Cultural Mapping
By Rachel Chan and Leah Mernaugh Bergman
Our friendship once again blossomed over a book: This time, it was The Culture Map by Erin Meyer. For Rachel, who works on international teams in a corporate space, it was the tools for effective communication with colleagues from across the world. For Leah, a PhD student in Cultural Anthropology, it was the fresh reminder that we see ourselves more clearly through the recognition and appreciation of human difference. A Kaleo topic was born.
Why care about cultural differences?
Cultural intelligence, or understanding and valuing human differences, helps us not only in business, but also in our day-to-day relationships. As Christians, who affirm the inherent dignity and value of all humans, and who seek to see and show Christ’s love in the world, the invitation is especially strong. How can cultural awareness change the ways we know and love others? How do these experiences help us to know and love God?
Cultural trends, like those described in The Culture Map, are tools, not rules, and it's so important that we don't unconsciously confine others (and ourselves) to our context. The world changes fast, and all the time. While no typology or chart can really capture our unique and shared orientations to the world, tools like these can break us from the assumption of the right way to be, and help us to see more of the different ways we can be. Such knowledge helps us build relationships of lovingkindness with each other.
Culture isn’t just about international differences. Our “cultural trends” aren't just from the country we grew up in, but also who we grew up with, and everything that happens in between. We can thrive in international business and still struggle to communicate well within the bewildering cultural norms of our in-laws down the street!
At Kaleo, we talked about perspectives that are informed by our world view, our context, and what differing levels of directness, confrontation, and expressiveness may look like.
A matter of context
One of these perspectives compares high context vs. low context. Low-context communication values directness, explicitness, and lots of explanation to make sure we’re all on the same page. It flourishes in countries like the US and Canada, which have been shaped by generations of immigration: As people from very different contexts try to live in proximity, clarity is key and repetition is appropriate. In Canada, we learn to write papers to: 1) say what you’re going to say (introduction), say it (content), and then summarize what you’ve said (conclusion).
In a high-context environment, you’ll probably need a measure of (often unspoken) background for something to make sense. This is common where generations of people haved lived in the same place. When you know all the norms of your society and know what to expect from people, communication can be more subtle. Lots of explanation or repetition can even be seen as condescending! But this kind of communication can happen anywhere: think inside jokes with your family or a close-knit friend group. If you have to explain it, it’s just not fun anymore.
Why does this difference matter? Consider this story from Leah:
I grew up in the Catholic Church and attended mass with my family, but as a teenager all my friends went to a seeker-sensitive evangelical church. As I spent time in both worlds, it was soon clear that members of each church had a lot of negative stereotypes about the other. Friends and leaders in the Catholic Church warned me that evangelicals were too shallow, too out-of-touch with tradition, and have watered down Christianity. Friends and leaders from the evangelical church warned me that Catholics were so lost in ritual and tradition that they’ve lost the point of the Gospel. One person recalled, “I visited a Catholic Church once and didn’t have a clue what was going on. How is anyone supposed to learn about Jesus there?”
Knowledge of cultural differences can challenge our stereotypes. What if we looked at the Catholic Church as a high-context culture? As in any family or community that draws from a deep shared history, the Catholic service is for Catholics. Outsiders are certainly welcome, but full incorporation requires learning and knowing the responses and liturgies. That’s because there is a depth of intimacy that comes from the rhythm of lifelong participation and building on knowledge over time.
And what if we saw seeker-sensitive evangelical churches through the lens of a low-context culture, lovingly crafted to reach people from a number of diverse backgrounds? Like a high-immigration city trying to be welcoming and comprehensible to its newest members, such churches value evangelism and take pride in a simple, shared language that gets to the heart of the Good News they’re trying to communicate.
Even as these churches represent the same faith, the way their worship looks is different, in part, because they assume different default levels of knowledge from the people who participate on a given Sunday. Without that wider perspective, we might miss out on what our sisters and brothers in the faith might have to teach us, and the richness of the different ways we can worship and meet God.
Going further with self-knowledge
Even as we compare and contrast macro or micro cultural trends, it's important that we use what we learn first in self-evaluation. Considering for example:
What is good communication to me?
How do I show that I am listening or that I am polite?
How do I navigate disagreements respectfully? Are these ways public or private?
Does conflict represent trust and unity or an eroding of relationships to me?
Does silence from other people feel like warm openness (that someone is listening carefully) or does it feel cold (that someone doesn't care)? What about silence from God?
It's through our relationships that we learn to love and be loved. And through knowing and loving others who are different from us, we might catch a glimpse of how amazing it is that God can speak and relate to all of us, in all our beautiful and bewildering diversity.