Culture change

About: Culture change is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1531 publications have been published within this topic receiving 41922 citations. The topic is also known as: cultural change & culture changes.

Modernization, stress, and blood pressure: new directions in research.

Abstract: The relationship between modernization and blood pressure has been formally examined in anthropology for some 3 decades. A prominent hypothesis to account for the increase in blood pressure in more modernized (or economically developed) communities is the stressful nature of cultural and social change. Research has progressed from hypothesizing that culture change is stressful to trying to operationalize theoretical models of what it is about culture change that is stressful and in turn relating those more precise variables to blood pressure variability within and between communities. Here, I selectively review the literature on modernization and blood pressure, especially the research literature that explicitly uses models of the stress process to guide that research. The most interesting results have been obtained when the use of the stress model has been informed by careful ethnographic work. This has enabled researchers to adapt models of the stress process to be culturally appropriate in local populations. In addition, incorporating an explicit model of culture, especially one that is sensitive to intracultural diversity, has led to new hypotheses regarding the modification of the effects of stressors by social and cultural context. I conclude with a discussion of recent innovations in ethnographic methods, specifically the cultural consensus model, and the use of those methods in operationalizing relevant variables in culturally appropriate and sensitive ways. The utility of combining these methods in the study of modernization and blood pressure is illustrated by recent research in Brazil.

Social relations and material culture: A critique of the archaeology of plantation slavery

Abstract: suggestions for enhancing the theoretical underpinnings of archaeological work. First, a look at the use of cultural markers points up the need for a more sophisticated approach to the issue of culture change. Next is an exploration of the ways in which interpretations of material culture can be enriched through a more dynamic understanding of context. Finally, the usefulness of status definitions for modeling plantation social relations is assessed. To begin, a discussion of the relation between historical archaeology and the discipline of history brings out a curious fact: most archaeologists’ notions about the purpose of history have hindered the participation of historical archaeology in some of the most interesting debates in the historiography of American slavery, centering on the meaning of slave culture. Social Relations and Material Culture: A Critique

Is there a way to talk about making culture without making enemies

Abstract: We are seeing the beginnings of a process of folkloricization of various Tukanoan cultural traits. Perhaps in the future we shall see the commoditization of them. Elsewhere in the hemisphere various interest groups, including indigenous groups themselves, package and promote “Indianness.” The cultural forms that are retained from earlier traditions can therefore totally change in meaning. This poses problems when we talk about cultures using an organic model, because we find we cannot describe these processes in other than negative language. Both anthropologists and pro-Indian activists at times find it academically and/or politically expedient to talk of culture as enduring over time: while changing, these cultures are nonetheless seen as remaining the same in some fundamental ways. But when, as is beginning to occur in the Tukanoan case, traits are retained, cast aside or redefined as part of a self-conscious awareness and promotion of a particular kind of Indian identity as a political strategy, the meaning of these traits has often radically changed. We cannot use a quasi-biological model to account for these similarities over time. Since resemblances between earlier forms of Tukanoan culture and later forms may be superficial, conceiving of a culture in terms of traits that persist over time can be misleading. We need to think of culture change over relatively short periods of time in a more dynamic fashion, rather than as either the “same” or “syncretized” or “lost.” We need to see Tukanoans and others as creating and improvising, rather than possessing, culture. And we need to create and invent models and metaphors that analyze this process in nonderogatory terms. Some of the ways in which Tukanoans, over the last twenty years, in some respects have come to represent “authentic” Indians who possess moral superiority have been described. However, Tukanoan culture, like Indian culture in general, will also continue to be seen pejoratively — as backward, foreign, “savage.” Tukanoans will respond to these contradictory and ambivalent evaluations and will dialogically derive new self-representations in creative, unforeseen ways. Outsiders will not necessarily be privy to the process of creating these new meanings and may misinterpret some aspects of the new Tukanoan self-representations because they will sometimes be encountering only thetok masta version of the culture Tukanoans are inventing, the part for public consumption. But because these outsiders —priests, highland Indians, anthropologists, etc. —have their own axes to grind about which cultural forms should be valorized and which are better left where they fell by the wayside, and because interactions between Tukanoans and these outsiders occur in conditions of asymmetrical power relations, these outsiders will have played an important role in the creation of any new representations of Tukanoan identity. Our analytical language makes it difficult to describe these processes without using negative, valueladen words, even when we especially wish to sound as neutral, descriptive, and objective as possible. In Colombia, discussion of Indian culture and identity occurs daily. Present-day Indians are becoming part of Colombia's national heritage, just as the historical Andean Indian groups have been for decades. But the pre-Colombian Indians are dead and have no say in determining how their culture and identity are fashioned by the dominant ideology. Tukanoans, on the other hand, and other living Indians, assume an active role in this process. Regardless of the motives of those in the metropole — to somewhat paradoxically create unifying symbols of pluralism, avoid guerrilla-Indian alliances, promote tourism, win votes —Tukanoans and non-Tukanoans are locked together in this ongoing act of creation. We are witnessing the beginnings of a self-conscious indigenism, wherein Tukanoans' vision of themselves as Indian is generated out of their fundamental embeddedness in the larger society. Tukanoans in Mitu witnessed bare-breasted Tukanoan women dancing in a celebration of Mitu's fiftieth anniversary in 1986, even though women have covered their breasts in ceremonies and everyday life for a number of years. Or they can visit a cultural center in Mitu whose goal in part is to recreate the traditional longhouse and the artifacts it contains. The structure and the artifacts are to some extent “authentic,” but the notion of a longhouse built for this purpose is utterly foreign. Tukanoans also see artifacts on the walls of rooms in the Prefecture and other public buildings in Mitu, and they themselves manufacture replicas for sale to tourists. Insofar as Tukanoans — rather than Catholic missionaries — come to control these activities, they will be validating their past with a form appropriated from the dominant culture. As such, the meaning of the architecture, the artisanal skills, the dances, etc., will have radically changed. Tukanoans are appropriating new, politicized and folkloricized frameworks, such as CRIVA's newspaper and the culture center, as a means of expressing their cultural identity. Hence, we can see Tukanoans beginning the process of coming to see themselves as “having” a culture. They are learning how to think of themselves in this fashion with input from both whites and other Indians. Newly introduced notions of Tukanoan culture, such as the Mitu cultural center, are perhaps a very preliminary example of Handler's discussion of how nationalist ideologies prove the existence of the nation through possession of a culture. This essay is about how the meaning of Tukanoan culture and identity is constantly being rethought, reshaped, and negotiated. Meaning is often spoken of in anthropology in overly static terms. For example, Geertz speaks of cultural man as “an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun.” As Mattingly notes, this is an image of meaning as something contained and held. Pidgin-creole languages offer a useful way, similar to Bakhtin's notion of dialogics, to see culture and identity as something in flux, something negotiated and grasped for, as opposed to acquired and possessed. Tukanoans are beginning to formulate self-representations in a process similar to other Indians elsewhere on the two continents. This process, of course, happens in non-Indian contexts, as well. The ambivalence towards Tukanoans as representatives of tropical-forest Indians is analogous to how Bedouin symbols are used in the Jordan valley or images of traditional villagers in Japan. What we need is a more creative language that neither overly romanticizes nor denigrates this process. This essay has suggested looking at pidgin-creole studies for inspiration. Pidgin-creoles were earlier seen as “barbarous dialects,” disdained by laymen and linguists alike. Only recently have linguists begun to speak of this stepchild as a potential Cinderella for linguistic theory. The study of “inauthentic,” “public,” “created” culture is now being upgraded, if the amount of articles and books is any indication. Perhaps analogous to the contributions pidgin-creoles have made to linguistic theory, we may see an equivalent contribution to anthropological theories about culture from understanding “inauthentic” cultural forms like the Tukanoan examples discussed in this essay. If we are forced to find new ways to talk about situations like the one emerging among Tukanoans, we may find our theory and method much enhanced.

Culture Change Management in Long-Term Care: A Shop-Floor View:

Abstract: Advocates of culture-change management suggest that the right sort of managerial philosophy can transform nursing homes from impersonal institutions into safe, caring communities. However, participant observation carried out at Heartland Community, a nonprofit culture-change nursing home, suggests that culture change founders on the structural problem of inadequate staffing. Resource limitations imposed by Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement rates mean that even nonprofit facilities desiring to maximize staffing cannot afford to hire enough staff to live up to basic care standards. Thus, above-average staffing notwithstanding, Heartland's nursing aides could not complete their work on time without compromising the quality of care by breaking important care rules. Resource limitations also forced management to adopt a series of punitive personnel policies that actively undercut the rhetoric and aims of culture change, turning culture change into a rhetorical device for shifting blame for care problems from...

Culture Change in Long-Term Care

Abstract: * Foreword * SECTION 1 INTRODUCTION TO CULTURE AND VALUES IN LONG-TERM CARE * Unloving Care Revisited: The Persistence of Culture * Managing Organizational Culture Change: The Case of Long-Term Care * Culture Change in Long-Term Care Facilities: Changing the Facility or Changing the System? * The Historical Context of "Humanistic" Culture Change in Long-Term Care * Leading Culture Change in Long-Term Care: A Map for the Road Ahead * Achieving Organizational Change Within the Context of Cultural Competence * The Changing Consumer: The Social Context of Culture Change in Long-Term Care * Family Caregivers, Health Care Professionals, and Policy Makers: The Diverse Culture of Long-Term Care * Pioneer Network: Changing the Culture of Aging in America * SECTION 2 MODELS OF CULTURE CHANGE IN LONG-TERM CARE * Evolution of Eden * Culture Change in Long Term Care: The Wellspring Model * Models for Individuals with Alzheimer Disease: Beyond the Special Care Framework * Peer Mentoring of Nursing Home CNAs: A Way to Create a Culture of Caring * The Live Oak Regenerative Community: Championing a Culture of Hope and Meaning * SECTION 3 CASE STUDIES: IMPLEMENTING CHANGE * Teresian House--Using the Environment to Support Cultural Change * Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation--Culture Change in an Urban Environment * The Providence Mount St Vincent Experience * Organizational Culture and Bathing Practice: Ending the Battle in One Facility * The Power of Circles: Using a Familiar Technique to Promote Culture Change * SECTION 4 CASE STUDIES: CULTURE CHANGE BRIEFS * Introduction to Case Studies: Culture Change Briefs * Apple Health Care: Culture Change in a Privately Owned Nursing Home Chain * Case Study Brief: The Lyngblomsten Care Center, St Paul, MN * SECTION 5 AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE * Using Strengths-Based Practice to Support Culture Change: An Australian Experience * Implementing the Eden Alternative(R) in Australia * Beyond the Medical Model--The Eden Alternative(R) in Practice: A Swiss Experience * Changes in Long-Term Care for Elderly People with Dementia: A Report from the Front Lines in British Columbia, Canada * SECTION 6 IS CHANGE REALISTIC? * Quality Oversight and Culture Change in Long-Term Care * Policy Values and Culture Change in Long-Term Care--The Role of State Government in Catalyzing Change * Selecting a Model or Choosing Your Own Culture * Successfully Surviving Culture Change * Index * Reference Notes Included