cultural belonging

54

To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially

We have made Italy; now we have to make Italians.

—Speech made by Italian leader Massimo d’Azeglio to Parliament following the unification of Italy as a country (quoted in

Hobsbawm & Kertzer 1992: 4)

The previous chapter introduced the research on young infants that is rapidly uncovering the processes babies use to learn what we have come to call culture. For me, understanding culture through the lens of learning “it” has important consequences for our lives and for improving our human relations broadly as well as individually. We evolved these com- plex abilities to learn to handle a huge challenge our ancestors faced—rapid environmental change—and since then this cultural flexibility has enabled our species to populate every environment on Earth and to create an abundance of different ways of life. So the advantages of being a cultural species should now be clear—we are not locked into behaviors encoded in our genes. The disadvantages should also be coming clear. We are born highly flexible but very, very quickly we acquire and repeat patterns we observe so that we adapt to our particular society’s culturally constructed ways of life. As we do, we feel comfort but we become less plastic, less inclined to change, and we also become more like the people around us but different from people we don’t know.

Becoming culturally competent in a narrower set of cultural abilities than we could have learned at birth, however, does not mean we cannot continue to learn in life. New things are good for our brains no matter our age. When we attempt novel activities—even in our senior years—the brain continues to build new neural pathways. Researchers call this “neuroplasticity” (Pascual-Leone et al. 2005). The more stimulation we encounter, the more we can alter our brains. When we abandon activities, the neurons may be pruned or redirected. Even when regions of the brain have been damaged, other areas of the brain can be reorganized to take over the damaged area’s functions (Begley 2007; Eliot 1999; Ramachandran 2011). The brain is a constant work in progress; it is a constant cultural work in progress since the brain’s architecture is constructed through experience. How much our brains change, however, reflects how much we experience novel things and have to adapt to them. If circumstances don’t change, then we become very set in our ways and, like species

4 C h a p t e r

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 54 26/07/12 2:22 PM

Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially 55

dependent upon instincts, we will suffer when our environments, social as well as natural, change. The more we use our brains to do similar things, the stronger the neural highways become; and the more that happens, the less likely we are to divert onto side roads. Think of a child practicing an instrument and the old adage “practice makes perfect.” Practicing reinforces the brain’s circuits. Stopping an activity lets those connections atrophy. Now we can better understand why this is true.

So this is the thesis of this book. The rest of the book provides examples of how useful this perspective on culture is for solving the real-world problems and issues we face. In other words, the rest of the book answers the biggest question of all: This perspective is nice, but what does it matter? In this chapter I develop the first of a series of different responses to this question, and in each subsequent chapter I discuss others, but this is just a partial list of applications. I am sure that you will find many more applications as you get used to the concept of “culture as comfort” over “culture as a thing.”

Learning CuLture is about soCiaLLy integrating new PeoPLe into grouPs

As people learn culture, they become integrated socially into their society (and they also adapt to the physical environments around them). Through this adaptive process, they develop a sense of belonging with the people of their society; when away from these people, they feel as if they’re among strangers. We do not recall the processes of integrating we experienced as a young child, but if we can now see them for what they are, we can be more mindful of how we, as adults, participate in the social integration of newcomers—and not just babies. We integrate newcomers into our schools, workplaces, clubs, places of wor- ship, communities, nations, and even virtual communities. Although the ways in which we integrate people are remarkably similar, for most of us they remain mysterious. In the next pages, I show how we gain feelings of belonging by examining various cases of how we integrate newcomers. At the end, you will have tools to be more conscientious in your efforts to integrate people into your environments, regardless of what they are. You will be more empowered to integrate yourself as well as to integrate others. This is what we do as people so I hope it will be helpful.

As social integration is a process (or processes) that transforms a person’s status from newcomer/outsider to native/insider, it is to my mind most helpful to think of the process as analogous to a rite of passage. The typical application of this concept, rite of passage, in anthropology and other social sciences is to understand specific rituals in life that are involved with status changes. I think rites of passage are excellent for understanding the broadest idea of social integration more generally. In studying many rituals across different cultural groups, anthropologists Arnold van Gennep (1960) and Victor Turner (1967, 1977) identified commonalities in the structure of these rituals. People who are being inducted into a group are first separated out from the broader population, after which they undergo some type of experience while they are separated. This experience transforms them, and then they are allowed to re-enter society equipped with their status change; they are now members of a new status group. So there are three stages: separation, transition, and reen- try. At the beginning a person has one particular social status; that status is altered in the transition period and then the person emerges from transition with a new status. This new status is recognized by the society or sector of society into which the person is integrating and typically this new status is accompanied by one or more symbols so that everyone knows

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 55 26/07/12 2:22 PM

56 Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially

the new status has been achieved. It’s a very simple recipe, but it is applied in such a wide array of ways that we often do not see the recipe, only the finished meal.

integrating People into Families

From the previous two chapters, you should have a strong idea about the enormous amount of cultural knowledge that babies learn extraordinarily quickly to adapt to their social envi- ronments. So they do their part to integrate. However, the people around them must do their part as well. They do this through interaction, as already explained, but one of the most important ways they do this is much less known: social birth. Social birth is an anthropologi- cal concept that is the outcome of studies involving the search for patterns or regularities in what peoples do cross-culturally (Montgomery 2009). It turns out that peoples everywhere practice a rite of passage to integrate infants into their social group(s), called social birth (Lancy 2010). I can almost hear you saying to yourself, “What? Integrate a baby? A baby is born into a family.” True, but being born biologically is different from being born socially. This is best seen through examples.

Common examples of social birth can be found in religious rituals. Among many Christians, for example, this is accomplished through infant baptism. As you may have seen, baptism follows the classic rite of passage stages: The infant is cradled by his or her parents, but they separate from their friends and family by heading to the front of the sanctuary to initialize the ritual. The dress of the baby (typically in all white, a symbol of purity) also identifies separation from ordinary clothes. When the parents hand the baby to the pastor or priest, the transition phase begins. It continues when the pastor anoints the baby with water while saying a blessing, and it ends when the pastor presents the baby to the congregation as a new member. This last step marks the baby’s integration into the Christian community, the public acknowledgment of the baby’s social birth. Most social births are marked by

Young Men Going Through a Rite of Passage into Adulthood. Note How Dress Separates Them into a Group. Where Might this Ritual Take Place? What Cues Do You Use to Decide?

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 56 26/07/12 2:22 PM

Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially 57

not only a ritual, but also some type of party or feast to which members of the larger social group are invited. Note that the baptism occurs some time after biological birth. Another case among Jews is the brit or bris, the removal of a baby boy’s penile foreskin eight days following birth. Traditionally, this social birth, like baptism, involved the transition phase being done at home by a religious specialist (the Mohel); now, the transition is often performed by a doctor in a hospital, and is celebrated later with a party at the infant’s home. Although the act itself is somewhat de-ritualized within the hospital, the infant’s social birth is still acknowledged by a gathering of the social group into which the child has now been integrated. In each of these cases, appropriate gifts for the infant would be anything symbolic of his new status, such as jewelry or clothing with a cross or Star of David or religious storybooks.

According to anthropologist Alma Gottlieb (2004), most African Muslim peoples confer social birth by naming their children about a week after their biological birth. In her own research among the Beng peoples of the Ivory Coast in West Africa, Gottlieb learned of their belief that babies carry the reincarnated soul of an ancestor. It takes a long time for babies to achieve complete membership in Beng society since these reincarnated souls are always tempted to leave the physical world for the wrugbe, the afterlife (literally, the “village of souls”), which is a sweeter place to dwell than on Earth. The Beng feel that the pull of wrugbe is so powerful that they must entice babies to remain among the living by elaborately bathing and decorating them (as mentioned earlier), co-sleeping with them, and making life on Earth as inviting as possible. Gottlieb (2004: 93) writes that babies are thought of as living “betwixt and between” two worlds; as such, they are seen as only weakly attached to each world while they slowly make the transition from one to the other. Not surprisingly, Beng social birth takes a lot of effort and time. It begins, but certainly does not end, when the baby’s umbilical cord falls off. On that day (and among other rituals), the baby is washed four times by its maternal grandmother and is given its first necklace made of savannah grass to encourage its health and growth. Baby girls also have their ears pierced.

Although these illustrations of social birth vary enormously in terms of the particulars of rites of passage and the symbols of the newfound status for infants, they all follow the rite of passage recipe. Additionally, they all are examples of social birth that follows biologi- cal birth. There is a gap of hours to months between being born physically and being born socially. Research trying to understand why there is always a gap suggests that it helps to pro- tect the social group, and particularly the mother, from greater emotional trauma should the child die shortly after birth (Lancy 2010; Kaufman and Morgan 2005). Until very recently in most societies, infant mortality was so high—especially in the first weeks and months fol- lowing birth—that investing a lot of emotional work into socially integrating a new member could easily result in huge emotional duress with every loss of an infant. Separating social birth from biological birth, then, protects caregivers from too much attachment and thus the heartache that can accompany the loss of a child (Lancy 2010; Scheper-Hughes 1992). Social birth, thus, provides a ritual to mark the commencement of greater emotional investment, a public acknowledgment that the child is now likely to survive.

In recent decades, however, the science of childbearing has opened up much greater knowledge of fetal development in the womb. And since the appearance of ultrasound technology, expectant parents can view their baby and hear its heartbeat before birth itself. Scholars studying obstetric technology acknowledge that among many people now, social birth precedes biological birth (Kaufman & Morgan 2005; Mitchell & Georges 1998; Mont- gomery 2009; Taylor 2008). Infants are being incorporated into their social groups, particu- larly into families, earlier and earlier and thus social birth is accomplished through the ritual of the first ultrasound itself. Before the invention of ultrasound and other technologies used

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 57 26/07/12 2:22 PM

58 Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially

to view the womb, a woman was typically viewed as pregnant, but the social status of her fetus was ambiguous. Was it a human being, a human being in the making, or a pre–human being? Peoples around the world take various perspectives on the social status of a baby in utero (e.g., Huber & Breedlove 2007). For example, the Qur’an states that the soul enters the fetus at 120 days at which time Muslims begin to refer to its personhood (Montgomery 2009: 83). However, new technologies can shift this perspective, particularly among peoples who view pregnancy as that of an unborn child. When we refer to a child, there is a subtle understanding that this being is a person and when we refer to “our” child, we acknowledge him or her as a member of our family. How do you feel? At what point does social birth take place in your understanding: at conception, in the womb, at birth, or after a ritual is performed after birth? These are hugely important questions for many people and we often argue and debate over them without being aware of the larger cultural phenomenon that all people face—socially integrating new members. In the United States, battles over the legality of abortion have shifted to hinge on social birth—when a fetus is officially accorded personhood status. Whenever personhood status (social birth in this case as a citizen of the country) begins, so, too, begin the rights accorded to that person.

With the help of technology, expectant families also typically learn the sex of the baby. Armed with this information, the family incorporates the baby into his or her new setting by buying the symbols of that new status: often pink for a daughter or blue for a son. The extended family and coworkers are told about the pregnancy, the child’s sex, and the names being considered (naming is itself an acknowledgment of social birth). All of this emotional investment indicates that social birth has occurred. Therefore, should anything happen except a normal biological birth, the emotional toll is huge, much larger than in societies where social birth follows biological. The debates are basically about social birth—when is a fetus a member of society with full social rights? When is a fetus a full member of a fam- ily? Understanding that people respond differently to these questions helps explain the very emotional debates in many parts of the world over abortion.

Of course, birth is but one of the events marked by rites of passage in the course of human life. Among the most important other rites that are extremely common if not univer- sal to all societies are weddings and funerals. Think about these rituals for a moment and see if you can now trace the separation, transition, and reincorporation stages in marriages and funerals. Stop for a moment and identify the stages for a funeral. After you finish, continue reading as I will analyze marriages.

Weddings vary a great deal in specifics, but they have a lot of commonalities in terms of their basic elements as rites of passage. First of all, they are all about incorporating new people into established groups. People who have little to no social belonging now become attached. Weddings knit together different families who thereafter have obligations that they did not have before. These new bonds are acknowledged by giving the newly integrated members a particular term—“in-laws” (or, as in my family, people often refer to themselves jokingly as the “out-laws”). Again, see if you can identify the separation, transition, and reintegration phases of marriage that result in not only the joining of the spouses, but also of their families. Do you see how the special clothing of both the groom and, especially, the bride symbolize that they are the ones undergoing the ritual? And, of course, you can see the transition in the ceremony itself, particularly the vows, and the fact that, in many tradi- tions at least, the couple faces away from the society bearing witness. That symbolizes their separation from the group (even though they are in the same room).

On occasion, a covering over the couple during the transition part of the ritual sym- bolizes their separation from everyone else. How about the reintegration with their new

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 58 26/07/12 2:22 PM

Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially 59

change of status? Just think about when the person officiating pronounces the couple as newly married, mentions their new names, if any, and permits them to kiss. The couple then turns toward their social group and literally reintegrates themselves by walking right through the audience. Something that reinforces this is the way the bride is facing; as she walks down the aisle to be married, she is seen best by her own relatives on her left side and she is accompanied by her maid of honor on that side. After she is married, she turns around and immediately is next to the groom’s best man. Then she walks back up the aisle and in so doing literally passes all her new in-laws sitting on the opposite side of the aisle. Then there is the reception party where everyone participates. What are the symbols of the couple’s new status? Rings worn on the fourth finger are a common symbol, as are new forms of address- ing the newly married couple and their newly acquired family members (e.g., Mrs. versus Ms. or Miss; in-laws). Additionally, there is a wide variety of markers of married status, especially for women. For example, a common practice among married Hindu women is to wear the bindi, a dark red dot on the forehead. What do these symbols represent? That someone is married, of course, but also that this person is now supposed to be off limits to sexual attention from anyone other than the spouse. They also represent the person’s suc- cessful transition into a new, acknowledged social status. I believe that this is where the rub comes with gay marriage. Whether or not you favor gay marriage, you should be able to see that prohibiting gays to marry leaves them in an unsettled social-integration position. They are neither single nor married. Civil unions do not settle the issue because they do not involve full reintegration, which is the sine qua non of rites of passage. Unions provide some rights and status differences, but the most important socially speaking is acceptance into the broader family, or society. As many religions as well as governments prohibit gay marriage, that broader acceptance is not granted to gay couples.

Now, it’s important to recall that these examples of rites of passage are only part of the overall objective of this chapter: to show how learning and doing culture is about

The Wedding as Rite of Passage: Note How the Bride and Groom Walk Up to the Ceremony Along Their Relatives’ Side and Walk Down Along Their New In-Laws’ Side. As the Two Become Family Officially, Their Families Change Too.

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 59 26/07/12 2:22 PM

60 Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially

socially integrating people into their groups. There are many things to learn, many cultural competencies to acquire around important rituals, especially marriage. No wonder they typically are planned far in advance. Traditions are passed down during weddings, perhaps more than at any other time in life, and traditions take a lot of effort to learn so they can be reproduced later. Marriages do not happen each and every day, so the traditions associated with them must be learned well in order for them to be reproduced properly. No wonder, then, that many weddings involve young boys and girls in the rituals so that they can begin to learn all that is involved. No wonder also that even though marriages involve rites of pas- sage that are now easily recognizable, people accustomed to certain traditions will feel very much like “fish out of water” in someone else’s traditions. Next time you attend a wedding, apply the rite of passage lens to it. You should see and appreciate it differently. Perhaps, if you’re not yet married, you will plan your own wedding (or your children’s weddings) with a new awareness of its rite of passage elements.

integrating PeoPLe into (FaCe-to-FaCe) institutionaL grouPs

Arguably, the most important group all people need to integrate into, and feel we belong in, is our families. Yet during the course of our lives, we also integrate into a wide variety of additional groups. Some of these groups consist of people we know, while others are so big that we cannot know everyone in them, and yet we still somehow feel a part of them. Large companies and clubs, as well as nations, are examples of these latter groups. Despite wide variations in types and sizes, however, the basic process for integration remains similar. We go through a transition from outsider or uninitiated member to insider or full member; therefore, integration processes can be viewed as rites of passage. In the following examples, I highlight the rites of passage of integration, but it is important to recognize that groups are more than just clusters of individuals; when I refer to a “group,” I really mean a “cultural context shared by people.” When you join the military, for example, you do not just remain the same as when you were a civilian. You must learn the cultural practices of the military, as these differ quite significantly from civilian life. When you enlist, you do not know this cultural context (unless you grew up in a military family), so you must be trained. “Train- ing” is another word for learning the particular ways of a new cultural context. So, when we integrate into new groups, we must learn new cultural ideas and practices. We are therefore learning culture even as adults.

becoming soldiers in real Life and online

Since I have already mentioned joining the military and its rites of passage are very marked, let’s begin by talking about them. In this transition a person begins as a civilian. Civilians enlist voluntarily, are recruited, or are drafted into the military. At this point, they are separated from the broader society as uninitiated members, but they must go through a transition during which they are transformed into soldiers. What is that transition called? If you guessed boot camp, you are right. But think a bit more about what boot camp involves. When people are going through a transition, this phase in their rite of passage has them separated from both the cultural context of their original status (civilian) and from the cultural context they will assume (solider). This separation is physical but also symbolic. What do you know about how boot camp separates newcomers physically and symbolically? If you are not sure, imagine what happens. The key is to think about how people going

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 60 26/07/12 2:22 PM

Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially 61

through transformations pass through certain stages in their rituals—separation from the broader group or society, a collective experience, and then reemergence into that society with a new status.

Now compare your responses against what those who have studied this transition have found. Recruits undergo physical separation by going to the camp itself and staying there, away from civilian society, for weeks. They undergo a variety of symbolic separations that not only communicate that they are now in the military, but also work toward get- ting them to lose their individuality in order to enforce that they are now part of a larger organization that is more important than any individual. As part of this deindividualization process, they are issued “uniforms.” You may not think about the significance of that word, but it means to make everyone similar. When we wear uniforms, we symbolize the larger organization of which we are a part. We wear them to show our social integration into this organization; when other people see our uniform, they typically see us as representatives (symbols) of that organization. So, issuing new recruits military uniforms and forbidding them to wear civilian clothes during boot camp communicates who they are expected to become. Additionally, the military uniform is decorated by a multitude of symbols that communicate rank and thus the hierarchy of the new cultural context. A soldier is expected to respond to the rank, rather than to the individual behind the rank.

Another ritual that forms part of the initiation into military life is the haircut. Hairstyles help people symbolize membership in groups (e.g., wearing “pig tails” symbol- izes being a little girl, whereas older girls often wear a “pony tail”; wearing dread locks is highly associated with Rastafarians; Sikhs and many Afghani men wrap their hair in turbans; “punks” dye their hair in bright colors). Hair is often used to communicate individuality, personal style (e.g., shaving a name or image into the haircut; coloring one shock of hair or decorating hair with beads or bows). For the military, individuality is out while uniformity is in. By making short hair the standard—crew cuts for men and above shoulder-length hair for women—the military greatly reduces visible individuality. For the same reasons, adornments are prohibited, such as nose rings, men’s earrings, and visible or offensive tattoos. Similarly, even a new recruit’s personal effects must be standardized; beds and belongings must be kept in exactly the same order. When all is said and done, the separation from civilian life leaves little of the individual. The only markers of it are the recruits’ last names stitched onto their uniforms.

My Step-Grandson Anthony Before and After Military Boot Camp.

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 61 26/07/12 2:22 PM

62 Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially

The first step in the rite of passage is thus complete—separation. Now it is time for the transitional stage to begin. At this stage, rites of passage of all different varieties have initiates undergo an ordeal while sequestered from the rest of society. The more intense the ordeal, the more initiates feel bonded both to each other and to their new group when they emerge. The ordeal is the transition phase, but it also produces camaraderie. For this reason, military recruits in boot camp are challenged physically (with exhausting work- outs, marches, predawn exercises, etc.) as well as psychologically and emotionally (e.g., being humiliated by superiors who shout at them and chastise them publicly). For weeks, recruits are at the complete mercy and domination of their superiors. During boot camp they are, quite literally, torn into pieces as individuals and then melded back together as a group. In an interesting book detailing the boot camp experiences of a platoon of Marine recruits, Thomas Ricks (1997) begins by telling how the 36 young men he observed for ten weeks were transported many hours by bus to Parris Island, South Carolina, where Marine Basic Training occurs. They arrived after midnight to see the gate symbolized by a huge sign “PARRIS ISLAND: WHERE THE DIFFERENCE BEGINS.” Instead of being led to bed, however, they were lined up by their drill sergeant, told to memorize their new unit number, stripped of their clothes and jewelry, and issued uniforms and bedding. Finally, they were given the famously short buzz haircuts as well as a predawn lesson on how to march as a group. The whole next day continued with their “disorientation” and “cultural indoctrination” because, as Ricks comments, “Before they can learn to fight, they must learn to be Marines” (1997: 37).

Boot camp strips the men of their individuality and makes them into complete team players; anyone who cannot put the team ahead of himself is not a good Marine because he cannot be fully trusted. Military boot camp, then, can and should be seen as a classic rite of passage; it is very intentional about transforming recruits who come from a society valuing the individual and individual freedoms into inseparable “buddies.” Such separation from “normal” life and the intensity of their common experience produce strong feelings of com- munitas (bonding) toward other initiates and a strong appreciation of hierarchy toward their superiors. (However, you do not have to go to boot camp or a police academy to have similar experiences. The formula is largely the same: intense emotions during activities done in the company of others that produce group solidarity [Collins 2004; Dunbar 2010; Kitayama & Uskul 2011; Siegel 1999].)

Two of the most important characteristics soldiers must have are solidarity with peers and deference to authority. When this is accomplished, when civilians have transformed into fledgling soldiers, then the recruits pass into the third and final stage of the rite of passage: reincorporation. Those who have survived without quitting go through a public ceremony that their families may attend, and for which the new soldiers are given special “dress” uniforms. They have emerged from confinement and are now integrated into military life. They have transformed and, arguably most important, they have strong feelings of belonging to the military. The solidarity they feel with each other and with the greater institution of the military will be critical to their survival as soldiers deployed in combat. The emotions of living with a small cohort of buddies who, despite continual threat of attack, continue to depend upon one another for survival (trust), take this feeling of belonging to a new inten- sity. It is no wonder that reentry into civilian life for soldiers can feel so lonely (e.g., Shaw & Hector 2010), particularly when that reentry is not accompanied by rites of passage similar to their transition into military life.

People want to feel they belong; we are social creatures, after all. Bonds cemented during warfare are among the most intense we feel as human beings, perhaps second only

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 62 26/07/12 2:22 PM

Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially 63

to family bonds, so it is no wonder to me that many of the virtual ways we create community involve simulations of warfare. If you are an online gamer (and chances are pretty high that many readers are), then perhaps you can identify how you become a “gamer.” Think about the games you most play. How did you become integrated into the games? How did you go from outsider to “gamer”? Almost certainly you went through some type of rite of passage, even if you skipped over the intense learning phase (the “ordeal”), by doing some research online about the game so that you could raise your level quickly. Let’s take, for example, World of Warcraft, a war-simulation game and one of the most popular online games of all time. In order to play, you must pick the groups in which you want to integrate; in this game that means picking your “faction,” or side, and “race,” or allied group to the faction. You don’t just do this mentally; you have to symbolize these choices through selecting and decorating your avatar, which is your online figure. If you are part of the Alliance faction, you could choose to be a human, a dwarf, or a gnome, for example; and if you desire to be part of the Horde faction, you would choose to be a troll, goblin, or orc. You also have to choose a gender; so even this fictive world is divided up not only by sides in the conflict but also by gender. Then you get to customize your avatar based on the options available to your faction and race. You might choose a particular type of hair or tusk, for example. And then you must pick your name, which has to be unique. Much like with becoming a soldier, then, you take on a uniform with very limited variation but you are permitted a unique name. How do other players know your rank? In the military, this is symbolized via stripes, badges, and medals on the uniform. In World of Warcraft and other similar games, you wear your level of achievement next to your name. Level one is the lowest, and the highest level depends on the particular game; as players achieve the highest level, programmers are preparing the next levels of the game so that the best players stay interested.

Let’s suppose that you have not learned via watching other players or by consulting online forums to find out more about the rules of the game (i.e., the way of life in this online cultural context). In that case, upon selecting and robing your avatar, you would then enter a beginner’s space, a place to practice that is separate from the actual space where experi- enced players interact. Here, you can practice moving your avatar with computer controls and learn to interact with other players—only players who are from your side of the war, however. The computer program will help you learn the ropes and context by giving you tips. Of course, this is not an ordeal like boot camp, so the effect on your feelings of belong- ing will not be that strong, but you will begin to feel that you belong and that you know how this cultural context operates. That is the purpose of separation, to have you feel that you are now entering a new phase, a new reality, a new cultural context in which you cannot expect that you will behave as you did before entering it. In other words, you are preparing

Preparing an Avatar to Enter into World of Warcraft. When You Create an Avatar You Pay Attention to What You Want Your Avatar to Symbolize. Do You Pay as Much Attention to How You Symbolize Your Social Statuses? Why or Why Not?

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 63 26/07/12 2:22 PM

64 Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially

yourself psychologically as well as learning the special skills you’ll need to integrate. In World of Warcraft and other similar games such as Call of Duty and Black Ops, the transition phase is the playing phase and it is full of emotion like any transition phase—fear, excitement, bonding, rage, and so on. Unlike boot camp, however, online games do not serve as ritual preparation for a transitional ordeal and reentry into society as a person socially integrated into a new group. Rather, a great appeal of online games is that what is typically transitional in other rituals of social integration can be infinitely extended in the gaming environment. You transition into the game but do not have to leave it for reentry into the greater society. This is probably one reason why, among many people, games become addicting. We all need belonging, and online games provide that feeling while simultaneously allowing us to be individuals as well as members of larger institutions.

integrating into schools, universities and Jobs as Cultural Contexts

The first day of my daughter Sophie’s school year always began with exactly the same ritual of integration. She’d put on the school uniform that she had ignored all summer, grab her backpack (which she had also ignored all summer), stuff in some school utensils (pens, lined paper [which she never used except for schoolwork], pencils, erasers, etc.) and head off to the campus with the postcard she’d received in the mail indicating which homeroom she had been assigned to for the year. In most cases, she’d have found out who else among her friends was assigned to the same homeroom in the week or so before classes began and would meet up with them on the first day. The bell would ring, symbolizing the end of non-school time and the beginning of the school day; this was followed by the teacher entreating students to be quiet and to find their seats. Once the room was quiet, the teacher would ritualistically welcome them back to school. Next, the teacher would turn on the closed-circuit television and the principal of the school would appear, also welcome the students, and begin the morning rituals of the Pledge of Allegiance, the national anthem,

Pledging Allegiance to the Nation...But Do They Understand?

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 64 26/07/12 2:22 PM

Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially 65

and the school’s alma mater. After all those steps were complete, the principal would give the announcements and perhaps introduce some other people to the students. Then the teacher would turn off the TV, turn to the students, and hand out a sheet outlining the rules of homeroom. The homeroom rules are just what I’m sure you have experienced or can imagine—a set of regulations laying out proper behavior and punishments for improper behavior. Students were not invited to participate in creating or modifying these rules but, nevertheless, had to sign off on them, as did their parents. After the class had finished going over the rules, Sophie and the others would march off to their first class of the day where this same ritual was performed. By the end of the day, she had visited some six classes and accumulated about six contracts that she and I would have to sign that evening. In addition, the school sent home another abundance of paperwork including emergency contact forms, applications for free or reduced-price lunch programs, and so on.

One of the nice things about this yearly ritual, at least to an anthropologist, was the fact that the rules were explicit. Most cultural contexts come with implicit rules that you are not taught outright; you have to learn them by observing others and by sometimes making mistakes, just as newborns do. But many of the norms governing school life—at least before you go on to college—are taught in black-and-white terms. Young children really need clear lines and have a hard time with ambiguity. The example of Hans wearing a tutu at Sophie’s daycare mentioned earlier illustrated kids’ discomfort with “in-betweenness.” Given this discomfort, making many of the rules of conduct explicit seems appropriate for kids. Of course, there are a lot of other unstated expectations for behavior that children have to learn as well, so the ones they stuffed into their backpacks were just the beginning. For example, it’s one thing to know to raise your hand when you want to respond to a question from the teacher (instead of jumping up and down or shouting, for instance); it’s another thing to learn that raising your hand often might get you labeled as a “teacher’s pet” and chastised by your fellow classmates. So, while I really did not like the yearly distribution of the “laws,” I could also appreciate that this ritual, repeated each year in almost exactly the same way, did help young children integrate and reintegrate into school each year.

Schools are society’s most deliberate educational institutions. As many social scien- tists have observed, however (e.g., Connolly 1998; Lopez 2003; Thorne 1993; Van Ausdale & Feagin 2001), they are not only about teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. They socialize children into institutional life with its rules, roles (myriad social hierarchies), and regulations for time (class periods versus lunch and recess). Students come to identify with their schools over the years by their rituals and the sheer number of waking hours they spend there during the week. However, given that most elementary, middle, and high schools are publicly funded, they don’t need to expend so much effort on marketing and branding themselves as do private schools. Private schools at the K–12 level and beyond, by contrast, typically invest a lot more energy into the social integration of students for very particular reasons: they market their brand and they also want alumni to financially support the schools. If students do not come out of schools identifying strongly with them, they are less likely to sponsor them later.

The more that privately funded schools market themselves based on their reputation, the more intense their integration rituals tend to be. The purpose is to create a community through exclusivity, one marked by symbols that nonmembers recognize but cannot access. All universities, much like schools in general, have their rites of passage. Think, for instance, of all the steps students (at least American ones) must take in order to gain entry into a university: taking the SAT exam, meeting with the school counselor, filling out applications, writing the personal essay, and visiting potential schools, among others. And universities

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 65 26/07/12 2:22 PM

66 Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially

celebrate similar rituals to mark the end of the student’s transformation—commencement with all its pomp and circumstance. The really important phase for promoting student loyalty, however—not just to each other but to the university as an institution—is student life during the college years. This is the classic phase of transformation in the rite of passage, the “test,” so to speak. The more intense colleges can make this phase, the more likely they are to have loyal alumni for life. So what do schools do? One thing is to create a brand for themselves. This involves selecting the school colors, mascot (symbol), alma mater, name and so on. They order and sell all these symbols of belonging, requiring everyone who rep- resents the school officially (such as the president and higher administration, sports teams, etc.) to wear these symbols wherever they go. Universities and colleges also either reproduce traditions that have worked in the past, or they have to invent new ones that will work today and into the future. If you understand how schools generate feelings of belonging and loy- alty (“spirit” or esprit d corps), you will have the tools you need to build belonging among the people in your life as well. The basic building blocks are emotionally charged time spent together during ritual activities and symbols that continuously remind members that they belong—and that they should continue practicing the rituals of belonging.

beyond FaCe-to-FaCe: integrating into imagined Communities

For almost all of human life on Earth, people lived in very small communities, which anthro- pologists call bands. A typical band would consist of 20–40 people related to one another by birth or marriage. These were the classic face-to-face groups that our food foraging ancestors would live within during the whole course of their lives. Occasionally bands would meet up to hold ceremonies, share resources, and so on, but day-to-day life revolved around a small set of very close ties to a limited number of people (Allen 2008; Lee 1979). In these small social settings you should be able to see that it would not take much intentional effort to

Florida International University Students and Fans Sporting the School’s Brand (Symbols). How Did They Become Bonded?

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 66 26/07/12 2:22 PM

Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially 67

integrate babies into the band and for them, indeed for all band members, to have strong feelings of belonging. Constant day-to-day interaction would guarantee this and would also easily transmit the band’s cultural knowledge from generation to generation. Individual members would still vary somewhat from each other, owing to their personalities, gender, and age, but culturally everyone would be very similar.

Starting about 10,000 years ago, a few peoples began cultivating the first crops and consequently settling in geographic areas for longer and longer periods of time; beforehand, bands were highly mobile, moving during the course of the year to find food resources. When people settled, and when other related changes in behavior took place (that we are still trying to understand), populations begin to grow above the small size of the typical band and even beyond the groupings of 100-150 people when bands periodically would meet up with each other. It is critical to understand that for the overwhelming majority of human existence on Earth, we lived as food foragers in very small bands within which we felt an incredibly strong social belonging (cultural comfort). However, just a few thousand years ago—a drop in the bucket of human time—our populations grew beyond the point where everyone in a society could know each other extremely well. Scholars studying this critical issue, most famously Robin Dunbar (1993, 2003, 2008), estimate that a profound change occurs when groups reach about 150 members. When our brains cannot keep track of all the members of our society, there is a decrease in the social pressures that operate informally to keep people in cultural alignment (as opposed to formal rules or government). This situation provokes a need to culturally innovate how to feel we belong to people with whom we will not have intense social contact (Barnard 2008; Dunbar & Barrett 2007; Dunbar 2010). What happens?

When everyone knows each other well, belonging is not a problem the society typi- cally faces. People who grow up together with the same language, customs, expectations, and rituals become culturally comfortable with each other for reasons already explained here. Social solidarity is so tight that there is rarely room for breaking out of the society’s particular mold. Among food foragers in band societies, people who did not conform either left to found their own new band, or they were expelled and had to find another band with which to live (Lee 1979). As the size of a society increases, however, individuals’ belonging and conformity to social norms become increasingly difficult and take more effort. A very common “solution” to this problem across human history is to create what many social scientists refer to as “imagined” communities, a term that was coined quite a few years ago by a political scientist studying nations (Anderson 1991).

Benedict Anderson (1991) did not mean to imply that “imagined” communities were imaginary. Quite the contrary, they are very real groups. However, as Anderson explained, the ways in which people come to feel that we are members of very large groups—countries, in his case—differ from the feeling of belonging that arises when we interact directly with the people around us. We are not born knowing our nationality; just like so many other culturally specific aspects of our lives, we have to learn to feel that belonging. Anderson (and many others after him) argue that because we are never going to meet everyone who shares this feeling of membership, then the community is not a face-to-face community but one that exists in our mind—in our imaginations. We have real feelings of belonging but how is it we feel something truly in common with thousands or millions of other people whom we’ll never actually meet? This is a terrific and important question that social scientists have been working hard to explain. Understanding how we learn culture in general, I believe, offers new insights into this curious phenomenon.

Let’s begin by taking the exact same case that Anderson and others have worked so hard to explain: How do people who will never meet each other face-to-face, or even

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 67 26/07/12 2:22 PM

68 Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially

online, still learn to feel and assert that they are members of a country? We may be granted citizenship by being born in or to parents from a particular country, but that does not mean that we feel loyalty to that country and to other members of that country. There are rites of passage for people who change their citizenship; these are called naturaliza- tion ceremonies and involve people collectively affirming their allegiance to their new nation. What else produces loyal citizens, in this case among those who are native born? You probably have never thought about how you came to see yourself as a member of your country, but it is time to think about it now. It is not simple, nor is this feeling learned quickly. There are scholars studying how and when children begin to feel a sense of nationality (e.g., Scourfield et al. 2006). The research is ongoing and not yet conclusive but indicates that kids learn obvious, visual “embodied” identities earliest, such as gender (e.g., Bussey & Bandura 1999; Durkin 2005; Jahoda & Lewis 1988; Lancy 2010; LeVine & New 2008; Maccoby 2002; Martin et al. 2002; Paley 1984; Rogoff 2003; Warin 2000; Whiting & Edwards 1988; Wenger 2008) and race (Aboud 1988; Barrett 2007; Hirschfeld 2005; Van Ausdale & Feagin 2001). More subtle social status differences such as kinship, class, rank, and nationality that are not necessarily apparent visually take a while longer to learn (e.g., Toren 1988). That makes sense because in order to understand the concept of nationality, for example, children need to understand geography as well as the fact that there are different peoples in the world; that is, they need to be able to perceive beyond their own experiences. Nationality and nationalism take quite a long time and quite a bit of effort to understand and to feel, but nationalism-promoting techniques used around the world are pretty similar.

Before thinking about how you have gained feelings of belonging to your nation, let’s take the case of what leaders did in the past to cultivate allegiance among people who had just been unified into a country. Italy is a good case in point. Italy became a nation-state in 1861 after long battles pitting different regions against each other. Almost no “Italians” at that time spoke Italian; they spoke a wide variety of regional dialects. People felt loyalties to their towns and the regions those towns belong to. No wonder, then, that after Italy was unified and its new government established, the famous Italian leader Massimo d’Azeglio remarked to Parliament: “We have made Italy; now we have to make Italians” (Hobsbawm & Kertzer 1992: 4).

Babies may be conferred national citizenship upon birth in most countries (other countries confer it based on ethnic background or “blood” ties), but this does not mean they understand what a nation is, nor does it make them feel they belong. Think now about how you were encouraged to feel nationalism toward your country. Where and how was your national identity cultivated? Think about those school rituals of saying the Pledge of Allegiance to the national flag, singing the national anthem, and dressing up in your coun- try’s colors on national holidays. Perhaps you took a field trip to visit statues of heroes or other monuments, and what about all those years you studied national history? Outside of school you probably went to sports events that often began with the playing of the national anthem too. Did you ever wonder why? What do local sporting events have to do with national patriotism? And, if ever you attended a parade on Independence Day, watching wave after wave of marching band and military group go by carrying national (and state and local) flags, did you ever see them as symbols of belonging? Thinking back now, you should be able to recognize these as intended to build your sense of belonging to your country— though you probably did not see them as anything but normal growing up. And there are much more subtle ways we become members of our national imagined communities as well, for example, weather maps often just provide our own country and ignore the surrounding

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 68 26/07/12 2:22 PM

Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially 69

countries and world maps in our history books tend to place our country in the center even if that means the continents have to be split.

By now, you are hopefully beginning to appreciate the fact that generating emotional ties to imagined communities like nations takes a lot of work; it does not just happen but has to be cultivated. With effort, children do learn effectively from all these symbols and rituals and feel connected to people they will never meet (Barrett 2007; Jahoda 1963). I remember when my daughter was in about second grade and I asked her what “pledge” and “allegiance” were. She had no idea what they meant, but she could certainly say the Pledge of Allegiance and she knew full well that the “Star-Spangled Banner” was the name of the national anthem and referred to the flag of the United States. When she had just started fourth grade, the World Trade Towers and Pentagon were attacked on September 11, 2001. Immediately thereafter, the elementary school she attended, as well as schools all around Miami where we lived, began displaying flags ever more prominently. The children held parades in which they waved American flags; parents hung flags from their homes and cars. It was a time of enormous national emotion, grief, and affirmation. In Miami, the patriotic sentiments were even clearer because only a year before there had been a huge competition for Miamians’ loyalties. A young Cuban boy, Elián González, was involved in a custody battle between his father, who wanted to return him to Cuba, and his mother’s family, who wanted him to stay (his mother had died while bringing Elián by boat to the United States). During the months of the custody battle the two sides used national symbols—the Cuban flag (ironically, to symbolize that the boy should stay in the United States) and the American flag (also ironically, symbolizing he should return)—to communicate their positions. That year, cars in Miami bore symbols of people’s passionate divide, one half flying Cuban flags and the other half flying U.S. flags.

National flags, pledges, anthems, history museums, monuments, parades, myths, heroes, and even national trees and flowers are all important symbols and rituals that fos- ter our feelings of belonging to large “imagined” communities. We might even translate those feelings into actual behaviors by fighting for our country or, when abroad, assisting fellow citizens who need help even though we don’t know them. We might help them merely because they share the same nationality, not because we are obligated to assist them. These symbols and rituals, however, are still only the most obvious ways that national- ism is taught and promoted. There are many others that we probably never think about. For example, the fact that most countries declare a particular language (or languages) as official, and insist that it be taught in the nation’s schools, helps to literally bring about common communication. This is what Italy did after its unification in 1861. Countries typically also develop a national educational curriculum so that all children have com- mon lessons in history, language, civics, and so on. When people around us use the same language we do not feel shut out; when we are around people using a different language, however, we typically feel we do not belong, that we are outsiders. There are other com- mon ways of thinking and behaving that typically mark people who come from the same country. It is very hard to “see” them unless you travel outside your country and then try to identify who is from your country and who is not. You’ll recognize people by language and accent as well as by their clothing styles, foods they eat, books or phones they carry, body language, etc. What other cues tell you that you are among your own? The next time you have the opportunity, pay attention. How close do people from your country stand when they are talking to one another? How close do people from other countries stand? What gestures are common and what would be strange or even obscene? What television programs, films, and websites do people speak about and why? Who do people call to the

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 69 26/07/12 2:22 PM

70 Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially

“founding fathers” or “mothers” of their nation? All of these and much more contribute to people’s feelings of cultural commonality that a country—in which most members will never meet each other—needs people to feel, or else the nation could fracture. And these also contribute to our sense that we have only one culture. What we truly have are some cultural comforts that extend widely across cultural contexts (such as spoken and body language, values, unstated assumptions that affect our behavior, etc.) and others that are more regional and local (dialects, foods, manners, etc.). Politicians work hard to promote national identities in us and to encourage us to place our national identification above our regional, local, and even family loyalties, but in our lives we socially integrate into many, many cultural spaces and groups. They wish us to think we have “one” culture when in fact we move seamlessly from cultural context to cultural context.

Another factor that confuses our ideas about culture and nation is that we often claim one national culture yet most countries have diverse populations (of course, to varying degrees and of varying types—ethnic, religious, linguistic, etc.). Such diversity can make it more difficult to cultivate national sentiments, since these identities often compete against other forms of belonging. Countries created by colonial powers who erected national bor- ders across long-standing ethnic or religious lines often have difficulty getting people to cherish the nation over their own group. Iraq and Afghanistan are good contemporary examples. Countries that receive large influxes of immigrants and/or refugees, particu- larly when those influxes arrive very rapidly, also find that their national identity can feel threatened; these countries often react by expelling the newcomers, limiting their access to resources, or responding to them with outright xenophobia and attacks, both verbal and physical. The rise in anti-immigrant sentiment within the United States and many European countries reflects some of the strains of building and maintaining huge imagined communi- ties, full of cultural diversity, under the banner of commonality and community. It is odd but understandable that the phenomenon of people seeking entry into your country can stir up both feelings of pride (the feeling that my country must be great because people want to come in) and fear (that the newcomers might change my way of life).

Ever since our ancestors started living in groups exceeding about 150 members, we have been finding cultural techniques to feel commonality with those whom we will never meet or know well, yet who we consider part of our imagined communities. No matter how many imagined communities we belong to, we still usually feel closest to those with whom we have real, sustained contact. Face-to-face contact still seems to be best, but electronic or virtual contact arguably generates some strong attachments as well. Intensity of interaction is important to belonging. Think about this point by reflecting a moment on your experi- ences with Facebook, Twitter, or another social networking medium. How many people do you really keep up with or interact with every week? Yes, you may have tweeted or friended a lot of people and be able to access their information, but how many of them do you truly check in with weekly? Would you be surprised to learn that, on average, people only inter- act regularly with about seven of their friends, even though they have around 120? That is what a researcher at Facebook found. One hundred and twenty is close to the number that social scientists argue has been the upper limit on face-to-face communities since we were food foragers (Miller 2012). Once populations exceed 150, we begin to create institutions to organize them; it is just too hard to keep everyone feeling they belong (and to keep everyone within the rules) when our groups get bigger.

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 70 26/07/12 2:22 PM

Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially 71

This chapter has explored how throughout their lives people continue to be integrated into many social groups or communities, even as adults. We are truly fortunate that we can still forge new relationships despite getting older, that we can find and feel belonging with other people, even people with whom we do not think we share much in common. Because of our neuroplasti- city we are able to continue learning throughout our lives, and therefore we can integrate into new cultural contexts. However, given that culture is about comfort we have to be willing and able to go through some discomforts that often accom- pany the processes of integration. That takes work, both cognitive work to build new neural pathways in our brains and emotional work to overcome the inertia of comfort. The less we chal- lenge our established ways of doing things, and the less we break out of our established groups, the more difficult it becomes for us to accom- modate newness. We know this is true from our own experiences, and now it is affirmed by scien- tists’ understanding of our brains’ architecture. Once routines build neural superhighways in our brains, it’s pretty hard to divert us onto side roads.

Diverting onto the mind’s side roads is exactly the experience that many, if not most, immigrants and refugees have when they arrive in a new land. Recall that the brain goes through two major periods of building huge numbers of new connections during early childhood and adolescence. That means that after this second period, in particular, it becomes more and more difficult—but never impossible—to retrain the brain. Yet most people migrate as adults, and they migrate during their prime working and family-raising years. No matter how much they might want to learn new languages, customs, and gestures, their brains are just not as plastic as they were during their adolescence and infancy. It takes much more effort to reconfigure their brains’ architecture and, unfortunately, they often do not have the luxury of time to devote to those integration processes. Some countries such as Canada are quite understanding of these huge challenges for newcomers and offer them time and resources to adapt. Other countries such as the United States basically expect immigrants and refugees to adapt with minimal, if any, assistance

(Bloemraad 2006). It should not be surprising, then, that new immigrants tend to gravitate to neighborhoods where their compatriots live, and where they will not have to learn the new cul- tural knowledge immediately. Where I have lived in Miami, it is possible to arrive from a Spanish- speaking country and never learn English, since so much of daily life is conducted in Spanish. Latin Americans integrate more easily this way since there is much less for them to have to learn upon arrival. They also reinvigorate Miami’s Latin American and Caribbean cultural comforts by speaking in Spanish, making their comfort foods, practicing their home country rituals of belonging, and so on. They reinforce their own cultural comforts, which, however inadvertently, often discomfort outsiders. Such are cultural bor- derlands—places where those used to live in the majority may suddenly find themselves marginal- ized. The next time you have a chance to spend time in one of these borderlands where you are an outsider, put on your culture as comfort lenses to see it with different eyes. Embrace your discom- forts. And the next time you encounter a recent immigrant, put yourself in that person’s shoes by imagining that you are the newcomer rather than he. Imagine that you feel awkward or even stupid because you don’t understand what people are saying and you have to have your child translate for you at the bank or grocery store, for exam- ple. Remember that children’s minds are much more plastic, so they learn quickly and usually will adapt fine; but it can be, and often is, very shameful for parents to have to depend on them, since it reverses the normal parent–child role in the new cultural context (Warner & Srole 1976). I return to issues regarding immigrants, particu- larly as they relate to generations and integration, in Chapter 6.

You do not need to live among immi- grants to use the knowledge you have gained in this chapter. The key thing to recall is that people desire to belong socially. We want to feel com- fortable and accepted in our social settings and groups. We are a social species; until very recently it would have been highly unusual, if not bizarre, for someone to spend significant time alone. Being human, though, means that we acclimate into groups at an early age and thus are not typi- cally aware of the adaptation processes. Often,

Conclusion

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 71 26/07/12 2:22 PM

72 Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially

Initiating New Sorority Sisters: Those Humiliated Today Will Bond Together and Delight in Hazing Next Year’s Initiates.

we don’t even realize that we are a part of these communities; that is, until we step beyond our cultural comfort zones. Now you know this much more consciously and that could make a huge dif- ference since you also know that belonging is not that difficult to create. The critical ingredient is rituals, most importantly rites of passage. Rites of passage help people bond with the communi- ties they belong to, or wish to belong to. They facilitate changes in people’s statuses; people start out with one status (such as outsider) and by the end of the ritual they have attained a new, socially recognized status (such as insider or member). To be most effective, such rituals need to have a very powerful, meaningful transition phase, and after- ward the neophytes need to be acknowledged as having achieved a new, improved status. The best rites of passage produce bonds that last a lifetime. Fraternity and sorority rituals for inducting new members (often referred to as hazing, although this word has humiliating and dangerous conno- tations that are not necessary to bonding) typi- cally fall into this category. Initiates start out as candidates and end up lifelong fraternity brothers or sorority sisters. In many societies, rites of pas- sage used to transform children into adults also generate tight bonds, especially when initiates go through the rituals together (Turner 1967, 1977).

Unfortunately, in many contemporary societies such as the United States, there are no really clear rites of passage into adulthood. There are many rituals and symbols for achieving adult- hood (such as obtaining a driver’s license, gradu- ating from high school or college, and getting a first job or buying a first home), but none of these is sufficient for clearly marking the transition into adulthood. Perhaps this explains why adolescence is so extended and also often fraught with anxi- ety. Statuses that are unclear tend to provoke dis- comfort. And that brings me back to immigrants. When does an immigrant transition into a full- fledged member of the new society, an “Ameri- can” in the U.S. case? Does that happen after attending the naturalization ceremony? I don’t think so, in most cases. That ritual confers a right of citizenship, but not necessarily the sentiment of belonging. Can immigrants or refugees belong completely to the new context? How much effort must they put forth to be awarded acceptance? What about their children? Certainly children born and raised completely in the new country are full-fledged members of that society—aren’t they? Now that we have discovered how impor- tant it is for people to feel they belong and for rituals to promote those feelings—both among initiates and among those who receive them—it

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 72 26/07/12 2:22 PM

Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially 73

is truly time for all of us to examine how we aid and also prevent people from joining us.

Who are the people you know who have not been welcomed into the communities you inhabit? What have you done and/or what do you do to keep them out, intentionally or not? What do others do? Why not think about ritu- als that will include them? Are there fractures in your family? What kinds of experience (i.e., common rituals) might pull you together? Is there stress and/or dissention where you work? Do your coworkers divide into factions more than they collaborate as colleagues? If so, is there any effort at your job to bring people together?

Is there any effort to integrate people into the team, into new social statuses that everyone recognizes? If not, what might you do to pro- mote cohesion and thereby improve your work life? These are all applications of understanding culture as belonging and comfort. To reiterate a theme running through this book, we do cul- ture. Nevertheless, we think that we have culture, and that misperception debilitates us when we most need to emphasize our creative, innovative, problem-solving abilities. Now is a good time for you to demonstrate your abilities to heal wounds dividing the groups that are important in your life.

Does Taking the Oath of Citizenship Make an Immigrant a Full Member of Society? If Not, What Criteria Qualify? Does Legal Status Confer Social Acceptance?

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 73 26/07/12 2:22 PM

74 Chapter 4 • To Be Human Is to Integrate Socially

P L a n n e d Pa u s e 4 - 1

H e l p i n g B r i d g e C u l t u r a l d i s C o m f o r t s

Instructions: In this Planned Pause you will describe a situation familiar to you in which some people feel culturally discomforted. This could be at your workplace, in your school, within your family or community. After writing a paragraph describing this situ- ation and explaining how it causes cultural discomforts to some people involved, write a second paragraph discussing two ideas you have for helping those discomforted feel culturally included. Make sure to utilize the material discussed in the book to this point, particularly that in this chapter on the building blocks of belonging.

M04_MAHL0003_01_SE_C04.indd 74 26/07/12 2:22 PM