Undoing the "Package Picture" of Cultures

‘Cooking lunch, that’s Swiss’: Constructing hybrid identities based on socio-cultural practices

“…Yet individuals living in and experiencing the 'in-between' of cultures often do not see themselves as hybrid (Gonçalves 2010;Bystydzienski 2011). The concept of culture has been subject to debate by many scholars across various disciplines (Keesing 1974;Gudykunst 1994, Scollon & Scollon 1995Hofstede 1998;Narayan 2000). Within the context of this study, I use the term culture to be 'the social heritage, including values (beliefs, aspirations, common understandings), norms (rules of conduct), and practices (what people do and say), assumed to be shared by a group with which individuals identify' (Bystydzienski 2011: 3).…”

Gender and multiculturalism at school: the NESB girls’ voices

“…Policies expressing ideals of gender equality and multicultural integration have been developed since the 1970s (Rizvi, 2006;Mills, Martino & Lingard 2007) however without considerable mention of gender inequalities in multicultural policies and vice-versa and, consequently, not considering the possibility of competing demands between these agendas. Feminist theories regarding gender and the demands of multiculturalism for migrant groups do not always seem compatible and are often perceived as having clashing interests (Okin, 1998;Moore, 2000;Narayan, 2000;Reitman, 2005;Song, 2005;Phillipis, 2007). Part of the explanation is that migrant women and women from NESB have experienced numerous problematic by-products of the immigration process (Tsolidis, 2001) with possibly the most relevant fact being that women frequently stay in the home and out of the social sphere once in the new country (Martin, 1986;Naidu, 2013).…”

“…It also often included a demand on women to break with their cultural identity and group (Okin, 1998a;Phillips, 2007). They observed that frequently, religious or ritualistic behaviours from a culture were the ones the community leaders 'selectively label' as the behaviours needing protection, meaning, among all behaviours displayed in that social group community leaders would select some behaviours as the ones necessary to keep group cohesion and cultural heritage, ignoring other possibly equally important behaviours (Narayan, 2000). These 'selectively labeled' practices were often abusive to women, children or any member who challenged the community norms, and these members would pay the price for a policy of uncritical "tolerance" that only really benefited those holding power (Okin, 1998a;Firmini, 2009).…”

“…Conversely, some feminist critiques have made the same mistake as the multiculturalists they criticised, showing a partial or complete denial that culture is dynamic and changes through contact with other cultures or ignoring aspects of similar inequality still present in the mainstream (Narayan, 2000;Volpp, 2001;Anthias, 2002). Even though minority groups often feel the need to protect some cultural practices for fear of them not already having been covered by existing laws, or fearing resistance from mainstream culture to some minority practices, there are several examples of congruence between majority and minority cultures, including positive social practices and negative ones such as social justifications to women's oppression (Okin, Cohen, Howard, & Nussbaum, 1999;Anthias, 2002;Duran, 2003;Fraser, 2007).…”

“…The 'right to exit' one's own cultural group must be complemented by the 'right to stay' (Phillips, 2007), the recognition of society's responsibility towards minority women (Okin, 1998b) and acknowledgement that all cultural aspects can change if allowed to (Narayan, 2000). There is a long tradition in theorizing the relationship between different social projects or identities and in recent years it has been called 'intersectionality' (Walby, Armstrong & Strid, 2012).…”