Role of Culture

GEORGIAN AMERICAN UNIVERSITY School of communication channel semester 2 the role of market-gardening Student Mariam Chitiashvili 29. 03. 13 heathenish values, beliefs, and traditions Coperni stubly affect family life. finales ar much than language, dress, and food customs. Cultural groups whitethorn giveing race, ethnicity, or nationality, but they in any case arise from cleavages of generation, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, exponent and disability, political and religious affiliation, language, and gender to name only a few.Two things argon essential to remember round cultures they ar ever changing, and they relate to the typic dimension of life. The symbolic dimension is the place where we be constantly do center and enacting our identities. Cultural messages from the groups we belong to give us information well-nigh what is meaningful or significant, and who we atomic number 18 in the world and in carnal knowledge to others our identities. Cu ltural messages, precisely, argon what anyone in a group knows that outsiders do non know.They are the water fish swim in, unaware of its effect on their vision. They are a series of lenses that shape what we mold and dont see, how we perceive and interpret, and where we nonplus boundaries. In shaping our values, cultures contain head start points and currencies1. Starting points are those places it is innate to begin, whether with man-to-man or group concerns, with the big picture or particularities. Currencies are those things we care approximately that twine and shape our interactions with others. How Cultures WorkThough largely below the surface, cultures are a shifting, dynamic set of starting points that orient us in particular ways and away from other directions. each(prenominal) of us belongs to quintuple cultures that give us messages about what is normal, appropriate, and expected. When others do not meet our expectations, it is frequently a cue that our p agan expectations are opposite. We whitethorn mistake differences amongst others and us for evidence of bad faith or lack of super C sense on the part of others, not realizing that roughhewn sense is also heathenish.What is common to one group whitethorn seem strange, counterintuitive, or upon to another. Cultural messages shape our understandings of relationships, and of how to deal with the combat and harmony that are invariably precede whenever two or more tribe come together. report about or working across cultures is complicated, but not im manageable. present are about complications in working with cultural dimensions of skirmish, and the implications that flow from themCulture is constantly in flux as conditions change, cultural groups adapt in dynamic and some meters unpredictable ways.Culture is largely below the surface, influencing identities and meaning-making, or who we call back ourselves to be and what we care about it is not easily to access these symbolic levels since they are largely outside our awareness. Cultural influences and identities bewilder important depending on setting. When an aspect of cultural identity operator is threatened or misunderstood, it may become relatively more important than other cultural identities and this fixed, narrow identity may become the focus of stereotyping negative projection, and conflict. This is a very common situation in intractable conflicts.Since culture is so stiffly cogitate to our identities (who we think we are), and the ways we make meaning (what is important to us and how), it is always a factor in conflict. Cultural awareness leads us to maintain the Platinum Rule in place of the Golden Rule. Rather than the saw Do unto others as you would founder them do unto you, the Platinum Rule advises Do unto others as they would have you do unto them. Cultures are embedded in every conflict because conflicts arise in human relationships. Cultures affect the ways we name, fr ame, blame, and plan of attack to tame conflicts. Whether a conflict exists at all is a cultural question.In an interview conducted in Canada, an antiquated Chinese man indicated he had undergo no conflict at all for the previous 40 years. 2 Among the possible reasons for his denial was a cultural preference to see the world through and through lenses of harmony rather than conflict, as encouraged by his Confucian upspeech. Labeling some of our interactions as conflicts and analyzing them into smaller component parts is a distinctly western sandwich approach that may obscure other aspects of relationships. Culture is always a factor in conflict, whether it plays a central role or influences it subtly and gently.For any conflict that touches us where it matters, where we make meaning and hold our identities, at that place is always a cultural component. Intractable conflicts like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir are not just about terri torial, boundary, and sovereignty issues they are also about acknowledgement, representation, and legitimization of different identities and ways of living, organism, and making meaning. Conflicts mingled with teenagers and parents are shaped by generational culture, and conflicts between spouses or partners are influenced by gender culture.In organizations, conflicts arising from different disciplinary cultures escalate tensions between co-workers, creating heavy or inaccurate communication and stressed relationships. Culture permeates conflict no matter what some judgment of convictions pushing forth with intensity, other times lightly snaking along, hardly announcing its presence until surprised flock nearly stumble on it. Culture is inextricable from conflict, though it does not cause it. When differences surface in families, organizations, or communities, culture is always present, shaping perceptions, attitudes, behaviors, and outcomes.When the cultural groups we belong to are a large majority in our community or nation, we are less likely to be aware of the content of the messages they send us. Cultures divided by dominant groups often seem to be natural, normal the way things are done. We only notice the effect of cultures that are different from our admit, be to behaviors that we label exotic or strange. Though culture is intertwined with conflict, some approaches to conflict resolution minimize cultural issues and influences. Since culture is like an iceberg largely submerged it is important to include it in our analyses and interventions.Icebergs unacknowledged can be dangerous, and it is impossible to make choices about them if we dont know their size or place. Acknowledging culture and bringing cultural volubility to conflicts can help all kinds of spate make more intentional, adaptive choices. Given cultures important role in conflicts, what should be done to keep it in mind and include it in response plans? Cultures may act like temperamental children complicated, elusive, and difficult to predict. Unless we surface comfort with culture as an integral part of conflict, we may set ourselves tangled in its net of complexity, limited by our own cultural lenses.Cultural fluency is a key tool for disentangling and managing multilayered, cultural conflicts. Cultural fluency means familiarity with cultures their natures, how they work, and ways they intertwine with our relationships in times of conflict and harmony. Cultural fluency means awareness of several dimensions of culture, including * Communication, * ways of naming, framing, and taming conflict, * Approaches to meaning making, * Identities and roles. Each of these is described in more detail below. As people communicate, they instigate along a continuum between high- and low-context.Depending on the kind of relationship, the context, and the purpose of communication, they may be more or less explicit and direct. In close relationships, communication shorthand is often apply, which makes communication opaque to outsiders but short clear to the parties. With strangers, the same people may choose low-context communication. Low- and high-context communication refers not only to individual communication strategies, but may be used to understand cultural groups. Generally, Western cultures tend to gravitate toward low-context starting points, firearm Eastern and Southern cultures tend to high-context communication.Within these huge categories, there are important differences and some(prenominal) variations. Where high-context communication tends to be featured, it is useful to pay limited financial aid to nonverbal cues and the behavior of others who may know more of the unstated rules governance the communication. Where low-context communication is the norm, directness is likely to be expected in return. thither are many a(prenominal) other ways that communication varies across cultures. Ways of naming, framing, and taming c onflict alter across cultural boundaries. As the example of the elderly Chinese interviewee illustrates, not everyone agrees on what constitutes a conflict.For those accustomed to subdued, calm discussion, an excited exchange among family members may seem a threatening conflict. The family members themselves may visualise at their exchange as a normal and desirable dissemination of differing views. These are just some of the ways that taming conflict varies across cultures. ternary parties may use different strategies with quite different goals, depending on their cultural sense of what is needed. In multicultural contexts, parties expectations of how conflict should be addressed may vary, further escalating an existing conflict. Approaches to meaning-making also vary across cultures.Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars suggest that people have a range of starting points for making sense of their lives, including * universalist (favoring rules, laws, and generalizations) and particul arist (favoring exceptions, relations, and contextual evaluation) * specificity (preferring explicit definitions, breaking down wholes into component parts, and measurable results) and prolixity (focusing on patterns, the big picture, and process over outcome) * inner direction (sees sexual morality in individuals who strive to realize their conscious purpose) and outer direction (where meritoriousness is outside each of us in natural rhythms, nature, beauty, and relationships) * synchronous time (cyclical and spiraling) and sequential time (linear and unidirectional). 5 When we dont understand that others may have quite different starting points, conflict is more likely to occur and to escalate. Even though the starting points themselves are neutral, negative motives are easily attributed to someone who begins from a different end of the continuum. 6For example, when First Nations people sit down with governing body representatives to negotiate land claims in Canada or Australi a, different ideas of time may make it difficult to establish rapport and make progress. First Nations people tend to see time as stretching forward and back, screening them in relationship with seven generations in both(prenominal) directions. Their actions and choices in the present are thus relevant to history and to their progeny. regime negotiators acculturated to Western European ideas of time may find the telling of historical tales and the consideration of projections generations into the future verbose and irrelevant unless they understand the variations in the way time is understood by First Nations people. Of course, this example draws on generalizations that may or may not apply in a particular situation. at that place are many different Aboriginal peoples in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and elsewhere. Each has a distinct culture, and these cultures have different relationships to time, different ideas about negotiation, and unique identities. G overnment negotiators may also have a range of ethno cultural identities, and may not fit the stereotype of the woman or man in a hurry, with a measured, pressured orientation toward time.Examples can also be displace from the other three dimensions identified by Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars. When an intractable conflict has been current for years or even generations, should there be recourse to multinational standards and interveners, or local rules and practices? Those favoring a universalist starting point are more likely to prefer supranational intervention and the setting of international standards. Particularlists will be more comfortable with a tailor-made, home-grown approach than with the craft of general rules that may or may not fit their necessitate and context. Specificity and diffuseness also lead to conflict and conflict escalation in many instances.People, who speak in specifics, looking for practical solutions to challenges that can be apply and measured, m ay find those who focus on process, feelings, and the big picture obstructer and frustrating. On the other hand, those whose starting points are diffuse are more apt to catch the flaw in the sum that is not easy to detect by looking at the component parts, and to see the context into which specific ideas must fit. Inner-directed people tend to feel confident that they can affect change, believing that they are the masters of their fate, the captains of their souls. They focus more on product than process. Imagine their frustration when faced with outer-directed people, whose attention goes to nurturing relationships, living in harmony with nature, going with the flow, and paying attention to processes rather than products.As with each of the preceding(prenominal) sets of starting points, neither is even off or wrong they are simply different. A focus on process is helpful, but not if it in all fails to ignore outcomes. A focus on outcomes is useful, but it is also important to m onitor the tone and direction of the process. Cultural fluency means being aware of different sets of starting points, and having a way to speak in both dialects, helping translate between them when they are making conflict worse. This can be done by storytelling and by the creation of overlap stories, stories that are co-constructed to make room for multiple points of view within them. Often, people in conflict tell stories that sound as though both cannot be true.Narrative conflict-resolution approaches help them leave their concern with truth and being right on the sideline for a time, turning their attention instead to stories in which they can both see themselves. Another way to explore meaning making is through metaphors. Metaphors are compact, tightly packaged word pictures that show a great deal of information in shorthand form. For example, in exploring how a conflict began, one side may talk about its origins being buried in the mists of time before there were boundaries and roadstead and written laws. The other may see it as the offspring of a vexatious lawsuit begun in 1946. Neither is wrong the issue may well have deep roots, and the lawsuit was surely a part of the evolution of the conflict.As the two sides talk about their metaphors, the more diffuse starting point wrapped up in the mists of time meets the more specific one, attached to a particular legal action. As the two talk, they alter their understanding of each other in context, and learn more about their respective roles and identities. In collectivist settings, the chase values tend to be privileged * cooperation * filial piety (respect for and deference toward elders) * participation in overlap progress * reputation of the group * interdependence In individualist settings, the following values tend to be privileged * competition * independence * individual achievement * personal growth and fulfillment * self-relianceWhen individualist and communitarian starting points influence t hose on either side of a conflict, escalation may result. Individualists may see no problem with no holds barred confrontation, while communitarian counterparts shrink from bringing dishonor or face-loss to their group by behaving in unseemly ways. In the end, one should remember that, as with other patterns described, most people are not purely individualistor communitarian. Rather, people tend to have individualist or communitarian starting points, depending on ones upbringing, experience, and the context of the situation. Conclusion There is no one-size-fits-all approach to conflict resolution, since culture is always a factor.Cultural fluency is therefore a core competency for those who intervene in conflicts or simply want to function more effectively in their own lives and situations. Cultural fluency involves recognizing and acting respectfully from the knowledge that communication, ways of naming, framing, and taming conflict, approaches to meaning-making, and identities and roles vary across cultures. LITERATYRE John Paul Lederach, in his book Conflict switching Across Cultures http//www. preventelderabuse. org/issues/culture. html http//culture360. org/magazine/role-of-culture-in-society-asian-perspectives-and-european-experiences/ http//www. lindsay-sherwin. co. uk/guide_managing_change/html_overview/05_culture_handy. htm