Cultural Identity Blog #1

     Identity to me is one of the most important aspects of my life, without a true identity people would be like robots, walking around day-to-day doing the same things over and over. Identity is what sets a person apart from the rest of the world and how that person can come to the sense that they matter and what their doing might not be important to someone else but to them it is everything. “It is about who we are and who others think we are.” (Martin & Nakayama, 2013 p. 170).  This is the problem in the world we have today with all the different races, ethnic groups, and religions there is bound to be problems, but why? I was raised by the classic phrase; treat others how you want to be treated. So all this nonsense just doesn’t make to much sense to me these days.

 

In our book, Intercultural Communication in Contexts, in order to understand identity, the authors break down three communication approaches: social science, interpretive, and critical.  The social science approach focuses more on the self-aspect and how you can relate to a certain group. Through a individualized identity, familial identity, and spiritual identity one can have a sense of self. The interpretive identity is more focused on communication with others and emphasizes two distinct concepts: avowal and ascription. Avowal is more about what an individual portrays him/herself as whereas; ascription is what others attribute identities to an individual. The last communication approach is the critical perspective, which emphasized more context and how are identities are shaped through historical forces. These different approaches can help us understand the horrible crisis that is going on in Syria.

I really was out of the loop with everything that is happening in Syria, I will admit I do not follow current issues as well as I should. So the “ 9 Questions About Syria that you were too embarrassed to ask” article really helped. In Syria, it is a very diverse culture, different ethnically and religiously, which is the main reason behind this madness.  A lot of the population of Syria is ethnic Arab and follow the Sunni Branch of Islam, but the dictatorship soon took over. The fight that broke out between the government forces and the civilians that rebelled against have a created a mass killing of 100,000, and with half of them being children there around 2 million refugees (Fisher, 2013).  This is where the United Stated decided it was time to intervene. With all the different identities at stake, the U.S. has to find a common ground.

References

Martin, J.N., & Nakayama, T.K. (2013). Intercultural communication in contexts (6th ed.) New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

Fisher, M. (13, August 29). 9 questions about Syria you were too embarrassed to ask.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/08/29/9-questions-about-syria-you-were-too-embarrassed-to-ask/

(Photo credit: Cole Henley) http://www.flickr.com/people/cole007/

(Photo credit: Reuters/Osman Orsal) http://muftah.org/syrian-refugees-in-turkey-–-opportunities-and-pitfalls/