Cultural Identity: The Anthropological Aspect of Human Beings
Eve Sundberg
How do people acquire a sense of identity? Is there a possibility for change, or are our respective world-views unalterable because they are culturally ingrained within us? These questions are essential to the disciplines of Sociology and Anthropology and have remained with me as I traveled to new worlds and viewed different ways of life. The topic of cultural identity and the questions that involve how people shape their individuality have always held my interest. Cultural identity is also a reflection of the knowledge I have gained during the four years I experienced at St. Olaf College. My essay contains two parts: the first part explicates instances of cultural identity by integrating my concepts, theories, and experiences that I embrace, while the second part is my rationale for the selection of the five papers I chose to be included in my portfolio.
Throughout my four years as a student at St. Olaf College, my theoretical and mental understanding I hold for the person I am has greatly changed. As a Sociology, Anthropology, and Women’s Studies major, I have evaluated an idea of what it means to me to be a white, American woman in this world of many colors and countries. In other words, I have conceptualized my cultural identity: the individuality I contain that is derived from the influences of my culture—my environment, language, race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, and history. My majors, especially the discipline of Anthropology, have provided me with new perspectives and a broader worldview that gave me the knowledge regarding what I believe. Anthropology has not only molded me into the woman I am today, but has given me a better understanding of other people, and aspects in their worlds that sculpted them. With an anthropological view, I believe that our narratives and experiences are the only aspects of ourselves that can provide us with our true cultural identities.
Working on my independent research project during the fall of my senior year, I labored over the discovery of a balance between feminism and multiculturalism. I wondered why many women support their detrimental cultural practices, such as the women marches in India supporting sati, the burning of widows. The questions of how a person’s identity is formed entered my mind as I struggled to understand certain cultural practices that infringe upon people’s human rights, as I read about war and hate crimes occurring all over the globe, and as I experienced sexism and the unequal treatment of women in my own country. Essentialists believe that the identities of human beings are comprised of essences that are inherent, inborn, and instinctual in all individuals and are not “produced by cultural training, learned conventions, or social expectations but are natural” (Jones, 2000, p. 27). I personally see this particular view as a generalization of humanity because it limits our capacity to generate our own intrinsically unique narratives. I thus resort to argue that we are all different human beings—not one of our narratives and experiences is the same and each culture creates the possibility for this. To me, culture is a system of language, attitudes, beliefs, symbols, and actions as well as all other products of human work and thought by which we live and learn to categorize, understand, and view our worlds and behaviors. As I spoke to many female immigrants interviewed for my independent research project, I learned that people’s cultural beliefs and ideologies often remain ingrained within them despite a change in context or environment. It appeared then that an individual’s culture is the most imperative factor in shaping identity, for “[a]nthropologists believe that to grow up in a culture and to speak its language are so fundamental to the structure of our experience of reality that different cultures can create distinctive realities,” and distinctive people as well (Herdt, 1997, p. 10). Through the act of enculturation, people socially learn the ways of the culture around them beginning at birth; their narratives are created from the molding of cultural-specific mindsets, values, behaviors, perspectives, and beliefs. Therefore, I believe that identities are molded by their respective contexts in which they exist. The various contexts people have that are formed by our individual cultures, supply us with our own personal perspectives, experiences, and narratives, which are all viewed as a metaphorical lens through which we observe the world. One major aspect of culture which plays a large role in a culture’s birth is language. Language provides people with specific world-views as they are able to supply words to thoughts, perspectives, and emotions that shape identity. A language can act within a specific society as a vernacular as long as it is able to create the identity of its speaker in a way that seems suitable and manufactured to her or him. Language provides form and reason to our world and is a natural characteristic of who we are. A popular linguistic theory, the well-accepted Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, argues that there is a methodical relationship between the language a person speaks and how that particular person comprehends the world and her or his behavior within in it. Every aspect of a culture—religion, rituals, history, food, etc.—have specific words that describe and define those aspects. A culture almost always contains people who share a common language, and who therefore share common ideologies and perspectives on a world identified strictly by their common language. This common language is essential to the formation of personal narratives and experiences.Language also produces factors such as classification, labeling, and categorization that hold a strong influence in forming identities. Social Identity Theory believes that human beings often sort themselves and others into categories and certain groups. These categories materialize simultaneously from the people within them. Ian Hacking, a philosopher and professor at the University of Toronto, labels this behavior ‘dynamic nominalism,’ which is his proposal that a type of person is brought into being concurrently with others’ invention of the category which the person inculcates. As a result, people begin to act according to the invented label they are placed under, and therefore contrive new ways of being. Hacking’s theory is similar to Durkheim’s social constructionism theory where people and categories of people act according to the invention of their perceived reality placed by other people. Their actions seem natural to those who believe or invent the particular category defining them and the created category of a particular culture or society goes unnoticed. Thus, many people believe that “we are…functions of how we imagine ourselves and of how others imagine us…our lives are most sharply defined in relation to others’ ideas of us,” (Gourevitch, 1998, p. 71). These ideas are also similar to the popular Charles Cooley’s concept of the “looking glass self.” The concept asserts that the views of other people change, build, and maintain our self-image. We use the reactions of others to interpret how people envision us and thus we develop our self-concept based on these interpretations. This type of thought may boost a person’s self-esteem, but may also encourage discrimination as categories and labels entailing race and gender emerge.
A person’s race and/or gender, especially the way in which it is perpetuated by language through stereotypes, categories, or labels placed by other people, greatly affect a person’s identity and influences how that person views her or his world. Race and gender are main influences on one’s personal story and life experiences. I understand race as a social construct and an arbitrary way to distinguish a set of individuals who descend from a similar ethnic group or ancestry that is almost completely based on physical traits. Race definitions contain many exceptions and gradations, and originate from custom. People tend to strongly identify themselves with their race—especially in the U.S.—because race has become a fundamental way of classifying ourselves; therefore, race has led to a hierarchy among various ethnic groups that has given birth to the belief system we label as ‘racism’ today. An illustration of this point is the experience I had this past March attending the International Women’s Day celebration held at the University of Minnesota. During a panel on immigration, a young black woman stood up and said that despite her American citizenship, she will never feel like a true American. She will always be considered an African American, and will never hold an American label that isn’t prefaced with a racial identifier. I realized that her race and the experiences she undergoes because of it have more of an influence on her identity than someone with white skin. Also, because she is of a female gender, the discrimination she faces is two-fold.
Gender is used to advertise all things that a person says or does (i.e. clothing, speech patterns, movement, etc.) to disclose herself/himself as containing the status of girl/woman, boy/man, respectively. Because of many cultures’ ideologies, females are usually considered the substandard gender. Margaret Mead, a prominent feminist figure in the discipline of Anthropology argues that “cultures frequently phrase achievement as something that women do not or cannot do, rather than directly as something which men do well” (Mead, 1949, p.125-126). Mead also adds that every culture “has developed forms that will make men satisfied in their constructive activities without distorting their sure sense of their masculinity. Fewer cultures have yet found ways in which to give women a divine discontent that will demand other satisfactions than those of childbearing” (Mead, 1949, p.126).
Since it is a learned sex role, I believe gender, like race, is a societal construct which culture perpetuates through language. Language contains androcentric facets that strongly affect how women view themselves and how their cultural identity is shaped. Through language, women have been viewed as inferior, subordinate, and as ‘the other’ to men for centuries. Over the past few decades, many feminists have called attention to the fact that the English language is highly patriarchal and oppressive towards women. “Males’ ability to define women’s realm as inferior” has been accomplished in an oppressive, unequal and sexist language (Ruether, 1983, p.72). Robin Tolmach Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at the University of California Berkeley, wrote a book entitled Language and Woman’s Place that provides diagnostic evidence of the inequities found between the roles of men and women through the English word. For instance, in the English language, women are usually seen in relation to men. When one refers to a man as Mr., the title does not “identify his marital status; but there is no such ambiguous term for women: one must decide on Mrs. or Miss” or Ms. (Lakoff, 1975, p.64). In addition, when women get married, the cultural norm asks them to take the man’s last name. Also, in professions that are usually considered to be filled by men (i.e. doctors, police officers), people usually place the word ‘female’ before the profession (i.e. female doctor) as if to assert that the word for the profession cannot be used normally when a woman is involved. However, the most common feminist argument is that the generic word for most nouns is the masculine one (i.e. lions, gods,), and therefore women are viewed as the substandard (i.e. lioness, Goddess).
These theories and arguments are in relation with the vast difference between female and male speech in Japan. Although I do not yet know how to speak Japanese, I have studied the highly gendered language in my Women’s Studies senior seminar course. The Japanese language greatly subordinates women because female Japanese language reduces assertion and expresses formality, or politeness, while male Japanese language is considered powerful and confident. This fact has led to a difficult interaction between social change and language change since the female Japanese language is in complete contradiction with the modernizing new social order that bases itself upon an egalitarian ideology and allows women in the workforce. Before entering the workforce, Japanese women had no need to speak assertively or authoritatively since they were considered subordinate to others. Now, in order to function in the in the public sphere, a woman must defy what it means in her culture to be a “good woman,” and speak with assurance. This “defeminization” phenomenon has led to social anxieties for Japanese women, for they struggle with a new identity that they are unable to classify themselves with (Reynolds, 1998, p. 298). That fact that we are socialized from birth to identify ourselves with the gender that has been analogous with our biological sex—sexes that are not considered equal or even complementary, but are falsely viewed as opposites—are evidenced by these linguistic examples.
From the immigrants I interviewed for my independent research project, many of them sadly admitted while interacting with other people they feel the color of their skin always appeared to be regarded first, then their gender, and then finally they are viewed as a fellow human being. They were constantly asked what country they were visiting from, and felt they were not assisted in shops because the sales employees assumed they didn’t speak English, and confessed they were given strange looks because of their cultural dress. The women also expressed anxiety from adjusting to working outside of the home while remaining the main caretaker of the house and children. Race and gender, especially through language, can therefore have a negative affect on one’s personal narrative, experiences, and how one views herself/himself. Their personality and true identity is hidden behind physical layers of color and sex. In a world full of cultures containing racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination, a person of ‘minority status’ is not able to fully flourish, reach her/his full potential, and exercise her/his full talents.
Are we able to change this? Are people able to cast race and gender aside and treat everyone as equal human beings, helping each person to achieve her/his full potential? Will people ever gain identities that are not negatively influenced by the discrimination they face? Even though women and certain ethnic groups have been mistreated since ancient times, the concepts of language, ‘race’ and ‘gender’ are fairly modern. They are purely invented terms that keep evolving and creating other terms to further classify a person. We “ought to [recognize] that cultures are permanently changing and developing;” all cultures change and evolve, which is why such concepts as “ancient cultures” exist (Okin, 1999, p. 52). Therefore, I believe that all cultures are in need of an imperative change involving the demolition of racial and gender hierarchies. Since these categories as labels have been essentially created, perhaps we can create new labels that include all individuals, or reawaken all-inclusive terms such as ‘human,’ ‘person,’ or ‘individual.’
In addition to the modern labels that identify us, there are other aspects of modernization in our world that has affected identity as well. Modern notions such as social class, education, nationalism, and the concept of ideologies all assist in constituting our identities. Technologies both objective (television, internet, computers, automobiles, etc.) and subjective (i.e. polls, testing, statistics, grading, etc.) have become major influences on our cultural identity. Cultures around the world are becoming more and more enveloped by various technologies and are dependent upon them than ever before—especially the United States. These technologies mainly act as signifiers of social class, which greatly influences a person’s view of herself/himself and her/his role the hierarchical class structure that many societies create. People are able to create their own identities over the internet through assigning themselves email addresses, ‘screen names,’ and web profiles. People have also formed certain identities by what kind of car they drive, the score they received on the SAT, the number of televisions in their home, the brand of cellular phone they have, and the grades they receive(d) in school. Also, technologies such as plastic surgery have altered people’s physical looks causing them to appear younger, thinner, more ‘attractive,’ and supplying them with a self confidence they weren’t able to obtain before the procedure.
Many of these technologies were born in the United States, but because of globalization—the increasing connectivity of ways of life, economics, ecologies, societies, and technologies around the world—and the strong influence on the United States on other countries, many cultures are assimilating to an American way of life. During my travels, I was struck by the sight of a KFC on almost every corner of China, a Wal-mart in Mexico, a billboard for a skin whitening cream in India, and MTV blaring in a little run-down Turkish restaurant. Globalization and the United States’ influence on the world endanger other cultures and their traditions, which also largely affect the cultural identities of the people within them.
Our traditions and cultures may inform us on where we come from, but the acts of modernization tell us who we have become. Each of us is an individual; we each have a different narrative to share. This is a main reason why we find it so hard to understand people and cultures that are dissimilar from our own because we each look through the world through a very specific lens our experiences have designed just for and by us. I have studied at St. Olaf to achieve a career as both a cultural anthropologist and archaeologist so that I can inform others of the many differences among people of our modern world and also of the worlds of the past that shows the evolution and progress of how we’ve become who we are today. Sociology and Anthropology have given me the skills and the language to honestly value each individual. By teaching others about these differences, I wish to help people understand that we all hold different beliefs, physicalities, and world-views shaped by the individual contexts we are born into. We may encounter diverse experiences that could even place us in opposition with one another, but we are still human beings. Our experiences are so various that they cannot be compared. We are therefore all equal within our inequalities, and should try to share our narratives with one another so that we may one day be able to understand all societies and further enrich our lives with the beauty of culture.
The five papers that I selected for my portfolio have helped me reach this conclusion. I chose a paper entitled “The Search for Identity in a World of Modernity” that I wrote sophomore year for a Southeast Modern Asia course, two written exams I completed sophomore year for Anthropological Theory, my final paper for Global Semester that I finished my junior year, and my independent research project final product that I accomplished the beginning of my senior year. Each paper addresses the issue of identity and exercises the ideas that I explored in this essay such as culture, language, race, gender, and modernization. I have also chosen these particular works because I believe they are a good representation of how my thoughts organize themselves in writing. In addition, the specific courses for these papers all had a large impact on my cultural identity, and they have aided my decisions and aspirations for my future.
References
Gourevitch, P. (1998). We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families:
Stories from Rwanda. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Hacking, Ian. (2002). Historical Ontology. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
Herdt, G. (1997). Same Sex Different Cultures: Exploring Gay and Lesbian Lives. Boulder,
Colorado: Westview Press.
Jones, S. (2000). Feminist Theory and Christian Theology. Mineapolis, MN: Augsburg
Fortress.
Lakoff, R. T. (1975). Language and Woman’s Place. New York, NY: Oxford University
Press.
Mead, M. (1949). Male and Female: A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World. New York, NY:
W. Morrow.
Okin, S.M. (1999). Is Multiculturalism Bad For Women?. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Reynolds, K.A. (1998). Female Speakers of Japanese in Transition. Language and
Gender: A Reader. Blackwell Publishers Ltd. pp. 299-327
Ruether, R. R. (1983). Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology. Boston, MA:
Beacon Press.
