Interpretation of Culture By Clifford Geertz

Taking Culture Seriously ICTs, Cultures and Development Chris Westrup et al

Key Arguments Culture should be taken seriously. We should avoid using culture only as an explanation. Culture is emergent, contested and an ongoing accomplishment.

Anthropology and Culture Anthropolgy as a discipline shared a scientific concern with the identification and classification of different cultures as scientific phenomema. However, this approach tends to neglect history, the sens of cultures as a whole is supported by ignoring issues of how they might change and cultural boundaires may shift.

Anthropology and Culture Cont. Recent debate among anthropologists –Human world is culturally constructed –Culture is a ’web of significance’ (Geertz) What Geertz’s view portrays is that it is culture which matters and which acts as the main explanation of human action. (???)

Culture and ICTs Organisational culture can be managed, but are arenas of dispute, of proactive management, and of change. Hofsteds’ work on national culture can be used unreflectively and statically. New cultures are being created based around ICTs which infuse new meanings, and create different capabilities and boundaries. e.g.Lash’s ’technological forms of life’ and Castell’s ’culture of real virtuality’.

Culture and ICTs Cont. Rather than seeing the relationship between culture and technologies as a duality, both culture and technologies can be viewed as networks of relationships (Latour) which, through mediation, can be linked. Through appropriating technologies, cultures can be redefined and strengthened and cultural identities changed and made more robust…. Euqually…imported ICTs will change when they are used in any setting let alone in the South.

Cases China: Chinese Culture or Local Politics? Jordan: Redefining Jordan as an ICT Regional Center Egypt: ERPs and networks that create cultural benefits

How serious are you? What do you mean by Culture? –National culture, organisational culture, culture of technology, cultural agenda, cultural benefits Many big claims, weakly justified. –Cutlure can be achieved and managed, redefined or even strengthened. –ICTs can interact with and provide resources for a redefinition of culture. –Any analysis of culture cannot be disentangled from issues of power relations and representation practices.

Questions What’s the definition of culture? –The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought. –These patterns, traits, and products considered as the expression of a particular period, class, community, or population: Edwardian culture; Japanese culture; the culture of poverty. –These patterns, traits, and products considered with respect to a particular category, such as a field, subject, or mode of expression: religious culture in the Middle Ages; musical culture; oral culture. –The predominating attitudes and behavior that characterize the functioning of a group or organization. Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Does culture include institutions? Rathering than stopping at culture, shall we integrate culture with discussions of institutional, political and economic settings? How about information culture? How do we define it? Does ICT bring a Westernised information culture to non-western societies?