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Interpretation of Culture

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However, this approach tends to neglect history, the sens of ... class, community, or population: Edwardian culture; Japanese culture; the culture of poverty. ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Interpretation of Culture


1
Interpretation of Culture
  • By
  • Clifford Geertz

2
Taking Culture Seriously
  • ICTs, Cultures and Development
  • Chris Westrup et al

3
Key Arguments
  • Culture should be taken seriously.
  • We should avoid using culture only as an
    explanation.
  • Culture is emergent, contested and an ongoing
    accomplishment.

4
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.

5
Anthropology and Culture Cont.
  • Recent debate among anthropologists
  • Human world is culturally constructed
  • Culture is a web of significance (Geertz)
  • What Geertzs view portrays is that it is culture
    which matters and which acts as the main
    explanation of human action. (???)

6
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.Lashs
    technological forms of life and Castells
    culture of real virtuality.

7
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.
    Euquallyimported ICTs will change when they are
    used in any setting let alone in the South.

8
Cases
  • China Chinese Culture or Local Politics?
  • Jordan Redefining Jordan as an ICT Regional
    Center
  • Egypt ERPs and networks that create cultural
    benefits

9
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.

10
Questions
  • Whats 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?
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