Examining Cross-cultural Observations

Session One

Introduce the Snaidanac.

• Ask individual students to read aloud sections of an overhead transparency of Body Rituals of the Snaidanac (Background Information). This is a very brief Canadian adaptation of a famous 1956 article by Horace Miner (see References), where he presented an account of common American bathroom customs disguised as the rituals of a newly discovered Aboriginal group. Do not reveal to the class that this cultural group is Canadians spelled backward. Instead, indicate that this is an excerpt from an anthropological study of a previously unknown North American people. Ask the class to explain what an anthropologist does. Write the answers on the board, drawing attention to the following features:
  • the Greek root words anthropo and ology mean human study, particularly the study of human cultural practices
  • anthropologists study the culture or life ways of particular groups, usually those groups to which they do not belong
  • anthropologists try to interpret and explain other cultures.

Discuss the problem.

• Ask students to comment on what is obviously wrong with this anthropologist's explanation. In the course of the discussion, draw out that the anthropologist is on the outside of the culture: he does not see the practices from the perspectives of those who live within the culture. Or to put it another way, he does not understand what these practices mean to the people within that culture. Explain that anthropologists have a particular problem in this respect. Because they are concerned with understanding cultures other than their own, anthropologists must be especially conscious that their own belief systems do not interfere with their interpretations. They need to be sensitive to cultural differences and to suspend the tendency to judge and interpret everything through their own, narrow cultural lenses. This requires interpreting other cultures with cross-cultural sensitivity—with a sensitivity that takes anthropologists outside their own cultural frame to some extent and helps them see things from the perspective of those within the culture.

Introduce problems in judging cultures.

• Distribute a copy of Judging Cultural Practices (Background Information) to each student and walk students through the briefing sheet by explaining what is meant by making judgements about other cultures, including these pitfalls:
  • cultural superiority; i.e., using our "superior" standards to judge all other cultures—whatever we do is always better
  • cultural relativism; i.e., believing that no culture's practices are better or worse that another culture's practices—whatever any culture does is acceptable.

Identify examples in Snaidanac account.

• Referring back to the overhead of the Snaidanac account, ask students to identify examples of these two pitfalls. On the overhead, make a note of each example next to the relevant statement. For your information, Annotated "Snaidanac" (Background Information) contains a copy of the text with our interpretations of all the pitfalls present in the account including those related to interpreting and generalizing about cultures.

Introduce cross-cultural sensitivity.

• Ask students to read the section on cross-cultural sensitivity in the briefing sheet. Point out that cultural superiority and cultural relativism are two ends of a continuum, and that cross-cultural sensitivity occupies the middle ground between these two extremes. As a form of review, write the title "Judging Cultural Practices" at the top of the board. Draw a horizontal line under the title, label the positions along the continuum and record student-generated summaries of the key ideas.

Judging Cultural Practices 

Explore problems in interpreting cultures.

• Follow the procedures discussed above to introduce the second set of cultural pitfalls, those related to interpreting cultures. Distribute a copy of Interpreting Cultural Practices (Background Information) to each student and explain what is meant by interpreting a culture and how that is different from making judgements about the culture. Explain also the two opposing pitfalls:
  • ethnocentrism; i.e., inappropriately applying our concepts and beliefs to explain another group's practices
  • radical uniqueness; i.e., the impossibility of explaining another culture because no one other than those in the culture can understand its practices.

Return to the overhead transparency of the Snaidanac account and invite students to identify examples of the two forms of cultural pitfalls involved in interpreting another culture. On the overhead, make a note of each example next to the relevant statement. (Consult the annotated copy presented earlier for our identification of the pitfalls in interpreting another culture.)

Ask students to read the section on cross-cultural sensitivity in Judging Cultural Practices (Background Information). Point out that cross-cultural sensitivity occupies the middle ground between these two extremes. As a review, write the title "Interpreting Cultural Practices" at the top of the board. Draw a horizontal line under the title; label the positions along the continuum and record student-generated summaries of the key ideas.

Interpreting Cultural Practices

Explore problems with generalizations.

• Follow the procedure discussed above to introduce the third set of cultural pitfalls, those related to making generalizations about a culture. Distribute a copy of Generalizing about Cultural Practices (Background Information) to each student and explain the following:
  • what is meant by generalizing about a culture
  • how this is unavoidable when interpreting a culture
  • stereotyping; i.e., the oversimplification or exaggeration of the practices of a group
  • radical individualism; i.e., the impossibility of generalizing about a culture because each person or event is so individualistic.

Return to the overhead transparency of the Snaidanac account and invite students to identify examples of the two pitfalls involved in generalizing about a culture. On the overhead, make a note of each example next to the relevant statement. (Consult the annotated copy presented earlier for our identification of the pitfalls in generalizing about a culture.)

Ask students to read the section on cross-cultural sensitivity in Generalizing about Cultural Practices (Background Information). Point out that cross-cultural sensitivity occupies the middle ground between these two extremes. As a review, write the title "Generalizing about Cultural Practices" at the top of the board. Draw a horizontal line under the title; label the positions along the continuum and record student-generated summaries of the key ideas.

Generalizing about Cultural Practices

Pose the critical task.

• Explain to students that the earliest contact between Aboriginal peoples and Europeans in what is now Canada created considerable confusion among the two groups as they struggled to understand a culture different in so many ways from their own. Indicate to students that their homework assignment is to assess the cultural sensitivity of the early anthropologist's account of contact between Europeans and Aboriginal peoples in New France. Distribute copies of Examining Judgements about Cultures, Examining Interpretations of Cultures and Examining Generalizations about Cultures. Place a copy of Examining Judgements about Cultures on the overhead to illustrate the nature of the rating scales that appear on all three charts. Explain that, initially, students are to work at home to complete the following critical task:

Rate the cultural sensitivity of selected anthropological observations
about 16^th and 17^th century societies in New France.

Students should evaluate their anthropologist's cross-cultural sensitivity in judging, interpreting and generalizing about cultural practices. Each sheet contains an introductory set of remarks and then the actual anthropologist's account. Students should focus their analysis solely on the primary source. Since anthropologists are rarely totally on one side or the other, their insensitivity may appear in extreme or modest forms. In the boxes below the headings, students should record statements from the anthropologist's account that reflect each concept. Warn students that this task is a challenging one and ask them to do their best at distinguishing between the terms and identifying examples. Explain that during the next class students will work in groups to compare their findings.

Distribute anthropological accounts.

• Eight different anthropological accounts are included as background information. We propose that seven accounts be used at this point and that the eighth be reserved for a final assessment. Each student is expected to assess only one of the seven following accounts. Provide three to five copies of each account so that every student has a copy of one of them:

Health
Epidemics
State of Nature
Feelings
Lifestyle
Dreams
Origins.