Where Does Culture Come From?
The internet has rapidly influenced the rate of globalization, making the world increasingly connected and interdependent. The acceleration of the integration of nations into the global system is constant and irreversible. As the world becomes more unified, how will culture and design evolve?
Design is an ever-changing field that both influences and is influenced by the culture it exists in as well as culture at large. Modern-day design inspires itself by twisting what already exists and turning it into something better, more meaningful, and sustainable. Design plays an important role in preserving and communicating culture within communities – especially in a globalizing and homogenizing world. This case study will investigate where culture comes from, how it impacts design, and how it will be preserved in a globalizing world.
THe CONCEPT OF CULTURE
There are countless meanings for the word culture; this itself implies the complexity of the concept. Taken literally, the word culture means tilling the soil, or cultivation. In the past few decades, the broader metaphorical meaning of culture has derived from anthropology to collective ways of acting, thinking, and feeling that distinguishes members of one group of people from others (Geert Hofstede, 2012) . Culture is the shared characteristics of a group of people, which encompasses, place of birth, religion, language, cuisine, social behaviors, art, literature, and music (National Geographic, 2023). Culture has evolved as a means of using symbols to construct social identity, maintain coherence within a social group, and build community.
WHERE DOES CULTURE COME FROM?
Put simply, culture comes from people and from community. People and community are a product of their environment. Thus, the different cultures we see around the world are primarily a response to the environments in which people live. The global environment is diverse; therefore, it has been necessary for humans to adapt to the unique demands of the environment in which they live.
how does culture impact design?
Design is the conceptualization and creation of new things. Modern-day design inspires itself by twisting what already exists and turning it into something better, more meaningful, and sustainable. Both culture and design are a product of people. Designers are inspired by their environment, perspectives, and experiences to conceptualize and create new things. Today, design and all its subfields are seen as mostly a commercial art form. Designers are tasked with grabbing the attention of a constantly moving global society.
There are a wide number of cultures across the globe that have different associations with colour, symbols, language, typography, forms, and structures. Culture holds strong power on how a society interprets the various elements of design. The shared set of values and human experience that form a culture are what inspires and encourages designers to ideate, create and design products and visual communication with more sensitivity to people’s lived experiences. Today, a lot of visual design identity is inspired by the culture around them.
Examples of culture's impact on design
Colors
The meaning of a color can shift from culture to culture. In some cultures, green is associated with environmentalism, luck, and growth. In other cultures, green symbolizes danger, illness and death (HC Yu, 2014).
Symbols
Symbols are so strongly ingrained in our systems and lived experiences that one look can help us understand what a brand, advertisement or the design itself stands for (Strate School of Design, 2022). The thumbs up hand symbol means “good” in some cultures and considered an insult in other cultures.
Language
Language is our tool to communicate with others and plays a significant role in the design process. When metaphors are translated between languages they often lose both their purpose and charm (Strate School of Design, 2022).
The way the world works now, cultures are usually broadly categorized by the geographic borders within which they reside. The modern world is structured in “nation-states”, also known as “countries”, which are geographic regions of the world ruled by a group of humans we call government (Srinivasan, 2022). Events like the World Cup and the Olympics further enforce the categorization of people by countries.
It is difficult to imagine – but countries are a relatively new concept. Prior to the 1500s, the European nation-state system as we know it did not exist. Back then, most people did not consider themselves part of a nation; they rarely left their village and knew little of the larger world. If anything, people were more likely to identify themselves with their region or local leader. Although the world is currently structured in countries, globalization is accelerating the integration of nations into the global system.
National cultures are the collective ways people from a nation act, think and feel. The “culture” of a nation opposes otherwise similar people across countries. The cultural differences between countries are often rooted in values learned at a young age. Children learn from their parents who also learnt from their parents, making culture something that takes generations to evolve and change.
There are plenty of academic models, theories and sophisticated databases that try to categorize and define the cultures of countries in an attempt to understand the complex intricacies of how people from a certain nation act, think and feel. The most widely known of these models is Hofstede’s cultural dimension model which was released in the 1970’s. Hofstede identified six dimensions that could distinguish one culture from another and scored each country on a scale of 0 to 100 for each dimension.
Source: Miller, 2022
It is interesting to note that most cultural categorization tools are made in the context of commerce and management and not in the context of lifestyle and community.
Cultural Mapping Tools:
● Hofstede Model Culture Compass
● The Culture Map - A Country Mapping Tool by Erin Meyer
While categorizing national cultures can help identify certain patterns – There is much more nuance to culture than what these models can provide. As the world continues to globalize, these models make broad assumptions and fail to recognize the many micro-cultures within the geographic borders of a nation that were created by politicians, wars, and bureaucracies. Chad, one of the most diverse countries in the world, Africa has 8.6 million residents from 100 different ethnic groups (Fisher, 2013).
Here are some examples of cultures that contrast from their geographic countries culture:
● Quebec in Canada
● Taiwan in China
● Wales in the United Kingdom
The world as it exists right now has three layers: the local, the national, and the international. Your immediate environment, the local, always has and will always be the most impactful on culture. Since the advent of the internet over thirty years ago, the world has been globalizing at an exponential pace, increasing the prominence of the international layer. As the world becomes more unified on the global layer, regional culture will increasingly derive from local communities instead of being categorized by nations. Culture is shaped by your surroundings, which encompass not only the physical geography of your locale but also the digital communities you engage with. It emerges as a result of the way you allocate your time, the company you keep, and the manner in which you interact with your companions.
When working across cultures, we tend to think of the words “culture” and “country” interchangeably. For example, it is a widely accepted notion that in Eastern countries like Japan, cultural norms dictate that group harmony takes precedence over individual recognition and achievement in the workplace, while in Western countries like the U.S. and Germany, stronger emphasis is placed on individual accomplishment and performance at work. So, managers refer to “Japanese culture” or the “American way” of doing things when referencing work-related beliefs, norms, values, behaviors, and practices. The assumption that “country equals culture” results in expat managers trying to do things the Japanese way in Japan, the Brazilian way in Brazil, and so on (Kirkman et al., 2016).
According to author Colin Woodward, the United States of America can be divided into 11 distinct sub-nations by their cultural identity. Here is a map that Woodward created in his 2012 book "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America."
Source: Collin Woodward - Business Insider Article
A 2016 study challenged the common assumption that “country equals culture” by analyzing 558 studies on work-related values from 32 countries. The study found that country is a very poor "container" of culture (based on the work values assessed). The study actually found that 80% of the differences on these values were found within countries, and that less than 20% of the differences were found between countries.
As explained in an HBR article about the study, the study's results mean two important things:
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To talk about a "Japanese" or "Canadian" or "Greek" culture leaves a lot of room for error. The notion that you can generalize a country's work culture is just plain wrong.
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A Canadian walking down the street in Greece is likely to meet many Greek people with values closer to his or her own than to an “average” Greek culture. Assuming that national cultural stereotypes apply to most individuals in a country simply does not work.
The study then looked into what containers of culture might be superior to country by comparing culture to the following 17 other containers:
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Human Development Index
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Globalization Index
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long-term unemployment
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urbanization
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income inequality
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level of corruption
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crime rate
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employment in agriculture
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gender
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age
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generation
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number of years of education
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occupation
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socio-economic status
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civil and political freedom
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economic freedom
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GDP/capita
Shifting to Hyperlocalism & ONline communities
Out of this list, country was only the 15th best (or 3rd worst) container of culture, with only gender and age cohorts being inferior. According to researchers, the study results suggest that it may be more appropriate to talk about cultures of professions, socio-economic classes, and free versus oppressed societies, than about cultures of countries. "What that means is that if you put a bunch of physicians from different countries together in a room, they are likely to have more shared work-related values compared to a group of random people from the same country"(Kirkman et al., para. 7, 2016).
If culture doesn't come from countries... where does it come from?
As the world becomes more unified on the global layer, culture will increasingly derive from microcultures and local communities instead of being categorized by nations. As mentioned previously, culture is the shared characteristics of a group of people, which includes, place of birth, religion, language, cuisine, social behaviours, art, literature, and music (National Geographic, 2023).
Culture comes from your environment. Your environment encompasses the local geographic region you reside to the communities you spend your time in online. It is a product of how you choose to spend your time, who you choose to spend it with, and how you choose to communicate with them.
references
“Cultural Identity | National Geographic Society.” Education.nationalgeographic.org, education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/resource-library-cultural-identity/.“
Culture CompassTM - Hofstede Insights.” Hofstede Insights, 2017, www.hofstede-insights.com/product/culture-compass/.
Fisher, Max. “A Revealing Map of the World’s Most and Least Ethnically Diverse Countries.” The Washington Post, 16 May 2013, www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16/a-revealing-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-ethnically-diverse-countries/.
Hofstede, Geert. “National Cultures, Organizational Cultures, and the Role of Management.” OpenMind, 2012, www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/articles/national-cultures-organizational-cultures-and-the-role-of-management/.
“Influence of Culture on Design.” Strate School of Design, 2 May 2022, strate.in/influence-of-culture-on-design/#:~:text=And%20because%20the%20power%20culture.
Kirkman, Bradley, et al. “Research: The Biggest Culture Gaps Are within Countries, Not between Them.” Harvard Business Review, 18 May 2016, hbr.org/2016/05/research-the-biggest-culture-gaps-are-within-countries-not-between-them.“
Miller, K. (2022, March 14). Elucidation on Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions with examples. Crowjack. https://crowjack.com/blog/strategy/hofstedes-cultural-dimensions
Quebec - Cultural Life.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 2019, www.britannica.com/place/Quebec-province/Cultural-life.
Srinivasan, Balaji. “The Network State: How to Start a New Country.” Thenetworkstate.com, 4 July 2022, thenetworkstate.com/.“
Taiwan - Cultural Life | Britannica.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 2019, www.britannica.com/place/Taiwan/Cultural-life.“
The Country Mapping Tool.” Erin Meyer, erinmeyer.com/tools/culture-map-premium/.“
Wales - Health and Welfare | Britannica.” Www.britannica.com, www.britannica.com/place/Wales/Health-and-welfare#ref45123.
Woodard, Colin. American Nations : A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. New York, N.Y, Penguin Books, 2012.
Yu, Hui-Chih. “A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Symbolic Meanings of Color.” Chang Gung Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, vol. 7, no. 1, 2014, p. 1, citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=a829900f737bb9b4412aee884bfe7168bbde92af.