By Dr. Jefwa G. Mweri
COVID -19, a trending issue of global concern, has turned people’s lives upside down occasioning a huge amount of change in the world today. COVID -19 has fundamentally altered certain aspects of everyday life across the globe. In other words, COVID -19 has in one way or another occasioned changes in the way we do things, it has occasioned culture change. Culture is “a system of beliefs, values, and assumptions about life that guide behavior and are shared by a group of people and which are transmitted from generation to generation, rarely with explicit instructions” (www.peacecorps.org).
Culture is not innate or inborn. Nobody teaches us our culture directly thus it is often learnt unconsciously. People are sometimes not aware of how their behaviors and attitudes have been shaped by their culture. Thus, what we consider normal in our everyday life is shaped by our cultures. For instance, our cultures will determine whether we shake hands when we meet (as has been the trend worldwide), do the Namaste (as is customary among the Hindu), bow (as is common in the orient) or whether to hug or kiss (as a form of greeting).
However, with COVID -19 in our midst, some of the beliefs and values we have held so dear over the years are no longer tenable. The norms we have lived by have changed, leading to new normal values. Why does this seem to be the case? We can turn to culture to explain some of these changes.
Culture can also be defined as
“an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups” –- https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Culture.
Social behaviours and norms found in human society cannot remain static. They can change very fast or they may take time to change. Culture changes because it is dynamic. Normally, these changes occur when cultures are confronted by new ideas and information from other cultures in which case, new cultural traits can be added to the recipient culture while at the same time some old traits may be lost because they may lose their usefulness within the society. A cultural trait will only be lost if and only if it is deemed to have lost its usefulness to society. If not, it will persist.
Culture change is said to manifest itself through Innovation/ invention or diffusion. (https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Culture_change) Through innovation or invention, technologically advanced cultures are a source of many changes the world over. Technology is normally a source of internal change. However, invention or innovation is mostly an agent of internal change.
Diffusion on the other hand, is the spread of cultural traits through borrowing from one culture to another. Thus, when a technological advancement finds its way into another culture, that is diffusion mainly through borrowing. Diffusion has been known to be a source of most external culture change throughout human history. Borrowing happens when an item is acquired from a source culture and is totally embraced by a recipient culture, albeit with a few changes thus leading to change in the way that a culture does things.
A good example is the motor car, an invention that has revolutionized how we travel. To most cultures this a borrowed item. In Kiswahili, for example, the item was borrowed with some modification to its name to fit the consonant verb, consonant verb structure of Kiswahili words. Thus, the Kiswahili word for motor car is motokaa. The same is true with the word television which was borrowed into Kiswahili and then it was “swahilinized” to televisheni. Of course, this borrowing happens because no culture can remain in isolation.
COVID- 19 can be viewed as a product of diffusion by virtue of the way it has spread. Having started in Wuhan, China, it has spread throughout the world within a short time. Its spread can also be viewed as forced – from China to its trading patterns especially those in the developing world which is manly a relationship of dominance; and unforced – from China to other nations through trade. The spread was accelerated by today’s increased inter-connectedness of peoples, societies and cultures due to globalization. COVID-19 has, in its own way, brought about a substantial amount of culture change in the world. What are some of these changes?
To answer this question, we need to examine whether each and every aspect of culture changes when confronted by aspects of other cultures. How easily do aspects of one culture change when confronted by aspects of another? How has COVID – 19 impacted on world cultures in terms of changes in social behaviours, norms etc.
To understand culture and culture change, we can use the analogy of culture as an iceberg. The iceberg has two parts. The tip that is observable and is easily seen since it is above the water level and the bulk of the iceberg that is underwater and therefore largely unseen. Compared to culture, the tip of the iceberg can be viewed as the surface structure of a culture and the part that is underwater and unseen can be viewed as the deep structure of culture respectively.
Thus, though cultures change, we must note that it is normally mostly those aspects of culture that are part of the surface structure, above the water in the iceberg analogy, that change easily e.g. norms such as greetings, dress, food, transportation, housing etc. This may explain why today with COVID-19, the handshake which has easily been the most used form of greeting world over, has very easily given way and today people have adapted prior unimagined ways of greeting each other such as fist bumps, elbow bumps or feet bumps because hand shaking is one of the ways that the disease can easily be spread.
Thus these new ways are used as a way of mitigating against COVID -19. Clothing is also part of the surface structure of culture. Many cultures have over the years changed their dressing pattern to somehow conform to “international accepted fashion.” Thus, when COVID- 19 demanded the wearing of a mask, it was much easier for the cultures of the world to conform. Though this too has been resisted by some individuals in certain cultures. However, in most cultures the use of masks has easily been adopted.
The spread of the virus has occasioned change in many aspects of how people behave. For years, people have always been reacting to reflex actions such as coughing or sneezing by coughing or sneezing into a clenched fist or use a handkerchief. However, due to COVID – 19 we have learnt new ways – to cough or sneeze into a flexed elbow or use of paper towels which are easily disposable as compared to a handkerchief. Most people may have been hearing about this flexed elbow for the first time but had to adapt.
COVID-19 has affected people’s behaviours in other numerous ways. For example, most people in Kenya, like in most of the world, love their social life – be it going to the pub, weddings or places of worship etc. However, demands for physical distancing and forced lockdowns, closure of entertainment joints and stay at home orders occasioned by COVID -19 has changed all this. Occasioning culture change or new ways of doing things that has forced most people world over, Kenyans included, to resort to drinking their alcohol from home. While other institutions may have adopted technology to fill the gap for all the many new government orders today, for alcohol though, it cannot be taken online – so drinking alcohol from home is now the new norm.
Occasionally though, people may have virtual drinking events through Google meet, zoom FaceTime, Google Hangouts, and other video conferencing or chat applications, but it is not really the same. A new term for this behaviour has been coined it is known as virtual happy hour. Because of working from home (WFH), people are letting off steam at the end of a long, often boring, day by holding virtual happy hours.
The religious front has not spared either by COVID -19. Religious institutions have been closed down to avoid overcrowding. Thus they have been forced to adopt new ways to reach their congregants. Many have turned to the use of Internet to stream services live due to bans imposed on large gatherings of people in one place. Thus, most services in Kenya are through Facebook live streaming, zoom etc. this aspect of culture change was unimaginable a few years back – but it is here with us.
COVID -19 has also occasioned change in behaviour in the area of hygiene. It has forced people to take issues of hygiene more seriously. Washing hands often and with soap using running water, for example, one of the recommended ways of fighting this virus is now the order of the day. Alternatively, one can sanitize their hands using alcohol-based sanitizers. People are encouraged to sanitize surfaces in their homes since the virus can stay on surfaces for a long time. Sanitizing such surfaces can kill the virus.
Today, people have been forced to wash their hands more often. Of course, human beings have been washing their hands since time immemorial but the frequency and the how has changed. We have been taken through the how of washing hands and the number of times since COVID- 19 started. The how of washing one’s hands is what may seem strange. Use soap, wash for at least 20 seconds using running water – these are things that many people may have never taken seriously pre-COVID-19. Today, it can make a difference between life and death.
The transportation sector has not been spared. There is substantial change of behavior too. It is so refreshing in to see operators of public transport vehicles in Kenya popularly known as “matatus” proving sanitizers to their clients and also creatively providing places for their clients to wash their hands. This has never been the case before though it now becoming the new normal. No boarding public service vehicles without either washing your hands or sanitizing. The vehicles also have to be fumigated from time to time during the course of business in a day. A new invention is the use of sanitizer booths in some bus stations or at the ferry crossing in the port city of Mombasa Kenya where people get sanitized en masse before boarding public service vehicles or the ferry crossing. These are new ways of doing things.
Air transport has been affected too. Most national and private carriers are struggling in the wake of COVID-19. Most fleets have been grounded and many have turned to cargo transport for survival. The airspace has been closed for over two months. Who would have thought that this was even possible? According to the executive director of IATA. “The aviation sector is at its biggest crises ever – suffering even more that most economic sectors.” (Daily Nation, May, 12, 2020). Travel restrictions leading to hundreds of thousands cancellations, most airports are virtually empty, “unlike other players in the aviation industry, when traffic demand falls, airports have limited ways of reducing costs.” These are some of the challenges and changes that the aviation industry has to contend with in the wake of COVID – 19. Wearing of masks, personal hygiene and physical distancing will definitely be part and parcel of the aviation industry post- COVID-19.
Some of the examples mentioned above indicate some behaviours that can easily change because they are part of what we have called the surface structure of a culture. Behaviours that can be influenced easily through contact with other cultures just like the tip of the iceberg that is vulnerable to weather patterns and gets eroded and melted easily these behaviours too can change easily.
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.
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