Perceiving Cultures

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Autoethnography is a form of qualitative research where the researcher explores their own experience as a focus within the investigation and examination of cultures. It acknowledges the power of the researcher to explore more closely than others are able, and it connects the personal story to the participatory cultures.

“Autoethnography is an approach to research and writing that seeks to describe and systematically analyze personal experience in order to understand cultural experience.” (Ellis, Adams and Bochner 2011: np).

Before even being introduced to the notion of Autoethnography I had spent a considerable amount of time overseas and also having looked into the study of communication across cultures – where I mainly focused on addressing the issues involved in communication among people of different linguistic and “cultural” backgrounds.

In saying this, one Scholar comes to mind… 

Professor Geert Hofstede conducted one of the most comprehensive studies of how values in the workplace are influenced by culture. He analysed a large database of employee value scores collected within IBM between 1967 and 1973 – where his research was quantitively based on questionnaires. He collected and published six ‘CULTURAL DIMENSIONS’ , filling in the spaces that have grown between cross-cultural relationships.

  1. Power Distance Index (PDI)
  2. Individualism versus Collectivism (IDV) 
  3. Masculinity versus Femininity 
  4. Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) 
  5. Long-Term Orientation versus Short-Term Normative Orientation (LTO) 
  6. Indulgence versus Restraint (IND)

 

However, after analysing Ellis’ work I believe that an array of issues present themselves in Hofstede’s approach – where his research cannot elude its way from cataloguing nations, its people and values. I believe in the following:

  • Hofstede’s dimensions raise issues where he is conducting such research through the status of the observer; distancing himself away from achieving the epiphanies that make research relational.
  • Culture is defined through its combination of internal and external linkages where a paradigm such as that of Hofstede’s of comparing overt diversities.
  • Hofsted’s dimensions do not suffice and provide adequate material regarding cultural influences and differences and could merely be assumptions.

 

So why have I just told you all of that? 

Having no previous knowledge of the notion Autoethnography, I believe for quite some time I have been more inclined through an Autoethnographic approach without even knowing. Whilst travelling though India I spent time in West Bengal at the Makaibari Tea estate whereby I experienced a local homestay during my time there. Staying with a local family, I ate the same way, harvested tea the same way and ultimately lived as a member of society in the same ways. Through this I have developed my understanding from initially external characteristics of culture within a society to that of a more internal scope as my experiences grew –  “expanding and opening up a wider lens on the world“(Ellis et al., 2011).  One must delve further into the implicitly learnt, unconscious, unalterable and subjective knowledge regarding numerous and distinctive ways of life.

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[Language And Culture Worldwide, 2015]

Autoethnography is “a method for exploring, understanding, and writing from, through and with personal experiences in relation to and in the context of the experiences of others”. (Ellis, Adams and Bochner 2011). Through Ellis and Hofstede, they have reinforced this concept in my mind. I believe for a wider examination of culture, especially understanding the systematic differences and great distinctions through intercultural barriers, Autoethnography is very important. Being engulfed by new environments, information and ideologies can very well be channelled into revelations regarding the ‘facts’ and ‘truth’.

 

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