Latin culture

[Jambo]

One can learn so much on Salsa Forums

 

[hyh]

Just for the record, and speaking as a cultural anthropologist, the idea that there is such a thing as "Latin" culture is absurd.

You may be a cultural anthropologist based upon having written a thesis on a small sub-topic, but I doubt that your position reflects the position of all cultural anthropologists. After all academics thrive on arguments and controversies.

No doubt there are academics who find large groupings problematic (e.g. placing Russian, French, English and German into a "European" culture or Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese into "Far East" culture) and finds the same problem with "Latin" culture spanning Mexico, Cuba, Argentina and Brazil. It's an arguable point, but I don't think it makes the terms absurd in my opinion. There will always be grey area of boundary no matter how small you make cultural groupings (unless possibly if you make groups out of individual people - even then you'll get people who will object to being "pigeonholed" into a category someone else defined).

hyh, I think that my response to sweavo, above, explains part of what I'm getting at. Just to be clear though, I am not a "cultural anthropologist based upon having written a thesis on a small sub-topic," but upon haven taken years of schooling and training in cultural anthropology, read hundreds of books on the subject, presented at professional conferences, written published scholarly articles on the subject, and being a university professor who teaches more cultural anthropology classes than any other faculty member at my university.

Okay, professor Marion. You have better qualification than I originally surmised. I guess I sounded a bit belittling and I apologize for that.

While you are undoubtedly right that there are probably other cultural anthropologists who would disagree with me, I feel confident that my position is the mainstream one within the discipline. Likewise, while you may be right that argumentation is a key element of the academic enterprise, it is not for the sake of arguing and controversy as your post suggests, but for the sake of deeper learning and understanding.

I wasn't calling your position non-mainstream - I was merely suggesting that the opposing position probably isn't considered "fringe" enough to make your statement "The idea that there is such a thing as "Latin" culture is absurd," self-evident.

You are correct about large groupings being problematic, and much of that is because where do you then draw the line on how large you go? If its OK to ignore the differences between Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese, why not also ignore their differences from the Germans and talk about human culture? The reason is because the lack of specificity in speaking about "human culture" makes any statements rather meaningless (i.e. no more than overly generalizing abstraction), and this is really true of "Asian," "Latin," and "European" categories as well.

I don't see a problem talking about human culture. Obviously this would make more sense if there are other type of cultures to compare and contrast (e.g. Vulcans, Romulans, Minbari, Ewoks, etc. alas they're fictional). Actually there are people who claim and study chimpanzee culture, orangutan culture, etc. so I guess my position is still okay.

Boundaries are problematic as both of us agree. However, I find it difficult to believe that people would not see more similarity between Chinese and Japanese culture compared to Japanese and German.

If one takes classical music as an example of culture, considering the different sources as whole (composers from Germany, Italy, France as well as Russia, Finland, Poland, Czech, Spain, England, Denmark, Norway) makes just as much sense considering them individually. Same with Salsa (from New York, California, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Columbia, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Panama, etc).

You do have a point that ever-smaller specification can be a problem on the other side of this picture, and various modern theories of culture speak to this issue in suggesting that each individual represents a unique nexus of internalized cultural schemas (e.g. Strauss and Quinn 1998). Still, if we look at where ideas and patterns of behavior are shared—specifically which ones (i.e. key vs. optional ones)—and with whom, we can begin to assess the fuzzy borders of cultural groups. Likewise, as I have suggested elsewhere (Marion, forthcoming) “cultures” are best understood as the largest levels of such sharing, with “sub-cultures” representing more specific share-sets beyond the sharing of their “umbrella” culture.

Hope that helps clarify a bit more.

I don't think I'm interested enough to plunk down $40-$114 for Strauss and Quinn. Thanks for the suggestion nevertheless.

It all depends on what culture we're talking about anyway, no? If we're talking about Salsa, a subset of Latin America (plus USA) would be involved. If we're talking about Samba or Bossa Nova, the set becomes a bit different - I note that there are musicians who have dabbled with all 3 and more (notably people involved in Jazz).

In any case, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I still think the term Latin culture serves a purpose and is not absurd. Thanks for expanding on and clarifying your original statement.

 

[hyh]

So is it true that there are some systematic differences that can be noted in the aggregate when looking at the populations of entire continental land masses? Sure... but there are also just as many internal differences that "blanket" terms ignore. Speaking about a "Latin" identity or experience doesn't work when you look closely and realize that that's like saying there's no significant difference between growing up Argentinian, Bolivian, Cuban, Mexican, and Brazilian (etc.).

And then there's the point about differences in people/culture of different social strata. So even more restricted groupings like Cuban is problematic. Possibly to smaller degree compared to "Latin"...

I think I already did this with an American example.

Hip Hop, Country Western, and Salsa music can be considered a part of American culture despite the fact that majority of the American people don't care for one or more of them.

I realized one thing belatedly... I guess my position is that your original statement "Speaking as a cultural anthropologist, the idea that there is such a thing as "Latin" culture is absurd" is okay as long as you say the same about "European" or "Asian" culture - so there's really no disagreement... except that I still don't like the way it's phrased, especially the word "absurd."

Better would have been something like, "Speaking as a cultural anthropologist, the term "Latin culture" is too unwieldy and essentially meaningless at this time." (I added at this time because who knows what future anthropologists will say.)

 

[SDsalsaguy]

Wow, thanks SDSalsaGuy, I really appreciate you taking the time to post all that. Very helpful and interesting.

/edit: PM me if you ever need help writing a real time operating system

My pleasure sweavo, and sorry that I posted in such a rush the first time. Probably would have been wiser to have waited to form a more complete comment when I got home (from teaching a Cultural Anthropology class of course :lol.

PS - not sure I understand the real time operating system reference. A not so secret secret is that I'm fairly computer illiterate beyond user level competence.

 

[SDsalsaguy]

Okay, professor Marion. You have better qualification than I originally surmised. I guess I sounded a bit belittling and I apologize for that.

No offense taken hyh, and no apologies necessary. Academia is just one way of "knowing" things, and not inherently any better or worse than any other. I don't think my degree makes me any more qualified to have an opinion or make me any more "right" than anyone else... what it does do, however, is serve as the qualification to speak as a cultural anthropologist, so I was merely trying to clarify that. Basically, the same as anyone can have an opinion about salsa but you want to know someone's dance credentials before you listen to them too closely, I was just wanting to clarify why I felt comfortable saying "speaking as a cultural anthropologist..."

I don't see a problem talking about human culture. Obviously this would make more sense if there are other type of cultures to compare and contrast (e.g. Vulcans, Romulans, Minbari, Ewoks, etc. alas they're fictional). Actually there are people who claim and study chimpanzee culture, orangutan culture, etc. so I guess my position is still okay.

Sure, relative to non-humans there certainly is a human culture that can be spoken about to productive effect... but precisely insofar as human similarities vastly outweigh human differences relative to non-humans. So while its true that there may be notable differences between peoples grouped as "Latin" "Asian" "African" and "European," the fact remains that the internal differentiation is tremendously large, and oftentimes more so than between groups if analyzed closely.

As something of a tangent, modern anthropological considerations of "race" have been extremely important in this regard, especially in demonstrating the lack of any genetic sustainability to the concept. Case in point: the genetic similarity between any two humans on the planet is greater than the genetic similarity between two chimpanzees from the same band! (For those who are interested, here's a link to the American Anthropological Association's award winning project "RACE - Are We So Different?" :arrow: http://www.understandingrace.org/home.html)

don't think I'm interested enough to plunk down $40-$114 for Strauss and Quinn. Thanks for the suggestion nevertheless.

No worries. Just trying to give credit wear it is due when citing academic sources.

 

[SDsalsaguy]

And then there's the point about differences in people/culture of different social strata. So even more restricted groupings like Cuban is problematic. Possibly to smaller degree compared to "Latin"...

Absolutely hyh, and hence my points that (a) such borders are always "fuzzy," and (b) that the basic questions involved concern what level of sharing and of what specific "items." I wholeheartedly agree that social status and class make a big difference, and at times one that supersedes other cross-cutting issues such as nationality, "race," gender, (depending on the topics/issues/experiences involved of course).

I realized one thing belatedly... I guess my position is that your original statement "Speaking as a cultural anthropologist, the idea that there is such a thing as "Latin" culture is absurd" is okay as long as you say the same about "European" or "Asian" culture - so there's really no disagreement... except that I still don't like the way it's phrased, especially the word "absurd."

Better would have been something like, "Speaking as a cultural anthropologist, the term "Latin culture" is too unwieldy and essentially meaningless at this time." (I added at this time because who knows what future anthropologists will say.)

Fair enough, and please note that I do say the same thing about using terms like "European," "Asian," or "African" culture. And I also agree that my use of the term "absurd" was unfortunate. As I'd noted in my previous post to sweavo I was rushing out the door (to go teach a Cultural Anthropology class actually), and it would have been better if I had waited until I got home to compose a more thoughtful response. I can't say that the notion of "Latin culture" doesn't strike me as absurd, but that certainly came across differently than I'd meant it -- which was more along the lines of "it would be absurd for a cultural anthropologist to ignore so much cultural variation under such a blanket label without specific caveats already being in place for using such a term" -- and for that I do apologize.

 

[sweavo]

PS - not sure I understand the real time operating system reference.

It's what I spend all day doing... kind of a trade for you taking time out of a busy day of cultural anthropology to teach me some cultural anthropology

 

[SDsalsaguy]

PS - not sure I understand the real time operating system reference.

It's what I spend all day doing... kind of a trade for you taking time out of a busy day of cultural anthropology to teach me some cultural anthropology

Gotcha. Probably wouldn't be able to figure out what help I could need in reference to a real time operating system until I actually understand what that means, but part of who I am is a teacher, and that doesn't stop at the classroom door, so I'm always happy to pass along whatever understandings I can.