PowerPoint Slides - weeks 1 and 2

1. 現
代
日
本
ク
ロ
ッ
カ
・
ロ
バ
ト
総
合
政
策
学
部
教
授

2. DEFINING CULTURE
“Culture is the learned, shared understandings
among a group of people about how to behave and
what everything means.”
learned: it is not instinctual. People teach each other,
imitate each other, correct each other, and so come to
share a culture.
shared: not just what one person does, but what a group
of people does.
understandings: culture is in people’s minds, and includes
both explicit knowledge and implicit knowledge.

3. DEFINING CULTURE
understandings: culture is in people’s minds, and includes
both explicit knowledge and implicit knowledge.
a group of people: can be small (a family) or large (a
nation).
how to behave: culture guides our actions, sometimes as
rules and knowledge that you’re conscious of, and
sometimes as habits that you’ve picked up unconsciously
by imitating those around you.
what everything means: about what is good or right to do
and to be, as well as what is bad and wrong – which
shapes how people behave.

4. DEFINING CULTURE
From this perspective, culture means:
communities (groups of people, which are constantly
changing) …
made up of individual people (similar in some ways,
unique in some ways) …
using and constructing cultural products (things) …
while engaged in existing and emerging cultural
practices (ways of doing).
These new practices and products develop from and
contribute to the development of cultural perspectives
(ways of understanding the world).

5. THE ICEBERG OF CULTURE
CULTURE
PRODUCTS PRACTICES
PEOPLE
PERSPECTIVES
COMMUNITIES
VISIBLE
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
INVISIBLE

6. COMMUNITIES
COMMUNITIES, or groups, vary in size:
broad, amorphous communities – national culture,
language, gender, race, religion, socio-economic class, or
generation
more narrowly defined groups – a local community
group, a university club, a company, a family
Communities are not isolated, but co-exist with
other communities. They are in different
relationships with one another: separation,
cooperation, collaboration, conflict – and these
change over time.
CULTURE
PRODUCTS PRACTICES
PEOPLE
PERSPECTI
VES
COMMUNI
TIES

7. PEOPLE
PEOPLE are the individual members who embody
the culture and its communities in unique ways.
Each person is a distinct mix of having individual
experiences on the one hand and belonging to a
number of communities on the other.
Culture resides both in the individual members of
the culture and also in the various social groups or
communities that people form. That is, culture is
both individual and collective – it is both
psychological and social.
CULTURE
PRODUCTS PRACTICES
PEOPLE
PERSPECTI
VES
COMMUNI
TIES

8. PRODUCTS
PRODUCTS are things used by the people of the
culture.
Products can include …:
… more tangible, physical things (called ‘material culture’):
the things we wear e.g. clothes, accessories
the tools we use to live and work e.g. iPads, computers
the spaces we live and work in e.g. homes, shops, offices
the things we use for entertainment e.g. cards, iPods
… to less tangible things, like:
music, language, art
CULTURE
PRODUCTS PRACTICES
PEOPLE
PERSPECTI
VES
COMMUNI
TIES

9. PRACTICES
PRACTICES: actions and interactions that members
of the culture carry out, individually or with others.
Practices focus on what people do, how people
interact with each other, and what language (verbal
and non-verbal) people use to do so.
Some practices are considered appropriate, and some
are considered inappropriate (including taboos).
Knowing how to behave appropriately marks
membership of particular communities.
Some practices change over time, but some do not.
CULTURE
PRODUCTS PRACTICES
PEOPLE
PERSPECTI
VES
COMMUNI
TIES

10. PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES represent:
perceptions
values and beliefs
and attitudes
… that underlie cultural products, and guide people and
communities in the practices of their culture(s).
Perspectives can be explicit, but they are often
implicit, even outside conscious awareness.
Perspectives provide meaning to people’s lives, and
constitute a unique outlook toward life – a worldview.
CULTURE
PRODUCTS PRACTICES
PEOPLE
PERSPECTI
VES
COMMUNI
TIES

11. AVOID …
stereotyping – reducing Japanese culture to formulaic,
oversimplified images, concepts or statements
marginalizing – ignoring Japan’s cultural diversity
essentializing – assuming that all Japanese people are exactly
the same, and act and think in the same way
masculinizing – only looking at Japan through men’s
perspectives and experiences
being ahistorical – assuming that Japan has always been the
way that it is now, and that it always will be
orientalizing – assuming that Japan is completely unique