By Dr. Jefwa G. Mweri
Culture change can be compared to an iceberg. Culture has an equivalent tip of the iceberg which is the smaller part that is visible above the water line. This visible part is equivalent to the surface structure of a culture. Like the tip of the iceberg which is easily affected by weather, the surface structure of a culture is easily affected and can easily change. Examples of surface structure aspects of culture include norms such as greetings, dress, food, transportation, housing etc. These are aspects of culture that can be easily influenced by contact with other cultures.
However, like the iceberg whose bulk is under water, the bulk of culture is unseen even though it affects our behaviour to a large extent. This unseen part of culture is what is referred to as the deep structure of culture. In this article we examine some aspects of the deep structure of culture or the part that is underwater in the iceberg analogy, the invisible part of culture. The part that hardly changes or takes time to change and how COVID-19 has impacted it.
The deep structure of a culture can be defined
“as the conscious and unconscious assumptions that a culture makes about the world and the source of insight by which they base life.”
The three most important institutions that greatly influence the deep structure of culture are: family, state and religion (prezi.com). These institutions, to a large extent, determine our values and belief as part of the deep structure. The deep structure is what shapes our worldview and differentiates one culture from another. It, for example, is why in some cultures old age is venerated or respected while in others youth is idolized and people in those cultures strive to be as youthful as possible. The deep structure is what makes us perceive, for example, one culture to be collective and another individualistic.
One of the most respected deep structure cultural values that cuts across most cultures is love for family that manifests itself in many ways, for example, how people in different cultures pay their respect to their departed loved ones. COVID-19 has been one of the most tragic experiences in the world in recent times. In just over six months, it has infected over fifteen million people with over half a million deaths worldwide. Traditionally, culture determine how we inter our dead since issues of death and funeral rites are deeply imbedded cultural practices.
Hong-kongers, for example, have a public holiday widely known as the grave-sweeping festival where they pay their respects for Ching Ming. At the final resting place of their loved ones, celebrants replace wilted flowers with fresh ones, incense and paper offerings were burnt, and food is laid out before the headstones of tombs citywide. Three pairs of chopsticks get placed above a display of food, which often consists of an assortment of meats and pastries. (https://www.scmp.com › News › Hong Kong › Society).
According to Hana Davis (2018), this is an example of a ritual that has been practiced since time immemorial and has been passed from generation to generation as part of the deep structure of this culture, it is not easy to change and it is persistent. However, with COVID-19, this is all set to change. This festival which was to be held between 4th and 6th of April, 2020 at a time when the Coronavirus disease was at its peak. Thus a cultural practice that has been there since time immemorial has been forced to adapt or change due to COVID-19.
Another example of culture specific burial and funeral rites is the funeral procession unique to New Orleans, Louisiana and Cajun culture, that blends traditional European and African culture. A jazz procession leads the deceased from the funeral home or church to the grave, playing dirges and sad music all the way. Afterwards, the band plays merrier music at a post-funeral party where the life of the deceased is celebrated.
In Kenya, different cultures inter their dead differently. Most still prefer to put the dead six feet under despite the attempt to popularize cremation. Burials are community affairs. This has now changed. The Government has provided guidelines, which must be strictly adhered to, on how to bury anyone who dies of COVID-19. These include burial of victims of coronavirus within 24 hours. The burial ceremonies are restricted to less than 15 close family members and at the same time hygiene measures and physical distancing must be maintained. Thus there is a change of how things are done different from the old normal. These changes are not easy to effect and have been resisted in many communities in Kenya because burial and funeral rites are rooted in culture.
According to Wikipedia, funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect the dead, from interment, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor. Customs vary between cultures and religious groups. (https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Funeral).
From the Everplans website, Avas Flowers (2020) put together forty-two funeral and burial rituals from around the world. The variation of these rites is exemplified as follows,
“since there is such limited space for burial in South Korea, they have to get creative with the bodies of the deceased. They cremate the body and press it into jewelry-like beads. They are often colorful and kept in an urn or bottle.”
There are also the examples of the hanging coffins of the Philippines.
“Hidden high up along mountainsides and in difficult to reach places. The people of Sagada in the Philippines believed that the closer a coffin was to the sky, the closer the deceased was to heaven.”
They also have in the Philippines the Tinguian Funeral where
“people dress the dead in their finest clothes, sit them in a chair, and give them a smoke. There the dead sit smoking for several weeks.”
According to Cohen (2018),
“In all societies, when a person dies, family, friends, and neighbors respond in structured, patterned ways to the death. Cultural guidelines determine the treatment and disposal of the body and prescribe a period of mourning for close relatives. Death ritual, like much of human behavior, is an expression of a cultural blueprint, of attitudes, values and ideals passed down by parents, and their parents, which an individual learns as a member of society.”
As an expression of a cultural blueprint, of attitudes, values and ideals passed down by parents, and their parents, which an individual learns as a member of society, burial rites are culturally diverse as exemplified above. In collective cultures, a burial or funeral is not complete if the whole village does not takes part. This is because in collectivist societies, each member has an active part to play within the society and the focus in such societies is on what is good to the society and not on an individual because supporting each other is the norm and the “we” is more important rather than the “I” and this is what guides their world view.
Kenya is a collective culture and this may explain the resistance to current guidelines on burials. In individualistic cultures on the other hand, the “I” identity is promoted, burial and funeral rites would only involve members of the immediate family. This is because among many other reasons in these cultures, being seen to be dependent on others is frequently scorned at or considered hugely shameful.
The above may therefore explain why with COVID -19, many people in some cultures have resisted change in this ritual. In Kenya, it is not uncommon to find these requirements being flouted because an individual’s body belongs to the community. While certain cultural practices may not be practical in the current circumstances, as is the case of burials, common decency must prevail.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) also recognizes the importance of culture in the burial of a person whose death is occasioned by COVID-19, it calls for cultural sensitivity. It observes “To date there is no evidence of persons having become infected from exposure to the bodies of persons who died from COVID-19,” and further calls for concerned parties to “Apply principles of cultural sensitivity and ensure that family members reduce their exposure as much as possible. (https://www.who.int › Publications › i › item).
Radcliff-Brown as quoted in Cohen (2018), in emphasizing the importance of rituals to cultures asserts, “One approach to the study of ritual emphasizes the social and psychological functions of behavior. Social functions refer to the effects of a rite on the social structure, the network of social relations binding individuals together in an orderly life. The immediate or direct effects on the individuals involved in the ritual are psychological functions (186).
Another, aspect of culture that is part of the values associated with the deep structure and which resists major changes since it is culturally embedded and therefore may need time to change is the use of space. Though invisible or below the waterline, the use of space has the effect of determining behavior.
Hall (1990), asserts; “Every living thing has a visible physical boundary—its skin—separating it from its external environment. This visible boundary is surrounded by a series of invisible boundaries that are more difficult to define but are just as real. These other boundaries begin with the individual’s personal space and terminate with her or his ‘territory.’”
Keating (1999), sees space as an integral part of social life and language events and an important resource in ordering social experience. The distribution of space can instantiate particular systems of social control for example conventionalizing differences between people.
The concepts of space and boundaries and their use are learned very early in life and practiced without a level of conscious awareness. We just know as part of our enculturation the boundaries we need to keep. In most Arab cultures. for instance, cultural space is consistent but varies a bit between genders. Members of the same gender tend to feel comfortable standing closer than an arm’s length apart from one another while in conversation. Cultural space is very different in same sex relationships compared to the interaction between opposite sex relationships. There is a good amount of touching between members of the same gender during conversation and it is not uncommon to see two men or two women walking hand in hand with each other in public; not as an implication of their sexual preference but simply as a sign of their closeness as friends. There is no touching between men and women in public places. (hopeinterculturalcomm.weebly.com › what-is-cultural-space)
Why are people in some cultures resisting proposed social or physical distancing in the fight against COVID-19? Social or physical distancing is a function of nonverbal communication and is culture bound. Nonverbal communication include messages other than the words that people exchange. They may encompass the message of action, space, time and silence. Since there is cultural diversity in the use of nonverbal communication, cultures therefore differ in its use. The use of space, therefore, falls here. Extremely important in communication of relational and identity messages.
According to Samovar, Porter, and Stephani (1998), by understanding important differences in nonverbal behavior, you will be able to gather clues about a culture’s underlying attitudes and values. The message of space can therefore show us underlying attitudes and values because they belong to the deep structure of a culture. The use of space to convey meaning is called proxemics. The space we keep when in a communicative situation is part of our cultural communication experience. The invisible space around us which makes up the social or physical distance required to fight COVID-19 is culturally determined. People react to it being forced upon us in culturally determined ways. For instance, individualistic cultures would demand more space, while collective cultures would demand less space.
Personal space can be divided into the following zones as indicated below:
- Intimate distance (0-1.8 feet): This is personal space zone immediate to someone’s body. It is said to be used with people close to us and in private situations e.g. love making, caressing, comforting.
- Personal distance (1.5 – 4 feet) the personal space zone that represent the distance most couples keep in public. This is normally a reasonably close distance but not as close as intimate distance.
- Social distance (12 feet). This is the personal space zone that occurs in business situations or at work places. The distance we keep with our colleagues. This is the distance that we are required to keep as a mitigation against COVID-19, that is 6 to 10 feet apart.
- Public distance (> 12 feet), the distance that politicians keep when addressing people (https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Proxemics).
While those from individualistic cultures may find it easy to follow the social distance directive because they value their personal space and they do not easily let in people into their personal space, people from collective cultures will find it difficult to execute this requirement.
Collective cultures by their very nature do not take issues of personal space seriously. According to Keri (2020), collectivistic cultures emphasize the needs and goals of the group as a whole over the needs and desires of each individual. In such cultures, relationships with other members of the group and the interconnectedness between people play a central role in each person’s identity.
Cultures in Asia, Central America, South America, and Africa tend to be more collectivistic. In these kinds of cultures, therefore, it would be difficult to think of personal space of social distancing. Furthermore, in collectivistic cultures, people are considered “good” if they are generous, helpful, dependable, and attentive to the needs of others. This contrasts with individualistic cultures that often place a greater emphasis on characteristics such as assertiveness and independence.
There is also the debate as to whether we should be talking of social distancing or physical distancing. According to Aziz (2020) on Aljazeera website, the World Health Organization has started using the phrase “physical distancing” instead of “social distancing” as a way to prevent the person-to-person spread of the coronavirus. The global health body said while maintaining a physical distance was “absolutely essential” amid the global pandemic, “it does not mean that socially we have to disconnect from our loved ones, from our family.”
According to dictionary.com, some health professionals are increasingly encouraging the use of the term physical distancing as a clearer alternative to social distancing. Physical distancing underscores the importance of keeping physical distance between people to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. The term additionally makes clear that people should still spend time with friends and family using digital technology and social media when they are physically separated.
Apparently, from the above, it seems that it may not be easy for members of collective cultures to maintain both social and physical distancing, since to them, social distancing may mean some form of isolation yet in group dynamics practiced by collective cultures, relationships with other members of the group and the interconnectedness between people is paramount. However, with encouragement, physical distancing may be practiced. This, though, may be different with members of the individualistic cultures.
From the above discussion, it becomes apparent that though COVID-19 has occasioned culture change and many changes have occurred to our ways of doing things – our cultures. We, therefore, can view COVID-19 as an agent of culture change. The question that may arise is will some of these changes be permanent? Some of the surface culture changes mentioned above are likely to persist post COVID -19. Changes such as regular hand washing is likely to continue, use of sanitizers, likely to continue, handshakes and hugs, though part of surface structure of culture, are likely to go back to normal once the pandemic is eradicated or contained.
However, most of the deep structure elements are likely to go back to normal, burials, weddings etc. will be business as usual after all this goes away. Physical or social distancing will also not stand the test of time. People will go back to their culturally acceptable ways. One thing for sure is the fact that things will never be the same again since some of the new ways of doing things have proven to effective and better options.
As things stand currently, in the words of W.B. Yeats “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” However, for COVID-19, there is hope for mankind in the horizon.
References
Cohen (2018) Death Ritual: Anthropological Perspectives.
Hall, E.T. & Hall, M.R. (1990). Key concepts: Underlying structures of culture. In J.N. Martin, T.K. Nakayama & L.A. Flores (Eds.) Readings in intercultural communication: Experiences and contexts. (pp. 165-171). USA: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Hana, D. (2018). Honouring the dead: how cultures around the world pay their respects. A look at the traditional funerary rituals of the mainland, Asia and beyond.
Kendra, C. (2018). Understanding Collectivist Cultures: How Culture Can Influence Behavior.
Keating, E. (1999). Space. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 9(1/2), 234-237. Retrieved May 20, 2020, on line available: www.jstor.org/stable/43102475
Mia, R. (2014). The Deep Structure of Culture: Lessons from the Family.
Samovar, Porter, and Stephani, (1998). Communication between Cultures. Wadsworth Publishing Company.
By Dr. Jefwa G. Mweri, Department of Kiswahili and Kenya Sign Language Research Project, jefwa_george@uonbi.ac.ke
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of the University of Nairobi.
- Log in to post comments