culture week 1
LOTTE VAN HULST
LAURENS STUDIO 17
Culture: a definition Culture is a word that can be conjugated for multiple contexts. Someone can be cultured, be part of it, own it, respect it, interact with it, appropriate or abuse it, something can become culture, or it can become extinct. The definition of the word itself is at least as complex as its application. Culture has to do with people and the way they interact with each other by the means of media, beliefs, religion, values, discussion, language, heritage and tradition, (social) class, race, gender, etc. The differences between these are what makes something a form of culture. Whether this is confined to a small group of friends, family or a nation. It refers to everything that cannot be considered universal. The dangers of culture resulting in exclusivity Where culture becomes problematic is when group formation that initially creates inclusiveness within the selection results in social exclusivity.
‘[Culture] is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another.’ (Hofstede, 1994) In this quote Hofstede refers to the mind as a computer operating system that is being programmed by culture. The way in which a mind is programmed impacts the way you interact with culture. Human brains are wired from childhood to relate things or people in similarity and dissimilarity to what one knows in order to get an understanding of one’s surroundings (Liberman et al., 2017). A danger to this constant categorical thinking is that it engages people in making assessments based on salient differences resulting in amplified perceptions and, ultimately, stereotyping. Thus, the focus on differences plays a significant part in the process of shaping cultural exclusivity. This however requires more nuance. The categorisation into groups, you could say, embodies the lack of recognition of individual differences. As Hofstede (1994) points out, culture is based on the programming of minds. This differs from brain to brain. Triandis et al. (1985) calls for the use of level-appropriate terms to discern analyses between such orders of culture. Using the words “allocentric” and “idiocentric” in reference to a member of a culture that either has a collectivist stance or advocates an individualist position within their culture (Spencer-Oatey, 2012). As a designer it is important to not rely on biased or stereotypical perceptions of cultures as a whole but to include the diversity of the individuals within a culture. Furthermore, as differences are socially and psychologically distributed, boundaries between cultures can be blurred (Van Eekelen, 2022). It is undeniable that separate cultures can have their own distinct ways and means of interacting between one another, but it is important to consider that cultures do cross-over and can communicate, interact and - perhaps even –
