Page 10 - Cultural Studies A Practical Introduction

Preface

The word culture has always had multiple meanings. In one sense of the
word, culture is inseparable from human life. Everything from how we
dress to what we eat, from how we speak to what we think, is culture. You
only notice this really when you change place and enter another culture.
Try crossing a border, any border, and you ’ ll feel it. When I visited Saudi
Arabia, I was warned not to speak to women on the street or in other places
of potential casual contact. American culture regulates such encounters
differently; speech between men and women who are not direct acquaint-
ances is more tolerated so long as inappropriate speech or physical contact
is avoided. But clearly, they do things differently and regulate male – female
social interactions differently in Saudi Arabia. Culture in this sense is the
unstated rules by which we live, rules that regulate our everyday practices
and activities without our thinking about them or noticing them.
Culture becomes visible when we travel between “ cultures ” and when
we look back in time to other “ cultures ” than our own. In Saudi Arabia
most men who are part of the extended Saudi families that rule the country
wear long loose white robes and red checkered head scarves. The scarves
are different one from the other, with each indicating which tribe the man
belongs to. Women wear long black robes, some covering their entire faces.
One can see them standing looking in shop windows that display colorful
Italian women ’ s evening gowns, which can only be worn in Saudi culture
in the privacy of one ’ s own home. To do so in public would be an offense
to the reigning religious beliefs and practices, the dominant culture. If one
travels to the source of those Italian gowns – to Rome, say – one sees a
quite different culture that registers itself in a very different style or fashion
of dress. Young women wear open blouses that expose decorative brassieres
and they look quite different from Saudi women. Italian men also look
remarkably different in dress, although similarly uniform in other respects.