Chapter 1 -What is Culture Flashcards
The Shafia family murder case
The Shafia family murder case involves the tragic deaths of four family members, including three sisters and their father’s first wife, found dead inside a submerged car in the Rideau Canal in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Mohammad Shafia, the father, along with his wife Tooba Mohammad Yahya and their son Hamed Shafia, were charged with four counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
The Shafia family, originally from Afghanistan, had immigrated to Canada after living in Dubai. Tensions arose between the parents and their teenage daughters, Zainab, Sahar, and Geeti, who wished to adopt a more Western lifestyle. The daughters faced restrictions on their clothing, relationships, and freedom, leading to conflict within the family.
Zainab, the oldest sister, had a boyfriend, which led to her being banned from leaving the house and attending school. Sahar endured physical abuse and expressed her struggles to school officials. Geeti also faced violence from her father. The family’s patriarch, Mohammad Shafia, expressed extreme anger and disdain for his daughters’ Westernized behavior, viewing it as a betrayal of their culture and religion.
The murders were allegedly committed in the name of “honour,” with the accused believing that the daughters’ actions had brought shame upon the family. Mohammad Shafia’s wiretapped conversations revealed his obsession with preserving his honor, even at the cost of his daughters’ lives.
The case drew parallels to the Aqsa Parvez murder case, where a similar “honour killing” occurred in Mississauga, Ontario. Aqsa Parvez, like the Shafia sisters, rebelled against traditional expectations, leading to her murder by her father and brother.
Ultimately, all three accused in the Shafia family murder case were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, highlighting the tragic consequences of “honour killings” and the clash between traditional values and Western lifestyles within immigrant families.
What is the nature of killings in immigrant families in the US and Europe in the name of ‘family honour’?
The killings are often attributed to the cultural tradition of honour killing, where communal expectations about family maintenance and women’s behaviors play a significant role.
How do perpetrators of honour killings demonstrate acknowledgment of communal expectations?
Perpetrators like Mohammad Shafia and Muhammad Parvez show sensitivity to communal/group expectations regarding family maintenance, women’s behavior and appearance, and men’s reactions to women’s conduct.
What role do ethnic communities’ expectations and norms play in honour killings?
Ethnic communities’ expectations and norms, whether expressed explicitly or internalized, provide perpetrators with justification and shape their actions to kill their daughters and sisters in the name of family honor.
What are the components of the cultural tradition of honour killing?
The components include the notions of family honor, the primary responsibility of women to uphold this honor, and the idea that men should take appropriate sanctions, even up to killing, to protect family honor.
How do honour killings exemplify a cultural phenomenon?
Honour killings demonstrate the cultural determination of people’s experiences and behaviors, with communal expectations and norms guiding perpetrators’ actions to cleanse family honor through extreme measures like murder.
Interpretations of Crimes:
Mental health issues of perpetrators.
Family disputes or family violence.
Cultural tradition of honour killing (majority of experts’ view).
What religious and cultural communities are associated with the tradition of honour killing?
The cultural tradition of honour killing is spread across various religious and cultural communities, including Muslim, Christian, Hindu, and others.
What regions have long noted honour killing as a “normal” part of their cultures?
Honour killing has long been noted as a “normal” part of Christian and Muslim cultures around the circum-Mediterranean region.
What are Kanuns (Codes) in the Balkan highlands related to honour killing?
Kanuns specify conditions for honour killings, including how it should be done, payments for the killing, and a period of bereavement for the family. There’s also a truce period between families before “the favor” is returned.
How are honour-style killings in South and Latin America often condoned?
In the machismo culture of Brazil and South/Latin America, honour-style killings of homosexual family members and allegedly unchaste daughters or sisters and wives are often condoned or not prosecuted.
What stories reflect a desire to regain control and restore honour in Mexican highlands?
Multiple honour killing stories in the Mexican highlands involve adulterous wives killed by their husbands or committing suicide to avoid dishonoring their families, reflecting a man’s desire to regain control and restore family honour.
These are extreme cases that reflect the role culture plays in people’s functioning:
their thinking, feeling, and acting
A subtle example of the role culture play
in some communities, December 25th is celebrated by families placing a spruce tree in their homes, decorating it and putting boxes with gifts under their trees.
What is culture?
Culture refers to the customs, ideas, and social behavior of a particular people or group.
What are cultural traditions, norms, and rules of behavior?
Cultural traditions, norms, and rules of behavior are complex and often elusive concepts that vary among disciplines. They are manifestations of human intellectual achievement and collective social behavior.
What is the etymological origin of the term “culture”?
The term “culture” originates from the French word “culture” or directly from Latin “cultura,” meaning “growing, cultivation.”
How many meanings does the term “culture” have?
The term “culture” has two meanings: one related to the arts and intellectual achievements collectively, and the other related to the customs, ideas, and social behavior of a particular group or people.
How is the term “culture” used in the textbook?
In the textbook, “culture” is used to refer to “the customs, ideas, and social behavior of a particular people or group.”
Etymologically, the term culture has two meanings
The first is related to “the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively”
The second is “the customs, ideas, and social behaviour of a particular people or group”
What does it mean when people refer to a country with a rich culture?
When people refer to a country with a rich culture, they are often talking about its famous artists, writers, philosophers, and the ability of its people to understand and appreciate artistic and intellectual activities. This refers to culture in the sense of arts and intellectual achievements collectively.
The term ‘culture’
emerged with regard to cultivating or tilling land. “The noun ‘culture’ originated from the French word culture or directly from Latin cultura - ‘growing, cultivation’”
How is “Culture” (with a capital letter “C”) used in the textbook?
“Culture” with a capital letter “C” represents the human-made sociocultural environment of any community, regardless of its geographical location. It is a generic term used to analyze its role in phylogenetic and ontogenetic development of humans.
How is the term “culture” used in the second sense?
In the second sense, “culture” conveys the idea of multiple specific cultures (small letter “c” and plural). These cultures are geographically distributed and based on different grouping criteria such as ethnicity, nationhood, language, religion, or other criteria like urban versus rural subcultures, youth and virtual subcultures, class-based subcultures, etc.
What are examples of specific cultures based on different grouping criteria?
Examples include Aboriginal, Slavic, Anglo-Saxon, and Zulu cultures based on ethnicity; French, Chinese, Indian, or Canadian cultures based on nationhood; Francophone and Anglophone cultures based on language; and Muslim or Catholic cultural communities based on religion, among others.
Three aspects of Culture
The material aspect
Social interactions
The ideational aspect
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What does the material aspect of culture include?
The material aspect includes visible, touchable, and audible representations of various symbols and their meanings, such as banknotes, churches, bridges, books, and the Internet.
How do material cultures contribute to understanding past civilizations?
Material cultures exist even after communities disappear, allowing archaeologists to recreate their lifestyles, beliefs, technologies, and psychological characteristics.
What is the significance of social interactions in culture?
Social interactions are the medium through which material and ideational aspects of culture interconnect and work together, providing structured customs, rituals, and social institutions within communities.
What is the ideational aspect of culture?
The ideational aspect includes beliefs, values, norms, “rules of the game,” and other knowledge residing in the minds of community members, guiding their behaviors and interactions.
Material
The material aspect of culture encompasses tangible objects and artifacts that symbolize meanings within a community. Examples include banknotes, churches, books, and the Internet.
Material culture provides insights into past civilizations and their way of life. Archeologists study artifacts to understand cultural practices, technology, and psychology of ancient societies.
Material artifacts require interaction to be functional and meaningful. They are woven into social relationships and carry the ideas and knowledge of their creators.
Example: Churches are used for worship, while computers serve various functions. Behaviors associated with these artifacts are learned within a cultural context.
Social
The social aspect of culture encompasses everyday interactions and rituals within a community, such as greetings, parenting, and communal governance.
Social interactions provide structure and cohesion to cultural communities, reflecting shared values, beliefs, and histories.
Social interactions are uniform and structured within cultural communities, with specific customs and norms governing behavior. They unfold within designed physical spaces that facilitate these interactions.
Example: Interactions within university campuses bring to life the cultural phenomenon of higher education, while interactions within courtrooms create the legal process.
Ideational
The ideational aspect of culture consists of beliefs, values, norms, and systems of meaning shared among members of a community.
Ideational aspects guide social interactions and provide frameworks for understanding and interpreting the world.
Cultural communities assign meanings to objects, events, and people, creating systems of meaning that regulate communal behavior.
Example: Students and instructors must share ideas about university education, while sports team members must know the rules of the game. Cultural meanings manifest through social interactions and material artifacts.
What are the three main features of culture as a sociosymbolic reality?
The three main features are collective intentionality, collective intersubjectivity, and taken-for-grantedness.
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What is collective intentionality?
Collective intentionality refers to the mutual beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and motivations shared among members of a community, regulating and coordinating their behaviors collectively.
