Cultural Reporter: Cherokee Indians

Cultural Reporter Blog

Culture is a defining element in everybody’s lives some let their culture define who they are while others live to define their own culture.  As said by Wen Shu Lee, “Culture = Shared language, beliefs, and values” (89 Martin, Nakayama).  In todays world many people still fall under this very structured definition of culture while others have broken out of the cultural mold of their descendants and took their acquired values and beliefs and learned to adapt and live and share their culture with many others.   For example I have a friend who I met duck hunting who’s family came from Korea and began practicing Judaism after they moved to Nebraska.  This is a perfect example of how cultures combine and people live a life with many different cultural influences instead of letting one dictate who they are.

The Culture I choose to focus on for my project is that of the Cherokee Indians.  They are one of the most widely know tribes from American history and there culture is still thriving decades after they were relocated from their home territories.  I read in an article found on Indians.org and it said, “Today, the largest population of Cherokee Indians live in the state of Oklahoma, where there are three federally recognized Cherokee communities with thousands of residents.”  This shows that the tribe is still going and that by researching the Cherokee Indians I hope to find out how the Cherokee culture has stayed the same and how it has differed since the first contact with the western world.

I plan to conduct my research using the critical approach uses observation.  “The goal of critical researchers is not only to understand human behavior but also to change the lives of everyday communicators.  Researchers assume that by examining and reporting how power functions in cultural situations, they can help the average person learn how to resist forces of power and oppression” (67 Martin, Nakayama).  That being said I plan on looking at cultural differences affected power in historical events that will help me understand how cultural differences affected communication between the Cherokee Indians and the outside world.

References

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

Lee, W.S. (2013). Intercultural communication in contexts (6th ed.) New York, NY: McGraw Hill

Indians.org (2013). Cherokee Indians Retrieved from:  http://indians.org/articles/cherokee-indians.html