Week 1, Holliday reading reflection

Reading about the differences between the essentialist view of culture and the non- essentialist view was interesting because they addressed a lot of different aspects that I had never thought of before. I think, for myself, I would indentify myself more with the non-essentialist view of culture, approaching it as a complex problem, that requires understanding of the people that are a part of these cultures. I really agree with the fact that one can identify themselves with more that one culture, and that there are different aspects of culture that could be similar or the same even though they may be in another country. I also liked when the book mentioned that culture is more related to values along with characteristics and not just the region and language.

In section B0.1.5 of Holliday, Baumann makes a point that I totally agree with, which is that people don’t see themselves as uni-dimensional, but as a member of several communities. For instance, if I were to associate myself with different communities, I would probably list, college student, Spanish major, waitress, runner, youngest sibling, and maybe even a blonde. Each person has so many different connections to different groups of people of different beliefs, routines, and hobbies. I also found in interesting how in the end of B0.1 they review how culture, community, and “cultural identity” are described as symbolic and abstract and require more thinking, and that a community is something that isn’t physically existent but more imagined.

“A culture penetrates its individual members mentally (so that they possess a certain mind-set), physically (so that they possess certain basic bodily dispositions), and socially (so that they relate to one another in certain characteristic ways).” I never thought of culture having such an impact on an individual. This statement covers every component of culture and how it affects a member of that culture. I also liked how later it went on to say that cultures are permeable and are technically open. When you think about it you can control if a culture influences someone or not, therefore cultures gain new members of the non-concrete society. In my life, if I consider myself a part of many cultures already, I can only imagine the more cultures that will become a part of my life in the future.

Reading about the topic of essentialism was interesting because I think of my brother and how his default view of cultures is completely different from mine. He tends to group/stereotype people by a certain characteristic which most of the time constrains his thoughts of the possibility of them being a part of another community or having different beliefs. On the other hand, I have a non-essentialist point of view. Perhaps this is because I have traveled more and immersed myself in other cultures. But even then, the right mind-set has to be there to really see how rounded and different each person really is.