WELCOME!

My name is Nikolatka and today you are going to learn something new with me!

Since I am a Uni Student, I usually spend a lot of time studying. This is the last year of my Bachelor degree study and I would like to have as good grades as possible. Therefore, I decided that I will be sharing with you guys some of my Uni materials and it will serve two main objectives. First, I hope it will be interesting and perhaps something new for you. Second it will help me revise and prepare for the upcoming classes since the posts will be like a summary of the previous lectures and serve as notes.

So let's dive in today's class topic - CROSS CULTURAL ANALYSIS (CCA)

What is cross-cultural analysis?

• CCA is the comparative study of forms of behaviour in specific social, national, cultural or ethnic groups
• Typical purpose is to discover if/how a form of behaviour and an actor’s cultural identity are connected

Types of Analysis

1. Cross-cultural analysis A-B, A-BCD etc. (etic)
2. Intra-cultural analysis A-A (epic)

• Emics = analysing the group from within (native's point of view)
• Etics = comparison of cultures

Examples

• Cultural phenomenon in country A as seen by researcher in country B
• Cultural phenomenon in social group D as seen by researcher from social group E
• Cultural phenomenon in time F as seen by researcher living in time G
• Cultural phenomenon in language H as seen by researcher speaking language I with language H as second language

Research Problems

• Over-generalization with minimum or poor data
• Explicit or implicit cultural bias
• Interference from own cultural assumptions
• Translation – difficulty of ‘explaining’ one culture in the ‘language’ of another
• Challenge of defamiliarization (emic and etic perspectives)

The defamiliarization is a very important thing to keep in mind during the research and the analysis of the findings. If you decide to use emic perspective - think of the research as if you are a Martian coming to this Earth with no knowledge of cultures whatsoever so that you do not take things you know for granted - what seems to be easy, simple and straightforward for you does not necessarily have to be that clear to people who do not know your culture. Focus on details :)

And that is it for today's study session!

Until the next time

KISSES