1.4 An open versus closed concept of culture

Culture as the living environment or lifeworld has developed two different variants: the closed concept of culture conception and the open concept of culture. The closed view of culture represents the idea that one group of people all possess the same or very similar characteristics and therefore can be clearly defined through sharp demarcations. In contrast, the open view of culture represents a movement away from conceiving cultures as stable and homogenous containers.

If we conceive of cultures as closed or akin to containers, then we naturally run into a number of contradictions. This can be seen where an attempt is made to clearly define what belongs to a culture and what does not, in the sense of bivalent logic (e.g. 'right/wrong'; 'either/or'). A typical example of such thinking is evident when referring to the Germans as coffee drinkers and the British as having their tea at five o’clock.

Nevertheless, from a pragmatic point of view, a concept of culture that is closed in this sense may have some advantages since it reduces complexity and, with its typifying simplifications, enables us to gain an initial orientation with regard to cultural living environments of all kinds. Demarcations, however, are problematic because, due to migration movements and communication processes that have lasted for thousands of years, "no living environment is conceivable as a homogeneous culture unaffected by external influences" (Said, 1996).

Take language as an example. Today there are about 30,000 German speaking Namibians. Some of these are of German descent and their family history dates back to the time when Namibia was a German colony at the end of the 19th century. Others migrated to Namibia more recently and yet others were Namibian born but raised and educated in the former GDR and through this process they brought the language to Namibia. To perceive them as a homogenous group would not do justice to their identity.

Increasingly, since the mid-1990s or even earlier, an increasing number of arguments have been proposed that reject container thinking. The predominant focus of the criticism has been the idea that culture is synonymous with the nation-state, a type of thinking which is still dominant among the closed variants of the expanded concept of culture. Against the backdrop of globalization processes, however, notions of homogeneity, i.e. that a group of people basically share the same characteristics, are proving to be increasingly untenable since nation-state cultural constructions tempt us into making unrealistic generalizations that encourage stereotypes, as the following example suggests:

What the writer actually suggests is that being Dutch means working as efficiently as possible, indicating that all Dutch people have this objective, in contrast to people in India. He is not only generalising about Dutch people but also Indian people by saying that they are unpunctual and do not respond to calendar requests. In doing so he emphasises an either/or thinking, with the connotation of them and us. Such an undifferentiated thinking neither opens avenues to understanding his own behaviour nor the behaviour of his colleagues, let alone finding consensus and common ground.

The open view of culture represents multi-relational thinking. According to this understanding, not only national cultures are relevant, but also a range of other cultures, including profession, age, gender, social or educational status, club affiliation, family, all of which influence our values (what is seen as good, bad, to be strived for, to be avoided), behaviour and patterns of thinking.

This new open concept of culture allows for the fact that each person possesses not only multiple affiliations with many different cultures, but also that they might identify with these cultures to a greater or lesser extent. The boundaries from one culture to another are therefore not sharply definable and could be said to be fuzzy (Bolten, 2013). Viewed in this way, the influence of culture on a person’s lifeworld is therefore the ever-changing influence of an intricate and unique mix of the cultures to which they have been exposed or decide to belong.

Such a view would have enabled the Dutch person in our previous example to realize that he shares a number of affiliations with his colleagues and that while some may not share his sense of time and organisation, others will.

This emphasises once more that affiliation to a national culture is only one of many collectives that influence a person. Cultures therefore should not be conceived as sharply delimited fields of actors, but should rather be conceived of in terms of their links with other cultures and collectives. In this way the boundaries can be seen as blurred or fuzzy (Bolten, 2013) and should rather be considered as a network.

The following graphic illustrates the narrow and the expanded concept of culture as well as the closed and the open view of culture:

Source: Bolten, Jürgen (2015, p. 46), adapted and translated

The fact that there are quite different answers to the question of a person's origin, depending on their point of view, or that someone might have very different roles, makes it difficult to classify them definitively. A non-sharp definition of cultural affiliations therefore corresponds far better to reality: One might have a certain profession but at the same time be involved in numerous other roles and collectives, either within the family or through friendships, leisure or virtual relationships. This type of understanding of multi-collectivity was described by Hansen (2009) and is analogue to Bolten’s notion of multi-relational networks focusing on the relationships between actors (Bolten, 2014).

This understanding of culture has the advantage that it captures the changes within cultures and their dynamics. Thus, culture is diverse, fuzzy, heterogeneous and cohesive. Bolten (2015) describes this perspective as an either/or AND both/and perspective. From this viewpoint, the construction of something that is our own and something that is foreign is no longer tenable. Since the lifeworld is our familiar world, it provides sense and meaningfulness for everyday actions. For the individual, something is meaningful if it is characterized by relevance, plausibility, normality, enabling routines (cf. Schütz & Luckmann, 1979, p. 30).

If we view culture in the context of today’s globalization processes, then we can clearly observe that economic, technological and political as well as professional and personal networks have established themselves across national borders. This emphasises the understanding of culture as a multitude of open systems and open networks of cohesively connected collectives (Hansen, 2009; Rathje, 2009; Bolten, 2014), rather than coherent constructions of homogeneity.

Understanding culture from an either/or AND both/and perspective as the open concept suggests, allows us to consider Beibei’s sense of belonging from a multi-collective and multi-relational perspective. She identifies Leer as her home town and feels attached to it. Her name suggests that she or her family also feels attached to other collectives, which may or may not be China. If this is the case, the answer to the question of ‘Where do you come from?’ could be an either/or AND both/and, depending on her self-ascription. In our case she obviously considered her answer to be the most relevant in the specific context.

Viewing culture as an open, ever-changing system emphasises its knowledge-based and processual nature. This view is based on the understanding that culture is something which is dynamic, and uses a set of practices to create social reality. Such a process view of culture is linked to the understanding of culture as knowledge. We acquire knowledge through learning about the way things are done and thereby gradually gain a sense of familiarity. In this way, during the process of learning and developing meaning, the transition from the ‘unfamiliar’ to the ‘familiar’ is gradual. For an individual, something is meaningful if it is characterised by relevance, normality and enables routinised behaviour (cf. Schütz & Luckmann, 1979, p.30).

One example for a process in which people transition from the "unfamiliar" to the "familiar" is when we go for a longer time abroad, for example as expatriates, who are being sent by their companies to work for some years in another country. Take for example Alberto, who started to work in the Netherlands for his company as a manager. After some time of living there, he learned that how staff speak to their supervisors may sometime be a bit more forward than what he is used to at home. After it took him some time to get used to this, he grew familiar with this, and might even miss this way of communication when he is back in Italy. The same might be true for people who are switching their employers, even it is just at another side of the town. A start-up company might have different ways of communication as for example a large insurance company, which might also take some time to learn how to do things around here.

This process leads to cultural cohesion, and thus culture can be seen as the glue that connects people. The basis of this is common knowledge and shared meaning. This understanding of culture has the advantage that it captures the changes within cultures and across cultures.

We have now discussed cultural learning and change as a process. However, when things become more familiar and routinised, then structures are laid down, which we can refer to in future for orientation. This could be called culturalisation (Rathje, 2009). Thus, in the sense of both/and (see above), not only the process is important, but structure too. Therefore, we can place the various perspectives of culture along a continuum of structure and process (Bolten, 2013). Any one perspective should therefore not be seen as belonging to either structure or process in a binary sense, but rather as being situated on a gradient between the two.

Source: Bolten, Jürgen (2015, p. 46), adapted and translated. Images by Pixabay. Pixabay License

In a complex, globalised world we will often want to apply a perspective that tends more towards an open (and therefore processual) definition of culture. In order to do this, we need to look more closely at individuals and their membership of a number of groups or collectives, thus taking a micro-perspective. Equally, when we want to establish a trusting relationship with others, such a micro-perspective is important in order to gain the necessary in-depth knowledge of the other participants and to make a human connection without reference to pre-conceived categories. This allows us to see commonalities as well as differences. Hansen (2009) argues, in fact, that due to expanded mobility, migration and communication technology, an individual’s cultural affiliations are in one way becoming more complex, but in another may be becoming more similar. Today, for example, there is a much greater likelihood of sharing music preferences regardless of geographical location than was the case say 50 years ago. Also, it is more probable that we will meet people who, from their appearance seem to be migrants, yet were born and socialised in the domestic country.

With regard to cultural affiliation, it is important to bear in mind that new opportunities influence our identity. In fact, Hsueh-Hua Chen (2014) argues that: "In a globalized world, with a growing number of intercultural encounters, cultural identity is constantly being enacted, negotiated, maintained, and challenged through communicative practices". This could translate, for example, into someone feeling more strongly affiliated to the Spanish speaking community because they completed their internship in Spain and immersed themselves in the Spanish community in their home town. This example highlights that, from a multi-collective and multi-relational perspective, our construction of what belongs to us (‘ours’/the familiar) and what does not (‘theirs’/the foreign) no longer makes sense and the transition from the "unfamiliar other" to the "familiar other" is gradual and contextual.

As we can see that the "Fridays for Future" movement is not a closed, homogenous group in itself, what could be the consequences of this diversity within the group? On the one hand, the group might experience some sort of conflict within itself. Whereas the younger people believe to go into extreme measures to counter the extreme climate changes, the politicians might also look into other interests like endangering workplaces, and thus their voter bases with those measures. The scientist on the other hand might see themselves more in a counseling role, and might get easily frustrated in a harshly polarizing debate that works more on the basis of personal interests and feelings, rather than facts. On the other hand, it is possible that these different cultures might bring different perspectives and strengths to the table to drive the change that their movements is targeting.

We can see that "Fridays-for-Future" is a multi-collective in motion, whose dynamics is difficult to foresee, and will have to find an own culture to embed the different values and interests that it is made of.

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