Is Culture Something We Have or Something We Do? From Descriptive Essentialist to Dynamic Intercultural Constructivist Communication
Abstract
The descriptive understanding of culture is essentialist. One assumes that a group of people share values, codes and norms. Culture is according to this understanding something people have. People belong to this or that culture, and once one has learned the cultural codes one may predict how people behave. In the global world this understanding of culture has become more problematic. Cultures are mixed and more or less shared across the globe. Cultures have become hybrids where some elements are shared, others are not. The dynamic understanding of culture is constructivist. Culture is not something people have, but something they construct in specific human encounters where mutual relations and power are part of the context. Meanings are shared, interpreted and created when people do something together i.e. when they communicate.
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Copyright (c) 2014 Øyvind Dahl
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