Topic
Westernization
About: Westernization is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1154 publications have been published within this topic receiving 15791 citations. The topic is also known as: occidentalization.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of Western acculturation and modernization on traditional activities of the Yoruba of Nigeria were examined in Ado and Igede-Ekiti communities.
Abstract: The Yoruba of Nigeria have some rich cultural heritages which have been impacted by Western acculturation. Two Yoruba communities, Ado and Igede-Ekiti with such valuable cultural heritage were used for this study. The effects of Western acculturation and modernization which may be through Christianity and formal education were examined. It was discovered that these cultural elements and activities have negatively been impacted on. Some cultural practices are either going or have gone into extinction while others are gradually abandoned. This research highlighted some of the traditional activities of the people of Ado and Igede-Ekiti, and examined the impacts of westernization on them. Findings from the research indicated that modernization has both beneficial and adverse effects on the entire tradition of the people but the negative impacts are more pronounced. This research suggested some solutions to the problems facing cultural activities and recommended that, in this contemporary period, urgent measures should be taken to salvage and rescue these heritages using modern methods and equipment. This will help national integration and development. Keywords: Westernization, indigenous, values, tradition, contemporary
3 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the lack of a reference to religio-cultural obstacles to individuation, modernity, and even democracy in Turkey is unconvincing.
Abstract: The mainstay of the Turkish modernization project in the twentieth century has been relegating religion to the private sphere. To this end, traditions associated with Islamic civilization were banned from Turkish public life: women gained a degree of public presence and the semblance of equality; Western style clothing became the only acceptable mode in public life; traditional laws with religious character gave way to modern legal codes; and, above all, the Arabic script was replaced by its European counterpart. With all due respect to modern Turkey's founder Kemal Ataturk, especially his vision for a new Turkey and statesmanlike tact in laying its grounds, the political and intellectual climate of the 1920s was more suitable for carrying out such a radical program of cultural change than that of our time. The reigning intellectual climate in Turkey and the West has changed drastically since then. The success of postmodernist critiques of reason and Enlightenment in the West gradually undercut the intellectual supports of secularization in Turkey, and the westernized Turkish intelligentsia came to be divided within itself. (1) The Nobel Prize laureate Orhan Pamuk (2006 literature) has been skeptical of Turkey's state-led modernization project from early in his career. At its current and most mature state of evolution, his perspective seems to be in tune with that of contemporary critics of the Enlightenment in the West who claim that there is not a binary opposition between modernity and religion. (2) This aspect of Pamuk's art drew international academic attention after the publication of Snow, his self-avowed first and last political novel. (3) Leonard Stone interprets Pamuk's artistic views on the rise of political Islam and the future of democracy in Turkey as cautious optimism. David Coury argues--perhaps erroneously (Pamuk was critical of secular republicanism from early on)--that Snow signifies a shift in Pamuk's political loyalties. (4) Having said this, Pamuk's bitter criticism of state-led modernization in Turkey does not necessarily correspond to Islamic ties or sympathies. If anything, Pamuk defines himself as a rationalist, (5) and according to his former translator Guneli Gun's account, he is a nonbeliever. (6) Scholarly opinion, however, is divided over the extent of his commitment to rationalism. The majority of Pamuk's critics characterize him as a relativist, (7) or a skeptical postmodernist, (8) but Marshall Berman, on the contrary, maintains that Pamuk would probably die for ideas including modernity, the Enlightenment, and secular humanism. (9) This article seeks to interpret Pamuk's emerging optimism in Snow concerning the rise of political Islam and the future of democracy in Turkey from a culturalist perspective on modernization and development, which holds that some cultures are more suitable for social, political, and economic progress than others. (10) Within this context, this article maintains that, in contradistinction to Pamuk's earlier novels, the lack of a reference to religio-cultural obstacles to individuation, modernity, and even democracy in Snow is unconvincing. To go a step further, Pamuk's covert argument for Islamic modernity in Snow (which is a variation of the multiple modernities theory) at the expense of a westernized secular polity in Turkey is insufficiently grounded. Arguably, Pamuk's earlier novels are based on a more sober understanding of the connection between culture and progress. For example, in The Black Book, Pamuk is bitterly critical of the state-led Turkish modernization project and its benevolently despotic masterminds for seeking to abandon Turkey's traditional values and identity. Paradoxically, however, he does not engage in a concrete attempt to vindicate those traditions or offer a viable political alternative to state-led westernization or secular modernity. (11) Rather, in My Name is Red Pamuk suggests that westernization in the Ottoman Empire and in the later Turkish Republic is bound to fail because of deep-seated religious and cultural traditions that hinder the prospects for individuation and modernity. …
2 citations
DOI•
30 May 2017
TL;DR: From the incorporation of the Wixarika people into the global processes, some cultural elements have been modified, such as the ways to produce food, eating and doing physical activity, and diseases like diabetes type II come up in their communities.
Abstract: Introduction There is a series of changes in the lifestyle of indigenous peoples that are caused by the processes of urbanization and westernization, which have generated modifications in the epidemiological profile of the people These changes are an explanation to diseases that didn’t exist before in ethnic groups, such as the case of diabetes in the Wixarika people Methodology Exhaustive interviews were made, and from transcription they were codified with the aid of the Atlas-ti program Subsequently, categories for interpretation and theorization were formulated Results Wixarika people were found to consider diabetes as a disease that belongs to mestizos and not to them, since this malady arrived to their communities along with the processes of modernization and the Western culture Therefore, their marakames (curanderos) can’t heal it and only a mestizo physician can treat it Conclusion From the incorporation of the Wixarika people into the global processes, some cultural elements have been modified, such as the ways to produce food, eating and doing physical activity Therefore, diseases like diabetes type II come up in their communities
2 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors re-opened the debate among African politicians and intellectuals concerning which paradigm is the most suitable for achieving the goals of development in Africa at this present moment of her history, and identified the need for the debate to transcend the basic assumptions underlying the major paradigms by preferring anapproach that will not only guide against the continued marginalisation of African states, but that will at the same time ensure their effective participation in the development process currently going on across the globe.
Abstract: This essay reopens the debate among African politicians and intellectuals concerning which paradigm is the most suitable for achieving the goals of development in Africa at this present moment of her history. Since the early 70s, African intellectuals and politicians have reflected on this problem and the highpoint of the debate was that only a synthesis of our traditional cultural elements with other relevant areas of foreign culture holds the prospects for achieving this goal. This essay however indicts this latest position as encouraging the hegemonisation of western cultural values as well as the marginalisation of those African states for which this paradigm is meant to serve as blueprint for development. The essay then identifies the need for the debate to transcend the basic assumptions underlying the major paradigms by preferring anapproach that will not only guide against the continued marginalisation of African states, but that will at the same time ensure their effective participation in the development process currently going on across the globe.
Key words: Development, Culture, Modernization, Westernization, Regionalisation.
2 citations
TL;DR: This paper studied the changes in Chinese advertisements' contents and forms over a decade to evaluate the advertising westernization in China and to provide suggestions for Chinese companies in selecting proper advertising strategies, which indicates that the cultural distance between East and West is reduced, and standardization strategies may be a better choice for foreign enterprises.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is, by means of studying the changes in Chinese advertisements’ contents and forms over a decade, to evaluate the advertising westernization in China and to provide suggestions for Chinese companies in selecting proper advertising strategies. If relatively typical Western cultural characteristics are presented in Chinese advertisements, it indicates that the cultural distance between East and West is reduced, and standardization strategies may be a better choice for foreign enterprises. Otherwise, they should adopt specialization or combined strategies.
2 citations