Transculturation

Transculturation is a term coined by Fernando Ortiz[?] in 1947 to describe the phenomenon of merging and converging cultures. In a modern context, this reflects communication and transportation technology's effects in countering cultural divergence: The tendencies of societies to drift apart, is being replaced by forces bringing them together.

The process of this convergence is incredibly complex, politicized, and very often hostile. Consider the most basic model, where the driving force for convegence is simple proximity. Boundaries, once separating people, and providing for a measure of isolation, ( and similarly - security ), then becomes the issue of a conflict when societies encroach upon one another; if a means to co-exist cannot be found. Often, history shows us, the processes of co-existance begins with hostilities, and soon convergence is achieved.

In one general sense, ethnoconvergence contains within it the subheadings of war, ethnic conflict, racism, multiculturalism, interracial marriage[?], and any other of a myriad topics that deal with more than one culture. In the other general sense, ethnoconvegence is the positive aspect of global phenomenae, perhaps best described simply as human events[?].

The caveat to this divergence, however, is change; via developing technologies for communication, and reproduction: Human mortality and reproduction provides for regeneration. The inability of societies to maintain divisions over generations, despite attempts to engrain divisive elements, is reflective of this. As parents die, their children have the opportunity to reflect upon the nature and validity of established non-convergent precepts, and change them if they like.

These changes often represent differences between homeland populations, and their diasporic communities abroad. Nevertheless, obstacles to ethnoconvergence are not great. The primary issue; language, ( hence, communication and education) can, be overcome within a single generation - as is evident in fascile acclimation children of foreign parents. English, for example, is spoken by more non-Anglo-American people than Anglo-Americans, making it the current lingua-franca, the worldwide defacto-standard international language.

Homogenization versus ethnoconvergence

It is observed that even in monolingual, industrial societies like urban North America, some individuals do cling to a "modernized" primordial identity, apart from others. Some intellectuals, such as Michael Ignatieff[?], argue that convergence of a general culture does not directly entail a similar convergence in ethnic identities. This can become evident in social situations, where people divide into separate groups, despite being of an dentical "super-ethnicity", such as nationality.

Within each smaller ethnicity, individuals may tend to see it perfectly justified to assimilate with other cultures, and some others view assimilation as wrong and incorrect for their culture. This common theme, representing dualist opinions of ethnoconvergence itself, within a single ethnic group is often manifested in issues of sexual partners and matrimony[?], employment preferences, etc. These varied opinions of ethnoconvergence represent themselves in a spectrum,; assimilation, homogenization, and cultural compromise[?] are commonly used terms for ethnoconvegence which flavor the issues to a bias.

Often it's in a secular, multi-ethnic environment that cultural concerns are both minimalised and exaccerbated; Ethnic prides are boasted, hierarchy is created ("center" culture versus "periphery") but on the other hand, they will still share a common "culture", and common language and behaviours. Often the elderly, more conservative-in-association of a clan, tend to reject cross-cultural associations, and participate in ethnically similar community-oriented activities. Xenophobes tend to think of cross-cultural contact as a component of assimilation, and see this as harmful.

Obstacles to ethnoconvergence

The obstacle to ethnoconvergence is ethnocentrism, which is the view that one's culture is of greater importance than anothers.' Ethnocentrism often takes different forms, as it is a highly personal bias, and manifests itself in countless aspects of culture. Religion, or belief, is the prime ethnocentric divider. Second is custom, which may overlap religion. With the adherence to each distinct component, comes the repulsion of the other. In most regions, ethnic divides are binary, meaning only two distinct cultures are present, each seeing the other as foreign. Many, however make the point that the binary example is the exception, and the norm is far more dynamic.

We can divide ethnicity into two distinct areas, as they relate to ethnoconvergence: Utilitarian traits, and traditional customs. Language usually falls into the first category, as people often do not attach to language a highly ethnic value. Learning a foreign language does not, in the eyes of most people, constitute a forfeiting of ones cultural heritage.

Religion, on the other hand, is a highly personal and attached part of culture. However, religion does not neatly correspond with ethnic identity. In many cosmopolitan societies, religion is everything - social, utilitarian, intellectual, political; from the point of view of people of immersed cultures; The very concept of ethnicity and its distinctions is incongruous to their immersed concepts.

In many societies, such as in those in Europe, languages are considered a significant component of ethnic values. This belies the fact that most Europeans reject learning other learn other languages. Quite the contrary, Europeans are often polyglots, and may label other individuals by their ethnicities; practical means of distinguishing cultures may resemble tendencies similar to ethnocentrism.

However, the political and cultural significance of regional or national languages are retained due to the fact that these polyglots conform to the linguistic norms of the place they visit - doing "as the Romans do". Thus, conforming to the "ethnic integrity" of the region.

It has even become a cliche that "to learn a new language is to adopt a new soul". There are many other examples of the essential significance of language. In pre-Russian Siberia, Tatar-Mongol[?] colonists in the Taiga often recognized indigenous speakers of Turkic languages as their "own people" and non-Turkic groups as "foreigners". This is in spite of the fact that these indigenous groups had a similar level of material culture, and shared much of a primitive culture with tribes foreign to the Muslim-Buddhist Tatar-Mongols.

See also:

• multiculturalism