GLST 201: Week 12 Identity and Culture

Culture: set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual, and emotional features of society or a social group… that encompasses in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions, and beliefs

Sub-culture: group within a larger culture that differentiates itself through its unique set of beliefs, values, and practices

Class Culture: refers to the atmosphere and dynamics within a classroom that promotes a sense of belonging, respect, and collaboration

  • Example: golfing, polo, eating out, and vocabulary

Cultural Diffusion: the spreading of culture beyond a specific group to be embraced by a wider culture

  • Cultural borrowing and appropriation

Assimilation: submerging of cultural differences into a broader, dominant culture

Language Death: when a language no longer has native or 2nd language speakers

Cultural Imperialism: when 1 culture is dominated by another culture is dominated by another culture to the point that the victimized culture is forced to change its cultural practice

Cultural Genocide: Cultural genocide refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group's cultural heritage, including its language, traditions, art, and institutions.

  • Unlike physical genocide, which targets the members of a group directly, cultural genocide aims to erase the cultural identity and cohesion of the group

Deterritorialization: the weakening of cultural ties to specific locations

Globalscapes: theory on the global mechanisms shaping peoples shifting identities through consumption

Glocalization: adaption of local forms of expression and identities to outside influences

Hybridization: a blending of cultures that incorporates different aspects of each culture to create a new identity

McDonaldization: homogenization and standardization of the world as a result of globalization and capital

Big Mac Index: informal way some economists measure purchasing power parity

Golden Arches Theory: theory that no 2 countries with a McDonald's will go to war with each other, suggesting that economic interdependence can promote peace.

Religion: social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations that generally relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements

  • Common practices/ideologies throughout all religions:

    • Sacrifices

    • Faith'

    • Rituals (Importance varies)

    • Magic (example: exorcism)

Global Religion: The diverse practices and beliefs that shape cultural identity across different societies, influencing community values and individual behaviors.

  • Over 10,000 religions (that have existed)

  • 95% of the world’s population identify in these religious categories

    • Christianity (33%)

    • Islam (23%)

    • Hinduism (14%)

    • Atheist/Secular (12%)

    • Buddhism (7%)

    • Chinese folk religion (6%)

      • Could be skewed due to Europeans having Christian culture but not practicing the faith

Sects: a subgroup of a religious belief system, usually an offshoot of a larger group that may have distinct beliefs, practices, or interpretations of core tenets.

Ethno-religious Identity: communities that define their identity or are defined by other not only by ethnicity but also through religious identity in some combination

Ethnicity: status of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition

Ethnic Conflict: conflicts where the objectives of at least 1 party are defined in ethnic terms and the conflict, its history, and solutions are perceived along ethnic lines

  • When different in identity are too great to reconcile with state boundaries

    • Who belongs to the nation

    • Who has power and privilege

Ethnic Cleansing: systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area with the intent of making a region ethnically homogenous

  • Examples:

    • Forcible relocation

    • Extermination

    • Deportation

    • Population transfer

Genocide: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group

  • UN Convention on the Crime of Genocide: means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part a national, ethnical, racial, or religious such as…

    • Killing members of the group

    • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

    • Deliberately inflicting living conditions calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

    • Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

    • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Concentration Camps: center of interment for political prisoner or members of a national/minority groups who are confined for reasons of state security, exploitation, or punishment due to suspicions of dubious allegiances, people are confined because of membership in a group and not for individual reasons or any conviction of a crime

  • Example: Boer War Concentration Camps

Labor Camps: form of concentration camps where inmates are coerced into hard labor. The hard labor in combination with malnourishment and brutality are used as a means of neglectful execution

  • Examples:

    • Starvation

    • Extreme and dangerous work

    • Dehumanization

      • Brutality

      • Human Experimentation

    • Japan and Russia perfect example of labor camps before and during WW2

Mass Deportation: forced expulsion of a group of people from a place as a part of ethnic cleansing

  • Examples:

    • Brutal process of removing people (gunpoint/physical removal)

    • Intentional neglect

    • Separation of India and Pakistan in 1947 and Armenian Genocide

Death Camps: concentration camps that exist only for the purpose of industrial extermination of people

  • Examples: Holocaust and Rwanda Genocide

Cultural Genocide: the deliberate and systematic destruction of the cultural heritage, traditions, language, and practices of a particular group. This form of genocide aims to erase the cultural identity of a group

  • Examples:

    • Ukranian Genocide: kids left behind because parents are arrested, kids put into adoption in Russian, they do this to try and make them Russian and not Ukrainians

    • Uighur Genocide: Assimilate the Muslim population to Chinese population against their will, usually older population and put into concentration camps to learn Mandarin and participate in the Chinese economy

Transitional Justice: many different types of judicial and non-judicial actions to address human right abuses

  • Examples:

    • UN Human Rights Office

Retributive Justice: focuses on punishing lawbreakers and compensating victims for their suffering, aiming to restore a sense of order and accountability in society.

  • Examples:

    • International Criminal Court

      • The Nuremburg Trials and Denazification

Restorative Justice: response to criminal behavior that focuses on lawbreaker restitution and the resolution of the issues arising from a crime in which victims, offenders, and the community are brought together to restore the harmony between the parties

  • Examples:

    • Truth and Reconciliation Commissions: group that brings together perpetrators and victims to resolve their differences and move forward without retribution

Sunni-Shia Divide, Saudi-Iranian Rivalry, Israel-Palestine Conflict, Two-state Solution, One-state Solution, International Law, Complex Interdependence