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Rhon TeruelleClass #3 – September 24, 2012

CCT200: Intercultural CommunicationDefining Cultural Identity

Immigration, Citizenship and Multiculturalism

Cultural Identity

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Cultural Identity

A broad way of looking at cultural groups at various levels, including:

• assumptions

• underlying values

• social relations

• Customs

• an overall outlook on life that differs among groups.

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Cultural Identity Continued…

• Cultural identity can be defined as being concerned with characteristics that people use to distinguish their ways of thinking and behaving from those of others.

• When people proclaim fidelity to specific customs, traditions, language, and religion, they define their identity as a result of such composition and shapes.

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Cultural Identity Continued…

According to Gilroy (2000), cultural identity helps people to “comprehend the formation of the ‘we’ and to reckon with the patterns of inclusion and exclusion that it cannot help creating.” (pg. 99)

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Cultural Identity Continued…

• Once human beings define themselves as belonging to one cultural group as opposed to another, they attach huge importance to such belonging.

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Cultural Identity Continued…

• Cultural identity serves as an interpretive device.• It helps us see ourselves along such dimensions

as race, ethnicity, kinship, soil, region, gender, and religion.

• The categories help us know who we are, what we want, and where we want to go.

• Cultural identity as an “interpretive device” is similar to human perception.

• Gilroy sees the interpretive dimension of identity as “bounded and particular” and as a way of making sense of the world.

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Formation of a Cultural Identity• Involves a three-stage process: unexamined

cultural identity, cultural identity search, and cultural identity achievement.

• Unexamined cultural identity – little interest in exploring matters of culture.

• Cultural identity search – is process oriented and involves a questioning mode about one’s culture.

• Cultural identity achievement - completes the process and involves an internalization of the individuals’ attachment to their group.

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Characteristics of Cultural Identity

• Patriarchy and gender

• Ethnicity

• Regional factors

• Religion

• Class

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Gender and Gender Formation

• Gender formation - the sociocultural process by which female and male identities are created and transformed.

• Social construction – a term that refers to the way that gender identification develops.

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Ethnicity• Ethnic group - one whose members

“entertain a subjective belief in their common descent because of similarities of physical type or of customs of both, or because of blood relationship” (Alba, 1990).

• There are two ways of viewing ethnicity: social allocation and social solidarity.

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Social Solidarity

• Three major sources of social solidarity.

1) Social solidarity signals a consciousness of kind.

2) Social solidarity signals a consciousness that individuals share a common fate.

3) Social solidarity through a valued heritage.

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Regional Factors

• Region carries with it ideas about the interplay of territory and space.

• People tend to imbue their regions with meaning.

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Religion

• Culture and religion are intimately linked.

• Religion is a crucible out of which values, beliefs, norms, and ethics are formed.

• Religion acts as a scaffolding for framing humans’ perspectives on the world.

• The principles of religion are designed to regulate the way people think and behave.

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Class

• A group of people who share common objective interests in the system of social stratification.

• Class carries with it the convergence of 3 major divisions: occupational class; bureaucratic power; property divisions based on owner and nonowner categories of property.

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Class Continued…

• Occupational class – groupings around education, professions, jobs, and what people do to earn a living.

• Bureaucratic power – divides people “with respect to positions within bureaucratic authority structures.”

• Property – ownership of land and material things and their consequences for identity and belonging.

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Language and Non-verbal Markers

• Language is a clear marker of both class and cultural identity.

• External characteristics, or markers, are visible indicators of who and what we are.

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Canada’s Multicultural Policy

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http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/publications/multi-report2007/section1.asp The Multiculturalism program - aims to support the removal of

barriers related to race, ethnicity, cultural or religious background that would prevent full participation in Canadian society.

Program initiatives are carried out through the following four activity areas: support to civil society; research and policy development; support to public institutions (including federal institutions); public education and promotion.

Demographic imbalance between city and country - 73% of visible minorities live in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. On the other hand, smaller cities, towns, and hinterland regions are characterized by ageing and homogenous populations; only 6% of new immigrants have settled in non–metropolitan areas. Census 2006 data showed mid–sized urban centres had a growth rate of more than 10%, about twice as high as the rate for Canada as a whole. CCT200 Week #3: RT

Canada’s Multicultural Policy Continued…

• CAPAR - A Canada for All: Canada’s Action Plan Against Racism.

• Coordinates and facilitates the reporting, accountability, performance measurement and information sharing among the participating federal institutions.

• In 2006-2007, their Action Plan demanded the need for the following: Provide more public education to increase the understanding of racism; Be more aware of the unique challenges of combating racism outside major urban centres; Better integrate the perspectives of youth, women and Aboriginal peoples; Work more closely with other levels of government on issues such as housing and education; Broaden the discussion on eliminating racism in the workplace to include more partners such as labour unions and Chambers of Commerce.

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Will Kymlicka, PhD• Canada Research Chair in

Political Philosophy in the Philosophy Department at Queen’s.

• BA in philosophy and politics from Queen’s in 1984.

• DPhil in philosophy from Oxford University in 1987.

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Will Kymlicka – Is Canada Unique?• Seeks to identify what is truly distinctive

about the “Canadian model” pertaining to diversity and multiculturalism.

• “Our uniqueness lies not in the way we have responded to these issues, but in the sheer breadth of the challenges we have faced due to the unique composition of Canadian society.”

• “Canadians are distinctive in the way that they have incorporated Canada’s policy of accommodating diversity into their sense of National identity.”

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Questions or comments

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