“Icebreaker” Discussion: Room With A View

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Defining Culture:

elements, dimensions & interactions

Culture & Tourism

  • Culture impacts all aspects of tourism
  • Social interactions
  • Policy, planning, development, management, and marketing
  • Important to understand

the meaning and definition

of culture

Concept of Culture

  • Complex, multidimensional phenomenon
  • Difficult to define
  • Lack of central definition
  • Over 160 definitions
  • Different views about meaning
  • Depending on discipline
  • Sociology, psychology, anthropology, communication
  • Range of definitions/views
  • All-inclusive to narrow

Definitions of Culture

  • Culture is a theory, abstraction, label
  • Large category of phenomena
  • Multifaceted nature

  • Classic definition
  • Inclusive, complex whole
  • According to Tylor (1924):

Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society

Human Origin of Culture

  • Humans have created culture
  • Culture is a design for living

Human Origin of Culture

  • Herskovits (1948): Culture is the human-made part of the environment
  • Benedict (1944): Culture holds human groups together
  • Harris and Moran (1979): Culture is a way of life of a particular group of people
  • Goodenough (1961): Culture can be viewed as standards for deciding what is…what can be…what one feels about it…what to do about it ….how to go about doing it

Behavioral Anthropology

  • Culture is about human behavior
  • Cultural behavior is learned, not inherited
  • Shared by people and learned by people who enter the society
  • Cultural behavior can

be learned and/or

unlearned

Behavioral Anthropology

  • Spradley (1972): Culture manifests itself in observable patterns of behavior associated with particular groups of people
  • Potter (1989): Culture determines human behavior
  • Nisbett (1970): Culture is indispensable to any understanding of human behavior
  • Parsons (1951): Culture guides behavior in interaction
  • Harris (1983): Culture indicates a pattern of social interaction
  • Kim and Gudykunst (1988): Culture guides behavior and interprets others’ behavior

Functionalism

  • Culture is the basis of reasons and rules for certain behavior
  • How others will behave and why

Functionalism

  • Radcliffe-Brown (1957): Culture is a set of rules for fitting human beings into a social system
  • Schneider (1972): Culture gives directions for the actors and how actors should play their parts on the stage
  • Malinowski (1939): Culture is a means through which human needs are met
  • Dodd et al. (1990): Culture is the means through which values are communicated

Behaviorism and Functionalism

  • Culture and behavior are inseparable
  • Culture dictates how we behave
  • Culture determines conditions and circumstances under which behaviors occur
  • Interprets and predicts behavior
  • Culture is the foundation of interaction
  • Interactional behavior depends upon cultural background of interactants

Criticisms of Behaviorism and Functionalism

  • Different observers may perceive and interpret the same behavior differently
  • Behavior may change with time and place, across and within individuals
  • Discrepancies between what people say, would do, and actually do
  • Interpretation of behavior may be influenced by stereotypes

Cognitive Anthropology

  • Culture is cognitive knowledge, classifications and categories, existing in the minds of people
  • Cultural experiences impose mental conditions

Cognitive Anthropology

  • Hofstede (1991): Culture is the collective programming of the mind, which distinguishes the members of one group or category from another

  • Keesing (1974): Culture is a system of knowledge shaped by the human brain; rules are created by a culturally patterned mind

Criticisms of Cognitive Anthropology

  • Concept of culture limited to knowledge
  • Excludes people and their emotions
  • Peoples’ experiences are shaped by culturally and socially defined meanings and emotions

Symbolism

  • Culture is a system of symbols and meanings that influence experiences

Symbolism

  • Geertz (1973): Symbols help to communicate and develop attitudes toward life; meanings help to understand others’ behavior
  • Foster (1962): Symbols allow for interaction in a socially accepted manner that is understood by the group

Criticism of Symbolism

  • Symbols do not create culture
  • Symbols are created by a culturally patterned mind

Perceptions

  • Urriola (1989): Culture is the sum of people’s perceptions of themselves and of the world

  • Samovar at al. (1981): The similarity in people’s perceptions indicates existence of similar cultures and sharing and understanding of meaning

Subjective Culture

  • Cultural characteristic way of perceiving the environment
  • Values, attitudes, beliefs, expectations
  • Role perceptions, stereotypes
  • Categorizations
  • Evaluations
  • Affects interpersonal

interactions

Subjective Culture

  • Samovar et al. (1981): Members of a similar subjective culture have similar values, conform to similar rules and norms, develop similar perceptions, attitudes and stereotypes, use common language, or participate in similar activities
  • Triandis (1972): Similarities in subjective culture lead to frequent interaction among members of similar cultural groups. When the similar behavior patterns obtained in one culture differ from the similar patterns obtained in another, we infer the existence of some differences in subjective culture

Culture as Differences
Between People

  • Potter (1989): Culture can be referred to as differences between groups of people who do things differently and perceive the world differently. These differences indicate the existence of different cultures
  • Triandis (1972): If there were no differences, there would be no cultures
  • Landis and Brislin (1983): Cultural differences can cause differences in interactional behaviors and misunderstanding in their interpretations, and thus may create conflict.

Culture as Information and Communication

  • Culture can be viewed as information and a communication system
  • Differences in language create different ways of expressing beliefs, values and perceptions

Culture as Information and Communication

  • Sapir (1964): Language is the symbolic guide to culture and facilitates man’s perceptions of the world
  • Samovar et al. (1981): Language transmits values, beliefs, perceptions, norms

Cultural Perspectives

  • Culture can be viewed as:
  • Objects, artifacts, food, attire, architecture (material elements)
  • Cultural beliefs and values, attitudes, and perceptions (non-material, ideology)
  • Material + non-material

Tourist & Host Culture

  • Tourist culture
  • Tourists bring on vacation (touristic)
  • Own culture, country’s culture (national)
  • Host culture
  • Culture of host

country

Tourism Culture

  • Behavior of all participants
  • Distinct from routine and everyday culture
  • Tourists in different sate of mind; play mode
  • Hosts offer hospitality services
  • Tourists and hosts retain residue of own culture (residual)
  • Tourism culture = tourist + host + residual

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