Cultural Artifacts

If culture is, as one book on the CARLA list defines, “the learned and shared behavior of a community of interacting humans,” then I think considering virtual interactions are really significant, since many of our interactions now happen digitally. I tried to find half of my ‘cultural artifacts’ on my phone. Others are household items I keep and interact with in my apartment. Instead of doing one big review at the end, I've decided to look at how each item on the list is a reflection of culture, and only review their effects on my schooling at the end.

Family group chat: Since most of my family no longer lives together, we keep a group chat. Especially after moving overseas, my idea of family refers specifically to my immediate relations, the people I lived with growing up.

What-to-do-doily: My grandmother crochets religiously, so I learned young. What I find interesting about this... crocheted thing... is that it doesn't have a purpose or significance; I made it during church and added to it every week, just so I had something to do with my hands. Time used well is time that has a product, even if that product has no purpose outside its creation.

Google maps: Probably because I never stayed in one place very long, my sense of direction is virtually non-existant. I've never put much value in learning about how to get around the place I live, delegating to a computer.

Food Storage: Partially because I'm used to buying for a family, partially because it's so common in my church, I buy my food in bulk, prefering to have a storage of food to fall back on instead of buying food for specific, planned meals.

Amazon Prime: Living in a small village in England, my family used Amazon constantly for things we can't find in the closest town. Shopping shifted from a community-growing, social experience, to an experience focused on convenience.

Make-up shelf: Part of living in the US means there are expectations for how I look and present myself, so much so that given the choice between eating breakfast or preparing how I look, I'd most likely miss breakfast. Appearances are often valued over content.

Journal: Record-keeping is incredibly important in both my religion, and personally, but reading the Noel article makes me realize just how much we value creating physical, written copies of these records. Authority is given to stories that have physical backing. 

Books: How do I know what is cultural, and what is familial? My dad always, always valued formal education, almost to a fault. As a freshmen in highschool I read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged because I thought it would please my dad. There is a lot of value placed on being well-read, and being able to refer to knowledge I've gained at short notice.

Gospel Library: I grew up with scriptures in a christian home and environment, and have understood nearly every christian scriptoral illusion I've run across in my readings.

Military IDs: I'm an air force brat and have spent most of my life moving. Value is often given to quantity of experience over quality. My father is extremely patriotic and as much as I learn and study the faults of US government, policy, and culture, that's hard to let go of.

Identity: I'm not sure what to name this one, but it's a double whammy. First, I think part of my culture is this intense individuality, shown in the need to see ourselves in images or anthropomorphize buildings; see a Cards Against Humanity card and assign a person to it. The second is slam poetry, which I'm really REALLY into, and which highly values individual voices and stories.

Chore Chart: Growing up there was always a chore chart. We're expected to contribute to the communities (especially living spaces) that we share with others, and expect the same in return. But this often comes in the form of assigned chores, so that even though we are all working for one end goal, the goals are also individualized per person.

Memes!: One thing I find really interesting about internet culture is the idea of parody, of constant conversations playing off another persons statement. This harkens back to the value of creation, but also to the value of discussion and contribution.

Alarms: I constantly set reminders for everything I need to be doing. Although I'm not a terribly organized worker outside of school setting, time is valued monetarily, and time 'wasted' is mourned.

Poetry Group: I participate in a poetry group with my friends, valuing individual work and critique, and very, very discussion heavy. All of us think best when speaking aloud, so there's occasionally things said that weren't thought through first.

DIY: My mom tiled all our bathrooms when we moved. If it's broken, fix it; save money whenever possible; mend, mend, mend. The only things we don't do ourselves are the things that get REALLY nasty if we tried.

Poster Wall: There's this idea that if you don't have physical proof you went somewhere, you didn't go. There is a culture surrounding tourism and souvenirs, because your experiences are closely tied to your value as a person. Possibly, that's just my family though...

Flight: Because of how often we moved, there's little personal investment in physical locations, which is viewed more as an obstacle separating people and communities than it is anything else

Competition: Even at poetry slams, whose motto is basically, 'everyone matters' there is an element of competition and individual worth.

Music: Music is a huge part of my family, how we connect and interact. Because each of us have individual tastes and experiences with music, sharing music is a way of bonding and learning more about others; it's an intimate act.

Prior to reading Noel's article, I didn't realize how much the US school system is suited to my culture. My personal culture is individualistic, competitive, and organized through time in ways that align with educational focus on individual learning and practices. I learn very well through discussion and working on my own time. Although it was occasionally difficult to adjust to new schools (I had great difficulty in Louisiana schools that discouraged questions, which were seen as disrespectful, and did well in Alaska where individuality was highly valued) and meet differing expectations, these were fairly easy to overcome.