Interpretation of Culture

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Interpretation of Culture

• By
• Clifford Geertz

2
Taking Culture Seriously

• ICTs, Cultures and Development
• Chris Westrup et al

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Key Arguments

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

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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.

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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. (???)

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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.

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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.

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Cases

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

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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.

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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?