from the Kwaio, because it was a great example to show how diverse cultures still are in the world. It also showed how like Keesing states later on that some cultures will always have a ability to go against traditional views and still manage to make an individual fulfilled in his life despite how insignificant it may be.

Both these papers gave me a better understanding of culture, and showed me how culture is very dependent on what you make of it. It can be any type of small ritual/custom that is performed by an individual or a group of people. Which in turn made me think of what my own culture was?

hi all, I was born and raised in São Paulo (Brazil). I studied at a small swiss school that felt like my backyard, where I developed as a really outgoing and talkative child, which gave me a hard time to adjust to some of the swiss strict rules of discipline. I grew up around friends that identify themselves as hybrids of culture, often times making evident their passion to the brazilian way in some of the bittersweet goodbyes throughout school. I have long been interested in human geography and environmental issues -even though I definitely don’t have a science directed mind. I moved to Vancouver for my university studies because I searched for more peaceful surroundings that would help me concentrated on my studies. São Paulo, is a lively city with a population of 19million people, a hand-full for someone interested in geography… For some reason I felt this drive to head north and I learned much of how brazilian I am after coming here. My academic interests are in human geography, latin american studies and anthropology. I find Latin American culture and history fascinating, vibrant and diverse. I feel eager to study other LA countries in more depth and plan more travels to come…
marina

A fairly standard definition of culture is something along the lines of ‘a system of symbols and meanings that lack fixed boundaries, are constantly in flux, and interact and compete with one another.’ When the majority of people use the term ‘culture’, they are referring to a way of life; this includes language, manners, fashion, behavior, morality, ethics, religion, and art.

The readings deal with several possible meanings of ‘culture’. The two which are most favoured are a) a way of life; b) arts and education. However, another idea of culture is introduced, namely that which is ruled by a group of elites who consider themselves sophisticated and ‘cultured’ to the extent that they are separate (and of course better) than everyone else. To me, the belief that you are better than others because of the places you dine at or the people that you are seen with is ignorant in the extreme.

Upon finishing the assigned readings, I was left with several questions regarding culture and our perception of it; some of which were brought up by the readings, and some of which were my own. What, exactly, is culture? How do cultures differ around the world? And are the differences significant enough to truly divide them, or are they merely superficial?

It seems to me that the author of the second article is saying that cultures are in effect the same, and that the ‘exoticness’ that we think of when we think of foreign lands is a “culturally constructed ‘other’” that fills the “savage slot.” Now I have to say that I didn’t really understand what this article was getting at, and I got kind of confused by all the various theories and post-whatevers (I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what “cleavages of class” are); but I think the gist of it is that we are more similar than we think, and that we purposely seek out and exaggerate the differences between ourselves and others. Why do we do this? The author seems to think that we are searching for “radical otherness”, and we find this otherness in the primitive tribes living in the Amazon.

Of the two readings for thias week, I have to say I prefer the earlier one by Raymond Williams. The basic idea that “culture is ordinary” is nothing new to me by itself, but Williams presents some arguments along the way that I found very interesting. It seems obvious to me that, to start out, he describes exactly what we were talking about last class. That is, the difference between high culture and popular culture. I agree with his distinctions and opinion that, while different, each is important in it’s own way. And it is true and unfortunate that some people, like in the teashop, devalue anything that isn’t high culture. Bebop,the primal form of jazz music, is considered an “art” music and is very sophisticated, certainly high culture, but would never have existed if it weren’t for various musical traditions of folk and popular culture–blues, ragtime, swing, among others. Had elitists of high culture been powerful enough back in the beginning of the 20th century to subvert those “lesser” traditions, their eventual product would never have existed!

Later on, Williams discusses the effects economics has on culture. He says that, even though more and more bad culture is being made and is more easily distributed, more good culture is also being made. This I can agree with. But he also seems to believe that this proliferation of bad/commercial culture is not a harmful thing. I personally think that commercial culture eats away at the minds of its consumers and participants. But aside from that, it is undeniable that it erodes good culture, by pushing the purveyors of good culture aside. I don’t, however, see bad culture as a necessary evil in an economic society, mainly because you can travel and witness bustling economic cities, even in the U.S. and Canada, with varying degrees (some high, many low) of quality, unique culture relative to commercially infected culture.

The second reading, by Keesing, was interesting, but a little confusing for me having never taken an anthropology or cultural studies class. But generally, I get the idea that culture is very, very hard to define because it is complex, constantly evolving, without bounds, and shapes the perceptions of even those attempting to understand it.

Hi my name is Jean Sebastien Pourcelot and I’m a second year archaeology and Latin American studies major. I come from Panama and I’m interested in learning and understanding more about the culture of the region.

What is Culture?
01/12/09

Throughout the readings, Williams and Keesing provide insight into the definition of culture and how scholars perceive its function in society. Williams’ title “Culture is Ordinary” reflects his viewpoint of culture as a universal and innate phenomenon. He describes culture as the arts and learning implemented to expresses the beliefs of every human society. Williams suggests that culture serves two distinct functions: 1) the “common purpose” of the society, and 2) the “deep personal meaning” of the individuals. He criticizes “teashop culture” as well as those who utilize esoteric argot in describing culture to illustrate his belief that all individuals create and share this structure, not merely the well-educated. Williams additionally examines Marxist cultural theory, which states “culture must be finally interpreted in relations to its underlying system of production.” He denounces the Marxist notion “we live in a dying culture and the masses are ignorant,” and likens this reference of the masses to cultural othering. However, Williams does find merit in three aspects of Marxist cultural theory: 1) the relationship between culture and production, 2) the observation of restricted education, and 3) a different system of production would serve as a cultural directive. He condones Leavis’ theory that industrialization has tainted, or cheapened, British culture, and suggests that education is the only method of retaining classic art and literature. Finally, Williams opposes the theory that the decline of culture in the industrial era resembles “a kind of Gresham’s law,” enumerating examples of how “bad culture” does not replace “good culture” in any definitive correlation.
In “Theories of Culture Revisited,” Keesing focuses on radical alterity, defined as “a culturally constructed Other radically different from Us.” He describes some classic binaries associated with othering, including “civilized verses primitive,” “rational verses irrational,” and “Occident verses Orient.” Keesing criticizes common anthropological approaches to culture, accusing them of essentialism and reification. He means scholars typically study and describe culture in a manner that portrays this elusive concept as concrete and tangible. Keesing elaborates on how the reification of culture results in its becoming a commodity with potential for appropriation, thus, further allowing for othering.

This weeks reading topic of what is culture? has opened my eyes to different perspectives on culture and the ways and styles of which they are formed and lived through. I found the readings both by Raymond Williams and Roger Kessing to be very intriguing and informative. I felt Williams opened my eyes to new perspectives and ways of thinking on culture of which I had not considered before. From the beginning of Williams paper I appreciated his courage in the labialization of such an extensive, complex topic, as culture and classify it as ‘ordinary’. I think, however, a dictionary definition of what exactly culture and ordinary ‘means’ would be a good technique for his use of exploring culture. I felt as though Williams brought in a bit more excitement and fun into his paper through the structure and use of words and expressions over Kessing’s. For example Williams brings rhyming into his paper through word ‘culture of which he compares to vulture and sepulture. This comparison adds to his overarching thesis but was defiantly not necessary and felt he thought it was advantageous to add some humor and lighten up the topic. Another aspect of Williams paper I enjoyed was his expulsion of Marxists theorists who say that we are living in a dying culture. This belief is extremely popular at moment and I feel it was adventurous of him to “stand on the other side of the room’ , so to speak. One of the things of which I did not necessary agree with on Williams paper was the classification of culture in terms of good or bad. I feel as though a classification such as this, into black and white categories should of been refrained. When reading through Keesing’s article I enjoyed how he brought in quotes by other people. I felt as though this brought another perspective to his argument. I also like how through the reading of Keesing’s piece I was able to learn a new word and concept known as radical alterity. Some questions I have for both of these papers are: firstly for Williams paper I wonder how his paper would have changed if he focused on a certain aspect of culture such as religion? For Keesing’s paper I wonder what his paper would evolve if he had brought in more prespectives on top of “post-Marxist’ and feminist approaches. I feel as though both papers explored past theories and analogies of culture well and feel as though they have set forth a steeping stone for the continuing growth and study of culture as the world itself evolves.

After reading both Williams’ and Keesing’s articles on “culture”, I know have a better understanding of the ways we define, understand, and portray culture in the public realm.

The first article by Raymond Williams was rather hard to follow. The main points that I understood from the article are these. First, Williams stresses the importance of making a clear distinction between a person’s culture, and the notion of a person being “cultured”. Having a culture does not mean that one is “cultured” with access to and appreciation for the “finer things in life”, such as art and literature. Rather, as the author repeatedly reminds us, “culture is ordinary”. People all over the world, in all walks of life, have some form of culture. In other words, culture is accessible to all.

Williams also stresses the importance of education in carrying on a culture, which I agree with. Not only does education teach the various aspects of the culture, but it also provides individuals with the tools needed to question the culture, and create one’s own meanings and interpretations of it.

Another point the author makes is that one cannot describe a so-called “mass-culture”, as the notion of the “masses” does not exist. By describing a group of others as the “masses”, we are perpetuating the “us vs. them” dichotomy. This idea is further developed in the article by Roger Keesing, which I found much easier to follow.

After reading Keesing’s article, I’m reminded of a few major themes covered in my introductory course to Latin American Studies. First off, anthropologists as well as society in general seem obsessed with the need to define the “other”. In defining what the “other” is, we create a definition of ourselves. We define ourselves by what we are not. This is dangerous, as we tend to perceive ourselves as better than the others, and see our ways of doing things as more sophisticated than theirs. However, more and more cultures are intermingling, and it is becoming more difficult to find this radical “other”, that is so different from ourselves.

In studying other cultures, we must consider who gets to decide what is portrayed as the overall “culture” of whatever society or group of people we are studying. I’ve learned that there are certain people, usually those in power, and often anthropologists, who have the resources and power to shape the way the culture is portrayed. In the case of anthropologists, their portrayal of the culture of whichever society they are studying is often shaped by their search for that “radical alterity”, as Keesing puts it. They therefore portray certain aspects of the culture, and may hide others, in order to show the most radically different culture they can.

In considering who exactly gets to decide what is portrayed as the culture of a society, consider Canada. Often, Canadian culture is linked with all things First Nations, like art, dance, ceremonies and rituals. However, do the First Nations people really get a say in how they are portrayed to the rest of the world? As well, who is portraying Canadian culture this way? Usually, it is not the First Nations people. I find it ironic that the culture portrayed as Canadian national culture is of the people who are most oppressed in Canada. I believe that there are many similarities between the portrayals of Canadian national culture with the cultural portrayals of many Latin American countries.

The first article describes culture as ordinary, in every society and in every mind. I found that the descriptions of social constructions and classes were similar in some ways to my own views. On page 16 the author, Raymond Williams describes how the community supported his dying father. I believe this exemplifies what he calls “the old society”, one where you know who your neighbors are and watch out for them. The way many people live today in western culture seems to be drifting away from this close knit community. People now however live even closer together in apartment buildings but yet most never know the names of their neighbors. This leads into another point that I noted regarding the assumptions people make about the “masses”. Judgments are made on those same neighbors based the television programs they watch, or the magazines they read, as well as the movies they rent and so on. People judge the “others” as being the ignorant, uneducated side of society without even meeting them or knowing anything about them. Williams goes on to say that his own father who read the Daily Herald gained much knowledge regardless of his level of training. One thing I noted in this part of the article was that unfortunately newspapers today are under no obligation to tell the truth. Many people don’t know that and take everything they read for the truth. People are misinformed and go on to misinform others. Williams describes how culture is created and changes and explains how it is not only for the elite group of people within the walls of a tea room.
The second article written by Roger Keesing defines radical alterity and cultural otherness. Anthropologist have a history of searching for the “other”, exotic, different, radical, culture that is not their own. There is a constant over stating of difference that can be extremely harmful to the very group of people that is being studied. Binaries like old vs. new are used in describing “our” culture and “their” culture. This makes them seem very far away from us as well as very exotic and captivating. Unfortunately for the “them” in this situation, their culture is being exploited and if they were to evolve and change as most every culture does they in turn loose their so called “authenticity”. Keesling states and I believe that these borders and boundaries that define different cultures and peoples are dissolving. As people become more aware of the unstable definitions of “Culture” itself, one begins to question more and more the studies that have been done, and the assumptions that are made regarding cultures different from their own. A person really has to think about the hidden agendas behind the articles they read. National Geographic for example is a popular magazine that often has two page spreads of men and women in tribal dress and articles regarding the most exotic and fascinating aspects of their lives, history and culture. Magazines like this want to catch the attention of their readers and ultimately make more money. In this way cultures are described to the world in exaggerated and exploitative ways.
Both of these articles examine the concept of “culture” and how a person is not born with it, for it is socially created and learned.

Hi everyone!

My name is Maite Fernandez. I am a French student in exchange here for one year. I study political and social sciences in France and i am especially interested in sociology and anthropology. Generally speaking I like the Latin American area and i would like to know more about it. I am also learning Spanish.

See you all soon!!

Hello, my name is Jonah Erickson and I am a first year Arts student at the University of British Columbia. This blog will be written in order to keep track with reading material, while enabling myself to express reactions, questions and understandings of weekly readings for my Latin American Studies 201 class.

In the first article the author establishes something from the very beginning and is that culture is ordinary, and he also relates culture to society, how they are made of common meanings and directions. He also seems disappointed about the path that society is taking, how it is getting worse and worse everyday. Culture is always changing, and those changes are the things that mold it into what is becoming, and the way people adapt to those changes is the only way to survive in this world. This has a lot to do with how people were raised, so that they can accept these changes and get use to them and take the best of them also. He makes a really clear and strong statement saying that culture is expanding and all the elements on it are too, because as time changes, people changes which means culture is changing, our culture is not the same as 50 years ago, due to a lot of things, for example technology and education. Culture is a reflect of people, and people are a reflect of their education, so culture is a reflect of education and changes with it. On the second text, culture is seen like the consequence of the past, a mix of the old and new, there they use the word collage or coral reefs, because culture comes from a lot of different things and places that have “deposit”, and in most of the nations of the modern world that were conquered is a mixture of appropriations, resistance and accommodations, as the text says.
The term culture has also been misused and twisted in a wrong way, since now is applied to ways of life and as a thing, that can be steal, manipulated or sell. There has been a lot of moments in history that have changed the way culture is developed, also not every culture is the same, since there are ones that believe in magic and others that do not believe in magic or things related to it. Some things such as dances, typical dresses, that people think defines their culture, sometimes is not more than heritages from the colonial processes and are not really part of their true roots. Culture is the consequence of many things and the recompilation of a lot of history and events that occurred, but sometimes those things that made us really proud of our culture, are not what we really think, and sometimes what we think and referred as culture is not really it.

Hi!

My name is Anna Marieke Voorhoeve. Im taking Last 201 and this is my test blog entry!

Hope it works!

Culture is a system of meaning shared between people.  Culture is not inborn. People have to learn the values and norms of the society in which they are living. Sometimes we associate culture with “being cultivated” but as Williams asserts in his article, “culture is ordinary”. Culture is both high and popular culture but there is also many sub or counter cultures inside one particular culture. The culture of one particular country is not learnt only in museums but also in the street. Culture is shaped and negotiated among and between people. Keesing emphasizes this point in his article: people often want to naturalize, reify culture but culture is above all shaped by people. Culture is produced by people, that is why culture is “ordinary”. However, there is an important link between culture and power. Williams emphasizes this point speaking about the mass culture financed by advertising. The financing of culture is a burning issue and there are many other questions around this issue like: profitability or spirit independence. These two texts both emphasize the production of culture. Culture is a system of beliefs which conditions people’s behavior so it could be a way to manipulate or control people.

The two articles focus on the construction of “the other” who is excluded from the dominant culture. Most of the time, each human society defines its culture in opposition with the other ones. However, it is worth noticing that each culture appropriates elements of other cultures. Culture is a process and it is not fixed but it evolves. For instance tea is Chinese but it is viewed as a part of English culture. Western cultures define other cultures as exotic, they shape an “exotic other” but they also shape this other in their own culture, calling it “the mass”. The other is constructed as different. Williams’ article is very interesting because he speaks about the people access to culture. I agree with him and I do not think that we could assert that some people, “the mass”, are excluded from culture. It is true that it is more difficult for what we called “the mass”, the non-dominant class, to have a good education, to go to the university but they shape their own sub-culture, their own codes which is also culture. I do not think there is one dominant culture and then no other culture or people excluded from this dominant culture. I do believe in sub-cultures.

Hey! My name is Andrea, and I’m a first year Arts student. I’m looking forward to this class! 🙂

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