My Definition of Culture

After reading Teaching culture: Perspectives in practice by Morgan, I am pleased to find that I now have a deeper understanding of what culture means. The author is completely correct when stating that culture has a wide array of complexities that we must embrace in order to define the word itself, and a quote that stood out to me in this reading was,  "To be fair, the complexity comes not just from definers and definitions but from the nature of culture itself."

Morgan further defines culture as the center of five different dimensions: products, practices, communities, persons, and perspectives. I believe that this is a great way to refer to specific things while also being extremely broad and general at the same time (if that makes sense!) In other words, we now have five concrete dimensions and aspects that contribute to the definition of culture, but the definitions of these words all vary according to the type of culture.

According to Morgan, it is also important to research different cultures because while there are many explicit and obvious aspects, there are also several tacit aspects to a culture in which we would not recognize without further exploration. After spending a semester in Spain, I can definitely relate to this. While many of the Spaniard's traditions were expected, such as their midday naps or late eating schedules, many were a complete shock to me. For example, I once yawned in public at a cafe during lunchtime. My Spanish friend then proceeded to tell me that in Spain, that was very looked down upon and that I was being rude. This was something that if I hadn't lived in Spain and experienced this first-hand, I'm not sure I would have ever known that yawning wasn't approved of in the Spanish culture!

My original definition of culture was: a common set of morals, lifestyle, beliefs, traditions, etc. within a group of people, and is a way people live according to their demographics and/or ethnicity. However, after this reading these chapters I now understand that culture is much more complex, and is something that can be easier to relate to if you experience it first-hand. Doing this is clearly not an option for most people, but breaking a culture down into the five dimensions Morgan states earlier is a great start to get a better understanding.