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Studies in Multicultural Societies
Different Peoples, One World Introduction Hari Srinivas Room: I /
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Defining “culture” Intellect the act of developing the intellectual and moral faculties especially by education enlightenment and excellence of taste acquired by intellectual and aesthetic training acquaintance with and taste in fine arts, humanities, and broad aspects of science as distinguished from vocational and technical skills the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also : the characteristic features of everyday existence shared by people in a place or time the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization Knowledge in the arts Belief and behaviour Values and practices
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Levels of Culture A “cultured” person: Culture at the level of an individual The Culture of a society: Understanding culture as a part of a group of individuals, a community, or a society The Culture of a global society – of humanity as a whole
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It is indeed the characteristics of that person
Levels of Culture Culture at the level of a single individual defines that person’s behaviour, values, ethics and morality. It is indeed the characteristics of that person
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Levels of Culture Culture at the level of a community or society is defined by how the individuals in that community/society interact with each other, and the media that they use for the purpose.
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Levels of Culture Culture at the global level is in fact the sum total of everything that humans have created and the common features that bind us all together …
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Some features that bind us!
communicating with a verbal language consisting of a limited set of sounds and grammatical rules for constructing sentences using age and gender to classify people (e.g., teenager, senior citizen, woman, man) classifying people based on marriage and descent relationships and having kinship terms to refer to them (e.g., wife, mother, uncle, cousin) raising children in some sort of family setting having a gendered division of labor (e.g., men's work versus women's work) having a concept of privacy having rules to regulate sexual behavior distinguishing between good and bad behavior having some sort of body ornamentation making jokes and playing games having different forms of art having some sort of leadership roles for the implementation of community decisions
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Cultural themes As the field developed it began to combine political economy, communication, sociology, social theory, literary theory, media theory, film/video studies, cultural anthropology, philosophy, museum studies and art history to study cultural phenomena or cultural texts Drama Food Arts CULTURE Dance Architecture Literature Behaviour, Ethics and Morality
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Culture: Morality, Ethics and Behaviour
Principles of how individuals ought to treat one another ..
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Culture: Morality, Ethics and BEhaviour
The terms morals and ethics are used interchangeably …. In principle, ethics is a framework of morals that help us to understand what is right or good, and what ir wrong or bad. ETHICS MORALS MORALS MORALS MORALS
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Culture: Morality, Ethics and BEhaviour
Human behavior refers to the range of behaviors exhibited by humans and which are influenced by: Culture Attitudes Emotions Values Ethics Authority Rapport etc …
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Culture at Global and Local Levels
At the global level, we look at policies that promote the preservation of culture For example, the work of UNESCO At the individual level, we look at policies that promote the development of culture through education, training and learning ^ essentially through interaction with other people
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www.unesco.org UNESCO and Culture
“UNESCO” is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization It is the top UN agency for the preservation of culture It carries out its activities through member countries/national governments on a variety of themes - education, science and culture. More information from its website:
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UNESCO and Culture UNESCO’s work on culture is highlighted by a number of global agreements between national governments, including: Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage Fighting against the illicit trafficking of cultural property Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict Protection of Copyright and Neighbouring Rights
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? Why culture? Why do we need culture? Or to study culture?
Everything we are, our identity, behaviour, morality, ethics is defined by the cultures we belong to … Thai Cambodian Myanmar Japanese culture Indian culture American culture ASIAN CULTURE Laos Filipino Indonesian Chinese Vietnamese
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Why culture? CULTURE POLICIES Problems Solutions
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Why culture? Cultures and the cultural environment provides the necessary context and the tools to develop and implement policies As policy researchers, it helps us understand the people towards whom we are creating policies!
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“Multi”Cultural Societies?
Cultures Can “move” Wars and conflicts Different cultures (defined by different criteria!) may co-exist in a given geographical area creating – Multicultural societies Migration Cultures come together Mass Media
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Email: hari.srinivas@kwansei.ac.jp
Contact me … gdrc.info/sms Prof. Hari Srinivas Room: I-312 Tel:
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