Culture in the postmodern context is seen not as ‘static, homogenous, closed, ordered and territorial’ but ‘ever-changing, fragmented, porous, chaotic, and translocal.’[1] Culture in postmodernity is:
…a pattern of meanings encased in a network of symbols, myths, narratives and rituals, created by individuals and subdivisions, as they struggle to respond to the competitive pressures of power and limited resources in a rapidly globalizing and fragmented world, and instructing its adherents about what is considered to be the correct way to feel, think and behave.[2]
[1] Arbuckle, G.A. (2010) Culture, Inculturation, and Theologians: A Postmodern Critique (Liturgical Press), xxi, 4-5.
[2] Ibid., 1-16, 17; ritual – the ‘stylized or repetitive symbolic use of bodily movement and gesture within a social context, to express and articulate meaning’, Arbuckle, G.A. (1990) Earthing the Gospel: An Inculturation Handbook for the Pastoral Worker (London: Geofrey Chapman), 96, citing Bocock, R. (1974) Ritual in Industrial Society: A Sociological Analysis of Ritualism in Modern England (London: George Allen & Unwin), 35-59.
Very interesting indeed! Here in Scandinavia (as for many other Western-European countries), there is an ongoing debate to define “culture”, and our own identity in this ever changing world.
Here is an article we published about the theme that I believe you will find interesting: http://thornews.com/2013/01/21/what-is-norwegian-culture-an-ongoing-debate/
ThorNews: Thanks. Your article is indeed interesting. Indeed everywhere and everyone suddenly finds the need to seek one’s cultural root in this age of uncertainty amid waves of changes which are hard to get used to within a short span of time. Cultural changes in the past, with the absence of globalisation, can be unnoticed. Not so today.