Concept Of Culture

The Concept of Culture TOURISM RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

Dr KJS Miller Stenden University Tuesday 18 November 2008 13-11-09

The Way a Group of People Live?

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OR…

“Culture is the best that has been thought and said in the world”

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4 General Ways of Defining Culture : 1. A State of Mind (Aristotle) -towards perfection, attainment, achievement, emancipation…

2. A State of Moral Development of a Society 3. A Collective Body of Arts & Intellectual work of a society 4. A Social Category – the whole way of life of a people

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You SHOULD know this: Symbols Heroes Rituals Practices Values

Geert Hofstede (1928-) 13-11-09

Hofstede’s Dimensions Uncertainty Avoidance

Masculinity / Femininity Individualism / Collectivism Power Distance

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Different Manifestations of Culture National Culture ■ Regional Culture ■ Co-Cultures / Sub-Cultures ■ Organisational / Corporate Cultures ■

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But what IS it? The common domain of the human – diffusion, stratification, hierarchy, relativism

Culture = Civilisation ? Civis: a state of belonging to a collectivity embodying certain qualities Implication: Civilisation is stasis – membership, status, attainment Problem: Culture is also process – emergence, change, transformation

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Some Basic Questions: Relationship with Society ? - structure -Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) (culture one of the subsystems of social structure) -Claude Levi- Strauss (1908-) - universality of human cognition - Synchronic / Diachronic Stasis or Process ? Deterministic ? Universal ? Re-production of culture?

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Purpose ? ■

Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) –

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Culture is transmitted, learned, shared – why?

Karl Marx (1818-1883) – Ideology –

Pure reason (idealism) gives way to Practical Reason (materialism)

“Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life” 13-11-09

Enter Anthropology… Darwinism and the Triumph of Progress -colonialism -technology -found object => product

Human history is unified and follows a common route, a grand human tradition 13-11-09

…and softens Critics of industrialisation & colonialism began to reinterpret culture as something people collectively do in their different ways, in different places and at different times => Shift from Absolutism to Relativism

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…against some stiff opposition… Max Weber (1864-1920) ‘Verstehen’ – the need to distance oneself from the subject - Cultural science is inferior to natural science - Culture must be conceptualised and not measured by its output - Cultural phenomena are constituted through human values & their understanding further requires the imposition of judgements of value - Need for an ideal type – a collective, comparative yardstick

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Culture as a struggle… Romanticism – Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) - The necessity of mankind to pursue spiritual perfection (collective rather than individual) - Culture as a counterforce to industrialisation - => the mundane cannot be culture - => the need for the ‘clerisy’ to steer culture in society

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A culture is organised through relationships of power ■ The ideas of the ruling class become the ruling ideas of the epoch ■ Culture is a process of legitimising, hegemonising and disguising ■

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Disempowerment through mystification, ignorance, feelings of inadequacy

=> consensus through control of cognition 13-11-09

“The function of culture is to produce a cultural middle class: a class with the necessary cultural authority to be hegemonic” Mathew Arnold (1822-1888)

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“Whereas folk culture was a culture of the people, mass culture is a culture for the people” Mathew Arnold (1822-1888)

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“rather than ask what culture is, ask how culture is achieved, produced and made believable.” Jerome Bruner

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“Modern society is marked by a lack of shared values and beliefs, and an increasing failure to achieve shared meanings; the language and the very system of communication at the core of the culture are steadily corroding” T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

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Assumed Effects of Popular Culture

4.

The negative character of popular culture creation The negative effects on high culture The negative effects on the popular cultural audience. The negative effects on the society

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Evidence of damage? (Tourism)

1. 2. 3.

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Tourism & Culture

“Most Bali residents in this predominantly moslem country are Hindu. Visitors are attracted not only by the well-known handicrafts but by the cultural traditions of the Balinese, to the extent that even cremations have become a tourist attraction”

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“[Tourism] has played a major role in the destruction of ancient Hawaiian burial grounds, significant archeological sites and sacred places… ‘The culture is romanticised to appeal to the exotic fantasies of world travellers. This perpetuates racist and sexist stereotypes that are culturally inappropriate and demeaning. The issue becomes one of cultural prostitution.” (Croall)

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“Cultural conquest leads to the cultural inauthenticity of those who are invaded; they begin to respond to the values, the standards and the goals of the invaders… For cultural invasion to succeed, it is essential that those invaded become convinced of their intrinsic inferiority...” Paulo Friere (1921-1997)

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How does Tourism use Culture? ■ ■

Market-driven or Culturally sensitive? Commodification – –

Festivals and Events Museums – Museology • •

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Heritage – Socio-political and Economic • •

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‘Fair Tourism’ European / Anglo-American standpoints

Future?: –

Democratisation of tourism Post-modernism Authenticity

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Post-tourism ?

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Decline Dissonance – Assertion, Amnesia, Legitimation , Imperialistic?

pro-cultural or anti-cultural? –

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The Politics of Representation Hegemony and Socialisation

Questions?

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