African americanculture&worldview

What is Culture
• Culture is a the vast structure of behaviors, ideas,
beliefs, attitudes, values, customs, language, rituals,
ceremonies, and practices peculiar to a particular
people that gives them a general design for living and
patterns for interpreting their reality.

Manifestations of Culture
• Self
• Feelings/emotions
• Survival
• Language
• Time
• Universe
• Worth

Cultural Deep Structure
• Ontology
▫ Branch of metaphysics that studies the nature of existence
• Cosmology
▫ Branch of philosophy that deals with the origin and structure of the
universe, with its parts, elements, and laws (esp with time and space)
• Axiology
▫ Branch of philosophy dealing with values, especially those related to
ethics, aesthetics, or religion

Cultural Factors
 Ethos
 the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that
informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant
assumptions of a people or period
 Ideology
 the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social
movement, institution, class, or large group.
 Worldview
 The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world or a
collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a
group.
 Epistemology
 a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and
limits of human knowledge.

African Cultural Deep Structure
• Cultural Aspects
▫ Ontology; consubstantiation
▫ Cosmology; interdependent
▫ Axiology; harmony
• Cultural Factors
▫ Ethos; collectivism
▫ Ideology; transformation
▫ Worldview; cooperation
▫ Epistemology; affective/symbolic

European Cultural Deep Structure
• Cultural Aspects
▫ Ontology; material
▫ Cosmology; independent
▫ Axiology; Conflictual
• Cultural Factors
▫ Ethos; individualism
▫ Ideology; domination
▫ Worldview; competition
▫ Epistemology; objectification/quantification

European Cultural Structure (cont.)
• Cultural Manifestations
▫ Self; dualistic/fragmented
▫ Feelings; suppressed
▫ Survival; rugged individualism
▫ Language; formal/detached
▫ Time; linear/future oriented/commodity
▫ University; control
▫ Worth; material possession

Worldview
• The term worldview is used to refer to the common
concept of reality shared by a particular group of
people, usually referred to as a culture, or an ethnic
group. Worldview is an individual as well as a group
phenomenon.

Worldview (cont.)
• Worldview is term for what is called Cognitive
Culture.
▫ This is the mental organization in each individual's
mind of how the world works. Expressions of
commonality in individual worldviews make up the
cultural worldview of the group. This leads to the social
culture, the way people relate to one another in daily
activities, and how they cooperate together for the good
of the group as a whole.

Worldview (cont.)
• Human beings’ view the world from the inside out --
from within ourselves, viewed through the
organizational "grid" of our own minds. That grid is
made up of the points of contact and particular
experiences we have with other components -- human
and non-human -- of the world of which we are a
part.

Worldview (cont.)
• The attempt to develop an ordered sense of reality is
determined, or at least guided, by our earliest
experiences and then altered by conscious and
unconscious processes as we broaden our range of
experiences. The earliest and most significant
experiences of life appear to shape our basic concepts
of reality. This process leads to what we call the
worldview.

Worldview (cont.)
• Because this sense of reality determines how an
individual relates to other individuals, the way they
express themselves in behavior and language enable
us to learn about the cognitive worldview. The
language can give insights into the cultural
worldview of the host culture.

Worldview (cont.)
• Cultural/worldview structuring functions both
externally and internally. We are submerged in it to
the degree that it is an unconscious process.

People (Society)
Surface-Level Behavior
 What we do, think, say or feel
either consciously or
unconsciously, mostly habitually
but also creatively
Deep-Level Behavior
1. Assuming, evaluating and
committing mostly habitually
but also creatively:
2. Concerning choosing, feeling,
reasoning, interpreting and
valuing.
3. Concerning the assigning of
meaning.
4. Concerning explaining, relating
to others, committing ourselves,
and adapting to or deciding to
try to change things that go on
around us.
Culture
Surface-Level Structure
 The cultural patterns in terms of which we
habitually do, think, say or feel
Deep-Level Structure
 (Worldview)
1. The patterns in terms of which we carry
out the assumptions, evaluations and
commitments of deep-level behavior.
2. Patterns of choosing, feeling, reasoning,
interpreting, valuing, explaining, relating
to others, committing ourselves and
adapting to or deciding to try to change
things that go on around us.

CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE AND
WORLDVIEW
1. Culture/worldview provides a total design for living,
dealing with every aspect of life and providing people
with a way to regulate their lives.
2. Culture/worldview is a legacy from the past, learned as
if it were absolute and perfect.
3. Culture/worldview makes sense to those within it.
4. But no culture/worldview seems to be perfectly
adequate either to the realities of biology and
environment or to the answering of all of the questions
of a people.

5. Culture/worldview is an adaptive system, a mechanism
for coping. It provides patterns and strategies to enable
people to adapt to the physical and social conditions
around them.
6. Culture tends to show more or less tight integration
around its worldview. Worldview assumptions provide
the “glue” with which people hold their culture together.
7. Culture/worldview is complex. A simple
culture/worldview has ever been found.

8. Cultural/worldview practices and assumptions are based
on group or “multipersonal” agreements. A social group
unconsciously agrees to govern themselves according to
their cultural patterns.
9. Culture/worldview is structure. It doesn’t do anything.
People do things either according to their cultural script
or by modifying that script. Any supposed power of
culture or worldview lies in the habits of people.
10. Though analytically we need to treat people and
culture/worldview as separate entities, in real life people
and culture/worldview function together.

ADDITIONAL CHARACTERISTICS
OF WORLDVIEW
1. A worldview consists of the assumptions (including
images) underlying all cultural values, allegiances
and behaviors.
2. Worldview assumptions and images underlie our
perception of reality and responses to it.
3. Our worldview provides us with the lens, model or
map by of which we perceive, interpret, structure
and respond to reality

CHARACTERISTICS (cont.)
4. Worldview assumptions or premises are learned
from our elders, not reasoned out, but assumed to be
true without prior proof. It seldom occurs to us that
there may be people of other groups who do not
share our assumptions.
5. We organize our lives and experiences according to
our worldview and seldom question it unless our
experience challenges some of its assumptions.
6. In cross-cultural dynamics, the problems that arise
from differences in worldview are the most difficult
to deal with.

• Does a person's soul/spirit exist before birth? Before conception?
• Does individual identity continue after death? if so, in what state/form?
• What is your view of paying dowry for marriage? Should the man's family pay the woman's
(as in Africa), or the woman's family pay the man's (as in older Europe)?
• Do rites and ritual ceremonies affect the outcome of events or illnesses? (Prayer formulas,
dances, incense, charms, kneeling, lifting hands, laying on of hands, etc.)
• Does an individual ever have the right to take his/her own life?
• Does a society ever have the right to take the life of one of its members?
• Does a society ever have the right to take the life of a member of another society?
• Does one society ever have the right to exercise authority or domination over another society?

• Is it necessary for an individual to give up some rights for the privilege of being a member of
the society?
• Is there ever a time when the rights of an individual become more important than the stability
of a society?
• Which should be given more weight, the good of an individual or the good of the whole
society?
• Do all individuals within a society have the same right to food, shelter and medical care?
• What is the primary purpose of education, to produce a good citizen in the society, knowledge
for its own sake or training for specific tasks in society?
• Does society ever have the right to restrict the rights of an individual member?
• Does an individual ever have the right to disobey the laws of society?
• Does an individual ever have the right to take the life of another individual?

AFRICAN EUROPEAN
Religious – God the Creator (though far away). All
things are related.
Secular – A set order in the universe, independent
existence, naturalistic view.

AFRICAN EUROPEAN
things are related.
Spirit-World – Many factors in life cannot be known,
controlled or predicted. Humans are at the mercy of the
forces of life. Resignation to conditions.
Scientific Approach – Describe, Control, Manipulate;
Change your destiny. Aggressive. Frustration with
failure.

AFRICAN EUROPEAN
things are related.
failure.
Dynamic – An active world seen in relational terms. Mechanical – Static, Cause-effect. Linear concepts.
Productivity; Organization.

AFRICAN EUROPEAN
things are related.
failure.
Relationship – Truth is in Experience and
Relationship.
Knowledge – Facts are important. Truth is in
correlation of statement to observable, testable
phenomena.

AFRICAN EUROPEAN
things are related.
failure.
Relationship.
phenomena.
Event – Meaning Centers in the Verb: Event Primary. Substance – Noun-Adjective: Entity and Description
primary.

AFRICAN EUROPEAN
things are related.
failure.
Relationship.
phenomena.
primary.
Focus on Present – The world is uncontrollable.
Immediacy. Presence of an individual takes precedence
over plans.
Predictability – Reproducible phenomena, Probability.
Planning a high value. Same result from same factors
every time.

AFRICAN EUROPEAN
things are related.
failure.
Relationship.
phenomena.
primary.
Focus on Present – The world is uncontrollable.
Immediacy. Presence of an individual takes precedence
over plans.
Predictability – Reproducible phenomena, Probability.
Planning a high value. Same result from same factors
every time.
Group Identity – Obligations. Commitment to the
Group.
Individualistic – Rights. Commitment to Principle.

Ho’s Depiction of value Orientation among Racial/Ethnic Groups
Area of
Relationships
Middle-Class
White America
Asian Americans American Indians Black Americans Hispanic
Americans
People to Nature/
Environment
Mastery over
Future
Harmony with
Past-Present
Harmony with
Present
Harmony with
Present
Harmony with
Present
Time Orientation Future Past-Present Present Present Past-Present
People
Relationships
Individual Collateral Collateral Collateral Collateral
Preferred Mode of
Activity
Doing Doing Being-in-
Becoming
Doing Being-in-
Becoming
Nature of Man Good & Bad Good Good Good & Bad Good

Manifestations of the African Worldview among
African Americans
• Religious Expressions
▫ God as supreme being
▫ Ancestor spiritual presence
▫ A way of life
• Extended Family (kinship)
▫ Familial terms in general social relations (i.e., my brother/sister)
▫ Informal adoptions
▫ Reverence for children and elderly
• Music, Dance, Song (rhythm/soul)
▫ Essential to self-expression
▫ Related to daily activities (work, leisure, religious, relaxation)

African Worldview (cont)
• Shared Participation
▫ Call and response (can I get an Amen?)
▫ Racial/cultural solidarity (see OJ Simpson)
• Social Orientation
▫ Preference for group activity
▫ Need for group affirmation
• Phenomenal Time
▫ Being in time
▫ Flexible time (CP time)

The Origins of African-
American Culture

Origins of African-American Culture
• Africans sold into slavery transplanted their
cultures to the New World
• The Bantu of Central Africa had the largest
homogeneous culture among the imported
African and the strongest impact on the
development of African American culture.

Origins (cont.)
• The cultural areas from which the slaves came must be
revised into smaller cultural clusters:
▫ Mande; Mano River; Akan; Sudanic; Niger Cross River;
Niger Delta; and Bantu
• According to Herskovits the areas that furnished the
greatest numbers of slaves were the
▫ basin of the Senegal River
▫ Guinea Coast (especially the southern portions of what are
today known as Ghana and the Republic of Benin),
▫ and the Niger Delta.

Origins (cont.)
• Herkovits noted that Africans from the Guinea
Coast, Sierra Leone, Liberia, The Ivory Coast,
the Bight of Benin, the Gold Coast, Dahomey,
and the coastal ports of Nigeria were most often
cited in the historical literature of slavery

Origins (cont.)
• The transatlantic slave trade was in full-scale
operation by the late 1600s.
• In just twenty years after the original settlement
the African population in the Carolinas was
equal to that of Europeans
• By 1715 Africans outnumbered Europeans
10,500 to 6,250
• By 1720 Africans had outnumbered Europeans
for more than a decade

Origins (cont.)
• In 1724, the white population in colonial South
Carolina was estimated at 14,000, the black
population at 32,000
• A Swiss newcomer, Samuel Dyssli, observed in
1737 that Carolina “looks more like a negro
country than like a country settled by white
people”

West African Origins
• Between 1670 and 1700, Africans were imported to
South Carolina predominantly from “Guinea”
• The majority of these “Guinea” Africans were Wolofs
and other Mandes, such as Bambaras, Fulani, and Susus.
• The Wolofs had greater opportunities for admixture and
interaction with whites than other African groups in the
years before 1700

Central African Origins
• Data based on documents from early period
(1733-44) show that 60 percent of the Africans
entering South Carolina were from Angola in
Central Africa
• Toward the mid-1700s, more Angolans than any
other African ethnic and cultural group were
being imported into South Carolina

African-American Culture
• For the Africans in South Carolina, the first stage in the
acculturation process was the melding of numerous West
and Central African elements in a culture such as Gullah
• The creation of this creole culture allowed these Africans
to form a kind of lingua franca, enabling them to
communicate with each other as well as with the planters

• Given the homogeneity of the Bantu culture and the
strong similarities among Bantu languages, this group no
doubt influenced West African groups of larger size
• Also, since the Bantu were predominately field hands or
were used in capacities that required little or no contact
with European-Americans, they were not confronted
with the problem of acculturation, as the West African
domestic servants and artisans were

• Coexisting in relative isolation from other
groups, the Bantus were able to maintain a
strong sense of unity and to retain a cultural
vitality that laid the foundation for the
development of African-American culture.

• The enslaved Africans’ cultural heritage was based on
numerous West and Central African cultures brought
together collectively from Senegambia (Wolof, Mandingo,
Malinke, Bambara, Fulani, Papel, Limba, Bola, and
Balante),
• the Sierra Leone coast (Temne and Mende), the Liberian
coast (Vai, De, Gola, Kisi, Bassa, and Grebo),
• and the Slave Coast (Yoruba, Nupe, Benin, Dahomean
[Fon], Ewe, Ga, Popo, Edo-Bini, and Fante)

• From the Niger Delta came Efik-Ibibio, Ijaw,
Ibani, and Igbos (Calabars)
• From the central African Coast came Bakongo,
Malimbo, BAmbo, Ndungo, Balimbe, Badongo,
Luba, Laonga, Luango, and Ovimbundu

• The African cultural patterns predominating in
southern states clearly reflected the specific
cultural groups imported
• The upper colonies tended to be most heavily
populated by West Africans and the lower
colonies by people from Central Africa

• The North Americans imported Africans from the windward or
Grain Coast (Mande ad Mano River groups) because of their
familiarity with the cultivation of rice, indigo, and tobacco
• The Yorubas, Whydahs, and Pawpaws were sold exclusively to the
American market because they were considered less rebellious than
the Coromantees (Asante) of the Gold Coast (Ghana)
• According to U. B. Phillips, the qualities and the “disposition [of the
Yorubas, Whydahs, and Nagoes] to take floggings…made them ideal
slaves for the generality of masters”

• According to McGowan, “those slaves who did adapt
were prepared by their background because of the
similarity of the tasks they had performed inn Africa”
• That is, plantation tasks in North America did not place
any new technological demands on African labor, and
the African’s familiarity with the cultivation of rice, corn,
yams, and millet in the Senegambian hinterlands
prepared them for the kind of labor that was required in
the Mississippi Valley

• Senegambians were also employed as medicine men,
blacksmiths, harness makers, carpenters, and
lumberjacks
• They brought with them highly developed skills in
metalworking, woodwork, leatherwork, pottery, and
weaving
• Slave artisans and domestic servants, mainly form West
Africans, worked in close proximity to European-
Americans and were forced to give up their cultural
identities to reflect their masters’ control and capacity to
“civilize” the Africans

• However, field workers - largely Central Africans
– were relatively removed from this controlling,
“civilizing” influence
• Given the constraints imposed on artisans and
domestic servants by plantation owners, one
may logically conclude that the cultures of the
Congo-Angola region of Central Africa rather
than those of West Africa were dominant in
North America

• West African cultures nevertheless supplied mainstream
southern society with Africanisms through a process of
reciprocal acculturation between Africans and
Europeans
• David Dalby identified certain many Americanisms back
to Wolof including such words as OK, bogus, boogie
woogie, bug, john, phoney, yam, guy, honkie, dig, fuzz,
jam, jamboree, hippie, and mumbo jumbo.

• It was among the field slaves that much of African-
American culture and language evolved
• The filed slaves were mainly central Africans who, unlike
the Senegambian, brought a homogenous culture
identifiable as Bantu
• Enforced isolation of these Africans by plantation
owners allowed them to retain their religion, philosophy,
culture, folklore, folkways, folk beliefs, folk tales,
storytelling, naming practices, home economics, arts,
kinship, and music.

African history in Americas
• It is possible to see Africans as active agents in
reformulating their cultural and social identities in the
Americas, despite the oppressive setting to which they
were subjugated;
• The study of religion, cultural expression (including
music, cuisine, naming patterns, etc.) and social
relationships (kinship, ethnicity and ship-board
friendship) also hinges on the recognition that people
found ways to determine their identities on their own
terms.

• Some aspects of “slave” culture are not
perceived as “survivals” but rather as features of
conscious and not-so-conscious decisions by
people themselves in selecting from their
collective experiences those cultural and
historical antecedents that helped make sense of
the cruelty of slavery and freedom in the
Americas

• Enslaved Africans created a new social world that drew
on the known African experience.
• From this perspective, it is necessary to examine the
condition of enslaved folks in the Americas on the basis
that they were still Africans, despite their chattel status,
the deracination that accompanied their forced
migration, and the sometimes haphazard and sometimes
deliberate attempts of Europeans to destroy or otherwise
undermine this African identity.

• Often slaves, former slaves, and their
descendants still regarded themselves as
Africans
• The process of creolization comes much more in
focus when the merger of cultures-European and
African-is perceived in terms that are more
equal than is often the case.

• For many of the enslave, Africa continued to live in their daily lives.
• This included attempts to adapt and to re-interpret cultural values
and religious practices in context, but frequently maintaining a clear
vision of the African
• Before the abolition of the trans-Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans,
new slaves were constantly arriving and thereby infusing slave
communities with new information and ideas which had to be
assimilated in ways tat we do not always understand at present.
• Only when fresh arrivals stopped coming from a specific homeland
did the process of creolization take root

• The conditions of slavery were shaped to a considerable
extent by the personal experiences and backgrounds of
the enslaved Africans themselves.
• They brought with them the intellectual and cultural lens
which they viewed their new lives in the Americas, and
they made sense out of their oppression through
reference to Africa as well as the shared conditions of
auction block, mine and plantation.
• There is no reason to doubt that there was a transfer of
experience, any more than was the case with other
immigrants, whether voluntary or involuntary

Creolization
• In most parts of the America, enslaved persons
tended to perceive of themselves in terms of
communities that had roots in Africa
• Although the relevance of the African
background is usually admitted, the continuities
and discontinuities of African history in the
Diaspora are usually minimized or ignored
• It is as if Africa had little impact on the
development of the slave society and identity in
the Americas

Creolization (cont.)
• Religious rituals, naming practices, funeral ceremonies,
and other features of culture are recognized as sharing
traits with a generalized and often timeless Africa.
• Enslaved Africans defined in their own communities in a
variety of ways, often involving layers of identity with
overlapping and frequently competing interests.
• As with other diasporas, enslaved Africans subordinated
internal divisions and differences in language, religion,
and other aspects of culture to their circumstances.

• The different sub-cultures of the Diaspora developed an
orthodoxy that was “traditional”, indeed “Creole.”
• Diasporas, as made very clear in the case of enslaved
Africans, operated outside of or along side the political
and legal structures of the host countries where
members of the Diaspora found themselves

• Enslaved Africans did not generally share a common
culture, their religious beliefs, languages, and social
structures varied too greatly to influence the economies
and societies of the Americas more than on occasion
• The “creolization” school emphasizes the needs of
enslaved Africans to generate defensive mechanisms to
protect themselves from the arbitrary brutality of
slavery;
• “creolization” was essentially as reaction to slavery.

• While the “creolization” theorists have
emphasized the amalgamation of diverse
cultures and historical backgrounds into a set of
common sub-cultures, revisionists search for the
African component in the evolution of the “Afro-
American”, “American” “Latin”, and
“Caribbean”

• Revisionist shift the emphasis from the birth of a
new culture and society to the maintenance of
ties with the homeland.
• The exchange of ideas and people between the
diaspora and the homeland under slavery and as
a consequence change was not only mediated
through Europe but in far more complex ways

• To what extent were enslaved Africans able to determine
their cultural survival;
• To what extent were they agents in the continuation of
traditions and the re-interpretation of real historical
event?
• How could slaves create a world that was largely
autonomous from white, European society?

• Enslaved Africans were victims of their
predicament, but were still agents of their own
identities within the confines of slavery.
• Enslaved Africans were often successful in
asserting autonomy from white society and
European culture.

Slavery and the Shaping of the African
American Personality/Dispositions
• The plantation system of the United States was
essentially a closed system.
• The sanctions of authority was virtually self-contained
within the plantation unit
• Authority, though exercised, by and large, from non-
malignant ends, was absolute
• The ‘given’, then for the present purpose, is absolute
power in a closed system, and the problem for
personality is that of adjustment to such power within
such a system

Personality (cont.)
• Most theory holds that social behavior is regulated in
some general way by adjustment to symbols of authority-
however diversely “authority” may be defined, either in
theory or in culture itself- and that this adjustment is
closely related to the very formation of personality
• The more diverse those symbols of authority are, the
greater is the permissible variety of adjustment to them-
and the wider the margin of individuality, consequently,
in the development of the self

Personality Types and Stereotypes
• Several million people were detached with a peculiar
effectiveness from a variety of cultural backgrounds in
Africa
▫ a detachment operating with infinitely more effectiveness
upon those brought to North America than on those who
came to Latin America
• Detachment was achieved partly by the shock experience
inherent in the very mode of procurement, but most
especially by the type of authority-system to which these
people were introduced and to which they had to adjust
for physical and psychic survival

Personality (cont.)
• The new adjustment to absolute power in a closed
system involved infantilization.
• The detachment was so complete that little trace of prior
– and thus alternative – cultural sanctions for behavior
and personality remained for the descendants of the first
generation
• For them, adjustment to clear and omnipresent
authority could be more or less automatic- as much so,
or little, as it is for anyone whose adjustment to a social
system begins at birth and who that system represents
normality

Shock and Detachment
• Every African who became enslaved-whether light or
dark, timid or warlike, primitive or in a high state of
culture-underwent an experience whose crude psychic
impact must have been staggering, and whose
consequences superseded anything that had ever
previously happened to him
• The majority of enslaved Africans were taken in ethnic
wars. This means than no one-neither persons of high
rank nor warriors of prowess-was guaranteed against
capture and enslavement.

• Great numbers were caught in surprise attacks upon
their villages. Since the tribes acting as middlemen for
the trade had come to depend on regular supplies of
captives in order to maintain that function, the
distinction between wars and raiding expeditions was
rather dim
• the first shock, in an experienced destined to endure
many months and to leave its survivors irrevocably
changed, was thus the shock of capture

• The second one, the long march to the sea, drew out the
nightmare from many weeks.
• The next shock- aside from the fresh physical torments
which accompanied it- was the sale to the European
slavers
• The final shock in the process of enslavement came with
the Negro’s introduction to the West Indies
• The episode that followed-almost too protracted and
stupefying to be called a mere “shock”- was the dreaded
Middle Passage, brutalizing to any man, black or white,
who was involved in it.

• The thoroughness with which African Negroes coming to
America were detached from prior cultural sanctions
should thus be partly explainable by the very shock
sequence inherent in the technique of procurement
• Whereas the Middle Passage and all that went with it
must have been psychologically numbing, and should
certainly be regarded as a long thrust toward the end
product, its full fruition depended on the events that
followed

• The process of detachment was completed by the
kind of authority-system into which the slave
was introduced and to which he had to adjust-
the “closed” system

“Got one mind for white folks to see, ‘Nother
for what I know is me”
(Author unknown)

Bicultural identity (cont.)
• A culture of chattel slavery (Allport,1958;Akbar,
1984; Wyatt-Brown, 1985)
▫ Samboism – survival strategy; effective guise
adopted and cast aside as needed
▫ Clowning – characterized by self-degradation and
exaggerated stereotypical behavior; used to gain
favor, control violent or abusive slave master
▫ Trickster – cunning and wit over brute force; form
of resistance; enjoyed special status for ability to
out-smart slave master

Bi-Cultural Identity (cont)
▫ Ritualized compliance – ability to maintain self-
regard while complying with demands of
enslavement
▫ Socialization of subordination – Assimilated into
the institution of chattel slavery; acceptance of
status as subordinate and inferior as natural
order; identification with the needs and desires of
slave master

Contemporary African American Bicultural
Identity Development
• Duality of Consciousness
▫ Woodson - estrangement
▫ Dubios – double consciousness
• Alienation
▫ Fanon – Alienation
▫ Akbar – Assimilation-related psychopathology
▫ Kambon – Psychological/cultural misorientation

African American Acculturation

Acculturation Theory
• A process through which an individual from a given
culture achieves competence in a second culture
• “move toward another culture.”
• Assumed to be a voluntary process
• Related terms
▫ Assimilation – adopt alien culture/loss of culture of origin
▫ Fusion – blending elements of 2 or more cultures
▫ Biculturalism – competence in 2 or more cultures
▫ Multiculturalism – multiple cultural realities

Acculturation and Enslaved Africans
“In the process of acculturation, the slaves made
European forms serve African functions “(pp
20-21; Blassingame, 1979).
▫ For example, African religious practices were
often disguised as Catholicism (e.g., Santeria,
Macumba, Condomble).

Acculturation (cont.)
• Acculturation
▫ First used to describe the process whereby less civilized
persons/groups experienced a cultural evolution by
imitating the values/behaviors/beliefs of highly civilized
persons/groups (i.e., European).
▫ More recently used to describe the phenomena that occurs
when individuals from different cultures come into
continuous contact resulting in changes to the original
cultural patterns of either or both groups.

• Dominant culture creates a dual socialization process
• Institutions such as the media, schools, culture
(holidays, heroes, etc.), foreign and domestic policy (e.g.,
immigration) all reinforce the dominant culture
• Enculturation to one’s cultural group identity and
punished and acculturation/assimilation to the
dominant culture is rewarded

• Function
▫ Provides a context for relationship to dominant
culture
▫ Mechanism for the preservation of one’s ethnic
and cultural identity
▫ Framework for understanding stress that results
from the experiences above

• Group-level acculturation
▫ Changes resulting from contact between two
autonomous and independent cultural groups
• Psychological acculturation
▫ Changes an individual experiences as a result of
being in contact with other cultures

• Group-level acculturation
▫ Types of changes:
 Physical – new residence, school, work, etc.
 Biological – nutrition and diet, medicine
 Political – laws, political views/agendas
 Economic – new opportunities
 Cultural – food, child-rearing,
 Social – new ingroup/outgroup

• Psychological acculturation
▫ Type of changes:
 Behavior – language, food, emotional
 Values – collective vs. individualistic
 Acculturative stress – conflict between old and new
 Adaptation strategies – withdraw vs. interact
 Identity – ethnic/racial, etc.

• Alternation
▫ Assumes that it is possible for a person to master two different cultures.
The individual has a sense of belonging to two cultures without
comprising their sense of cultural identity.
• Assimilation
▫ Complete absorption into the dominant (desirable) culture. Original
culture is lost as new culture is acquired.
• Separation
▫ Individuals maintain a commitment to their indigenous culture and do
not value intercultural exchange/relations with others
• Marginalization
▫ When an individual feels caught between two cultures with minimal
psychological commitment to either.

African American Acculturation (cont)
• Acculturative stress is the tension associated
with the move toward the majority culture and
away from the culture of origin (Anderson,
1991;Landrine & Klonoff, 1996).
▫ threatens racial and cultural identity, patterns of
living, and
▫ has been linked to the compromised health status
of some African Americans

Acculturative Stress
• Defined as “when an individual’s adaptive
resources are insufficient to support adjustment
to a new cultural environment
(Roysircai-Sodowsky & Maestas, 2000, p. 138)
▫ Acculturative stress has been found to be
associated with alcoholism in Mexican-American
men and eating disorders in African American and
Native American women

Acculturative Stress (cont.)
• Factors affecting acculturative stress levels
▫ Generational status
▫ Level of acculturation
▫ Self-esteem
▫ Cultural alienation
▫ Cultural confusion
▫ Cultural conflict

Landrine and Klonoff
• African American acculturation
▫ Principle of return
 Dynamic process where individuals return to culture
of origin by end of life span. Influenced by age,
familial factors, environment, and experiences with
racism
▫ Principle of fractionization and allopatricity
 Individuals are distanced from culture of origin and
more easily acculturated

African American Acculturation (cont)
▫ Principle of quality of contact
 Extent to which contact with dominant culture
influences the acculturative process. Positive
prolonged contact increases rapid acculturation
while negative contact may result in failed
acculturation
▫ Principle of ethnic socialization
 Perception of dominant group as all good or all bad
will either facilitate or impede acculturation.

African americanculture&worldview

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (16)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (20)

Similar to African americanculture&worldview

Similar to African americanculture&worldview (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)