Discussion: Wright on culture

Discussion: Wright on culture

Introduction

Wright begins her article by lamenting the complications of the topic she has chosen (Wright 1998: 7). And indeed the controversy around the definition of culture seems to be one of the central themes in most discussions about culture. How do you discuss problems arising from something if you can’t even decide what it is? (Rapport&Overing 2000: 92) Even the simple question of whether culture is our innate ability or acquired has been a significant obstacle (Rapport&Overing 2000:93) So assuming that culture does indeed exist, let us proceed. (Rapport&Overing 2000:94-95)

Compare and contrast Wright’s (1998) account of ‘old’ and ‘new’ anthropological approaches to ‘culture’.

Wright sees the ‘old’ definition of culture as a static ‘thing’ with cookie cutter people walking around doing the same sort of predictable things day in and day out regardless of what’s going on in the world around them.(Wright 1998: 8). The ‘new’ new idea surrounding culture has gotten to the point where people realise that things are constantly changing, with a lot of outside influences pulling a society in different directions. (Rapport&Overing 2000: 96) People inside a society are permanently jockeying for a position where they’ll have enough power to pander their interpretation of their ‘culture’ as the gospel according to all who live in it as well as those who seek to study them. Often using skewed versions of truth and society to do it. (Wright 1998:10)

Explain how ‘culture’, in both of these senses, has been introduced into the domains of cultural racism, multiculturalism, corporate culture as well as culture and development.

The ‘old’ definition of culture was used to support cultural racism by placing people in separate ‘culture boxes’ if ’ we’ are from this culture and ‘they’ are from that culture then obviously it makes sense to keep us all apart since mixing would pollute ‘our’ culture. (Wright1998: 10) Wright refers to the ‘New Right’ especially when she deplores the use of ‘culture’ to enforce “exclusion, using it as a euphemism for renewed racism” (Wright 1998: 11). In theory multiculturalism should endorse the diversity of different cultures, while still garnering them the respect that would be due people of your own culture (Google definitions 2006). But by promoting diversity, you ‘exoticize’ people from other cultures, making the subsequent segregation that much more effective (Rapport&Overing 2000: 98-99). Which brings us to corporate culture which is often used as just another definition for a mission statement of a company. (Wright 1998:11) Managers are actively employing both definitions of culture in order to gain employees active participation but it’s still done purely for their own benefit (Wright 1998:12). This same theme seems to run through cultural development as a whole, while UNESCO made a valid attempt at promoting a new ethical world with their rapport on creative diversity(Wright 1998:12) but they failed to take into account the “political dimension of meaning making”(Wright 1998:14). Oversights such as these have led to a simplistic view of the world and are insufficient to make any real change. As Wright says:” Levi-Strauss has provided UNESCO with a map of a flat world.” (Wright 1998:13) This makes it clear how much work still lays ahead if anthropologists are to make any real change.

What does Wright mean by “the politicization of culture”?

Quite a few of the more opportunistic politicians are using a slightly altered interpretation of culture in order to lend legitimacy to their own, often oppressing ideas. They claim validity based on anthropology while at the same time discarding the relativism an equality that it stands for. Many campaigns for segregation and discrimination have been based on a platform of ‘culture’. ‘Us’ and ‘them’ have become key words in the blatant manipulation of the concept of ‘culture’. (Wright 1998: 10)

What, according to Wright, is the role anthropologists ought to play with regard to the politics surrounding the use of ‘culture’?

The UNESCO report offered an opportunity for anthropologists to make a difference in this abuse of an innocent concept, but sadly it was severely underdeveloped. As a profession we should start taking a far more active role in protecting the marginalized, from policies building their validity on such twisted interpretations. And maybe we should take a page from these politicians’ books in order to be able to intervene more effectively in such cases in the future. I agree with Wright that some of the ‘edge’ that was present in the earlier forms of this discipline has been lost, and much can be said for taking a far more active approach in the interpretation and implementation of information gained from studies, lest society lose use for us altogether (Wright 1998:14).


References:

 Wright, S. 1998 ‘The Politicization of ‘culture” Anthropology Today 14(1) pp 7-15
 Rapport,N and Overing,J. 2000 ‘Culture’ in Social and Cultural Anthropology: The Key Concepts London: Routledge
 www.media.pearsoncmg.com/intl/ema/uk/0131217666_glo.html (2006-03-03)(google definition search 2006-03-03)