Transculturation
Encyclopedia
Transculturation is a term coined by Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz
in 1940 to describe the phenomenon of merging and converging cultures.
Transculturation encompasses more than transition from one culture to another; it does not consist merely of acquiring another culture (acculturation) or of losing or uprooting a previous culture (deculturation). Rather, it merges these concepts and additionally carries the idea of the consequent creation of new cultural phenomena (neoculturation). Ortiz also referred to the devastating impact of Spanish colonialism on Cuba's indigenous peoples as a "failed transculturation." Transculturation can often be the result of colonial conquest and subjugation, especially in a postcolonial era as native peoples struggle to regain their own sense of identity.
In simple terms, transculturation reflects the natural tendency of people (in general) to resolve conflicts over time, rather than exacerbating them. (In the modern context, both conflicts and resolutions are amplified by communication and transportation technology —the ancient tendency of cultures drifting or remaining apart has been replaced by stronger forces for bringing societies together.) Where transculturation impacts ethnicity and ethnic issues the term "ethnoconvergence" is sometimes used.
In one general sense, transculturation covers war
, ethnic conflict, racism
, multiculturalism
, cross-culturalism, interracial marriage
, and any other of a number of contexts that deal with more than one culture. In the other general sense, transculturation is one aspect of global phenomena and human events.
The general processes of transculturation are extremely complex — steered by powerful forces at the macrosocial level, yet ultimately resolved at the interpersonal level. The driving force for conflict is simple proximity -- boundaries, once separating people (providing for a measure of isolation) become the issue of a conflict when societies encroach upon one another territorially. If a means to co-exist cannot be immediately found, then conflicts can be hostile, leading to a process by which contact between individuals leads to some resolution. Often, history shows us, the processes of co-existence begins with hostilities, and with the natural passing of polarist individuals, comes the passing of their polarist sentiments, and soon some resolution is achieved. Degrees of hostile conflict vary from outright genocidal conquest, to lukewarm infighting between differing political views within the same ethnic community.
These changes often represent differences between homeland pons, and their diasporic communities abroad. Nevertheless, obstacles to ethnoconvergence are not great. The primary issue; language
, (hence, communication and education) can be overcome within a single generation - as is evident in the easy acclimation of children of foreign parents. English, for example, is spoken by more non-Anglo-American people than Anglo-Americans, making it the current lingua-franca, the worldwide de facto standard international language.
, argue that convergence of a general culture does not directly entail a similar convergence in ethnic identities. This can become evident in social situations, where people divide into separate groups, despite being of an identical "super-ethnicity", such as nationality
.
Within each smaller ethnicity, individuals may tend to see it perfectly justified to assimilate with other cultures, and some others view assimilation as wrong and incorrect for their culture. This common theme, representing dualist opinions of ethnoconvergence itself, within a single ethnic group is often manifested in issues of sexual partners and matrimony, employment preferences, etc. These varied opinions of ethnoconvergence represent themselves in a spectrum; assimilation
, homogenization, acculturation
, and cultural compromise are commonly used terms for ethnoconvegence which flavor the issues to a bias.
Often it's in a secular, multi-ethnic environment that cultural concerns are both minimalised and exacerbated; Ethnic prides are boasted, hierarchy is created ("center" culture versus "periphery") but on the other hand, they will still share a common "culture", and common language and behaviours. Often the elderly, more conservative-in-association of a clan, tend to reject cross-cultural associations, and participate in ethnically similar community-oriented activities. Xenophobes
tend to think of cross-cultural contact as a component of assimilation, and see this as harmful.
, which is the view that one's culture is of greater importance than another's.' Ethnocentrism often takes different forms, as it is a highly personal bias, and manifests itself in countless aspects of culture. Religion
, or belief, is the prime ethnocentric divider. Second is custom
, which may overlap religion. With the adherence to each distinct component, comes the repulsion of the other. In most regions, ethnic divides are binary, meaning only two distinct cultures are present, each seeing the other as foreign. Many, however make the point that the binary example is the exception, and the norm is far more dynamic.
We can divide ethnicity into two distinct areas, as they relate to ethnoconvergence: Utilitarian traits, and traditional customs.
Religion, on the other hand, is a highly personal and attached part of culture. However, religion does not neatly correspond with ethnic identity. In many cosmopolitan societies, religion is everything - social, utilitarian, intellectual, political; from the point of view of people of immersed cultures; The very concept of ethnicity and its distinctions is incongruous to their immersed concepts.
In many societies, such as in those in Europe, languages are considered a significant component of ethnic values. This does not mean that most Europeans reject learning other languages. Quite the contrary, Europeans are often polyglots, and may label other individuals by their ethnicities; practical means of distinguishing cultures may resemble tendencies similar to ethnocentrism.
However, the political and cultural significance of regional or national languages are retained because these polyglots conform to the linguistic norms of the place they visit - doing "as the Romans do". Thus, conforming to the "ethnic integrity" of the region.
It has even become a cliché that "to learn a new language is to adopt a new soul". There are many other examples of the essential significance of language. In pre-Russia
n Siberia
, Tatar-Mongol
colonists in the Taiga
often recognized indigenous speakers of Turkic languages
as their "own people" and non-Turkic groups as "foreigners", despite these indigenous groups having a similar level of material culture, and sharing much of a primitive culture with tribes foreign to the Muslim-Buddhist Tatar-Mongols.
launched a new model/strategy
utilizing transcultural sociological theory as a means to segment and 'make sense' of the changing American
cultural landscape. Returning to classic social science as a solution, Bromley
has embraced the anthropological approach put forward by thinkers like Fernando Ortiz
as a way to account for ethnicity and language without being limited by them as a way for viewing the world.
Fernando Ortiz
Fernando Ortiz Fernández was a Cuban essayist, ethnomusicologist and scholar of Afro-Cuban culture. Ortiz was a prolific polymath dedicated to exploring, recording, and understanding all aspects of indigenous Cuban culture...
in 1940 to describe the phenomenon of merging and converging cultures.
Transculturation encompasses more than transition from one culture to another; it does not consist merely of acquiring another culture (acculturation) or of losing or uprooting a previous culture (deculturation). Rather, it merges these concepts and additionally carries the idea of the consequent creation of new cultural phenomena (neoculturation). Ortiz also referred to the devastating impact of Spanish colonialism on Cuba's indigenous peoples as a "failed transculturation." Transculturation can often be the result of colonial conquest and subjugation, especially in a postcolonial era as native peoples struggle to regain their own sense of identity.
In simple terms, transculturation reflects the natural tendency of people (in general) to resolve conflicts over time, rather than exacerbating them. (In the modern context, both conflicts and resolutions are amplified by communication and transportation technology —the ancient tendency of cultures drifting or remaining apart has been replaced by stronger forces for bringing societies together.) Where transculturation impacts ethnicity and ethnic issues the term "ethnoconvergence" is sometimes used.
In one general sense, transculturation covers war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
, ethnic conflict, racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
, multiculturalism
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
, cross-culturalism, interracial marriage
Interracial marriage
Interracial marriage occurs when two people of differing racial groups marry. This is a form of exogamy and can be seen in the broader context of miscegenation .-Legality of interracial marriage:In the Western world certain jurisdictions have had regulations...
, and any other of a number of contexts that deal with more than one culture. In the other general sense, transculturation is one aspect of global phenomena and human events.
The general processes of transculturation are extremely complex — steered by powerful forces at the macrosocial level, yet ultimately resolved at the interpersonal level. The driving force for conflict is simple proximity -- boundaries, once separating people (providing for a measure of isolation) become the issue of a conflict when societies encroach upon one another territorially. If a means to co-exist cannot be immediately found, then conflicts can be hostile, leading to a process by which contact between individuals leads to some resolution. Often, history shows us, the processes of co-existence begins with hostilities, and with the natural passing of polarist individuals, comes the passing of their polarist sentiments, and soon some resolution is achieved. Degrees of hostile conflict vary from outright genocidal conquest, to lukewarm infighting between differing political views within the same ethnic community.
These changes often represent differences between homeland pons, and their diasporic communities abroad. Nevertheless, obstacles to ethnoconvergence are not great. The primary issue; language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
, (hence, communication and education) can be overcome within a single generation - as is evident in the easy acclimation of children of foreign parents. English, for example, is spoken by more non-Anglo-American people than Anglo-Americans, making it the current lingua-franca, the worldwide de facto standard international language.
Homogenization versus ethnoconvergence
Iit has been observed that even in monolingual, industrial societies like urban North America, some individuals do cling to a "modernized" primordial identity, apart from others. Some intellectuals, such as Michael IgnatieffMichael Ignatieff
Michael Grant Ignatieff is a Canadian author, academic and former politician. He was the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2008 until 2011...
, argue that convergence of a general culture does not directly entail a similar convergence in ethnic identities. This can become evident in social situations, where people divide into separate groups, despite being of an identical "super-ethnicity", such as nationality
Nationality
Nationality is membership of a nation or sovereign state, usually determined by their citizenship, but sometimes by ethnicity or place of residence, or based on their sense of national identity....
.
Within each smaller ethnicity, individuals may tend to see it perfectly justified to assimilate with other cultures, and some others view assimilation as wrong and incorrect for their culture. This common theme, representing dualist opinions of ethnoconvergence itself, within a single ethnic group is often manifested in issues of sexual partners and matrimony, employment preferences, etc. These varied opinions of ethnoconvergence represent themselves in a spectrum; assimilation
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
, homogenization, acculturation
Acculturation
Acculturation explains the process of cultural and psychological change that results following meeting between cultures. The effects of acculturation can be seen at multiple levels in both interacting cultures. At the group level, acculturation often results in changes to culture, customs, and...
, and cultural compromise are commonly used terms for ethnoconvegence which flavor the issues to a bias.
Often it's in a secular, multi-ethnic environment that cultural concerns are both minimalised and exacerbated; Ethnic prides are boasted, hierarchy is created ("center" culture versus "periphery") but on the other hand, they will still share a common "culture", and common language and behaviours. Often the elderly, more conservative-in-association of a clan, tend to reject cross-cultural associations, and participate in ethnically similar community-oriented activities. Xenophobes
Xenophobia
Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
tend to think of cross-cultural contact as a component of assimilation, and see this as harmful.
Obstacles to ethnoconvergence
The obstacle to ethnoconvergence is ethnocentrismEthnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is the tendency to believe that one's ethnic or cultural group is centrally important, and that all other groups are measured in relation to one's own. The ethnocentric individual will judge other groups relative to his or her own particular ethnic group or culture, especially with...
, which is the view that one's culture is of greater importance than another's.' Ethnocentrism often takes different forms, as it is a highly personal bias, and manifests itself in countless aspects of culture. Religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, or belief, is the prime ethnocentric divider. Second is custom
Convention (norm)
A convention is a set of agreed, stipulated or generally accepted standards, norms, social norms or criteria, often taking the form of a custom....
, which may overlap religion. With the adherence to each distinct component, comes the repulsion of the other. In most regions, ethnic divides are binary, meaning only two distinct cultures are present, each seeing the other as foreign. Many, however make the point that the binary example is the exception, and the norm is far more dynamic.
We can divide ethnicity into two distinct areas, as they relate to ethnoconvergence: Utilitarian traits, and traditional customs.
Religion, on the other hand, is a highly personal and attached part of culture. However, religion does not neatly correspond with ethnic identity. In many cosmopolitan societies, religion is everything - social, utilitarian, intellectual, political; from the point of view of people of immersed cultures; The very concept of ethnicity and its distinctions is incongruous to their immersed concepts.
In many societies, such as in those in Europe, languages are considered a significant component of ethnic values. This does not mean that most Europeans reject learning other languages. Quite the contrary, Europeans are often polyglots, and may label other individuals by their ethnicities; practical means of distinguishing cultures may resemble tendencies similar to ethnocentrism.
However, the political and cultural significance of regional or national languages are retained because these polyglots conform to the linguistic norms of the place they visit - doing "as the Romans do". Thus, conforming to the "ethnic integrity" of the region.
It has even become a cliché that "to learn a new language is to adopt a new soul". There are many other examples of the essential significance of language. In pre-Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
, Tatar-Mongol
Siberian Tatars
Siberian Tatars refers to the indigenous Siberian population of the forests and steppes of South Siberia stretching from somewhat east of the Ural Mountains to the Yenisey river...
colonists in the Taiga
Taiga
Taiga , also known as the boreal forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests.Taiga is the world's largest terrestrial biome. In North America it covers most of inland Canada and Alaska as well as parts of the extreme northern continental United States and is known as the Northwoods...
often recognized indigenous speakers of Turkic languages
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...
as their "own people" and non-Turkic groups as "foreigners", despite these indigenous groups having a similar level of material culture, and sharing much of a primitive culture with tribes foreign to the Muslim-Buddhist Tatar-Mongols.
Transcultural communications
In October 2011, U.S. communications agency BromleyBromley Originate Change
Bromley is a full-service Hispanic and Transcultural Advertising Agency founded in 1981. 51 percent majority minority-owned by Ernest Bromley, Chairman/CEO, and 49 percent by Publicis Groupe S.A., the fourth largest marketing communications holding firm in the world.-Index:In 1981 they opened their...
launched a new model/strategy
Strategy
Strategy, a word of military origin, refers to a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. In military usage strategy is distinct from tactics, which are concerned with the conduct of an engagement, while strategy is concerned with how different engagements are linked...
utilizing transcultural sociological theory as a means to segment and 'make sense' of the changing American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
cultural landscape. Returning to classic social science as a solution, Bromley
Bromley Originate Change
Bromley is a full-service Hispanic and Transcultural Advertising Agency founded in 1981. 51 percent majority minority-owned by Ernest Bromley, Chairman/CEO, and 49 percent by Publicis Groupe S.A., the fourth largest marketing communications holding firm in the world.-Index:In 1981 they opened their...
has embraced the anthropological approach put forward by thinkers like Fernando Ortiz
Fernando Ortiz
Fernando Ortiz Fernández was a Cuban essayist, ethnomusicologist and scholar of Afro-Cuban culture. Ortiz was a prolific polymath dedicated to exploring, recording, and understanding all aspects of indigenous Cuban culture...
as a way to account for ethnicity and language without being limited by them as a way for viewing the world.
See also
- EnculturationEnculturationEnculturation is the process by which a person learns the requirements of the culture by which he or she is surrounded, and acquires values and behaviours that are appropriate or necessary in that culture. As part of this process, the influences which limit, direct, or shape the individual include...
- Cross-culturalCross-culturalcross-cultural may refer to*cross-cultural studies, a comparative tendency in various fields of cultural analysis*cross-cultural communication, a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate...
- Intercultural relationsIntercultural relationsIntercultural relations is a relatively new formal field of social science studies. It deals with the ability to get along with others, especially those from a different cultural background.Some of the main topics of study are:...
- Intercultural competenceIntercultural competenceIntercultural competence is the ability of successful communication with people of other cultures.A person who is interculturally competent captures and understands, in interaction with people from foreign cultures, their specific concepts in perception, thinking, feeling and acting...
- Ángel RamaÁngel RamaÁngel Rama was a Uruguayan writer, academic, and literary critic, known for his work on modernismo and for his theorization of the concept of "transculturation."-Biography:...