Symbolizing the Community Boundary Essay

Introduction

The concept of comparative social sciences is derived from the procedural assumption that; the expressions used to explain the components of one society may be practically replicated on another. This has led to the unrealistic assumption that the descriptive analysis of one culture can be interpretively condensed, to expressions that are applicable to another one. Proponents of the methodology argue that two cultures should have some traces of similarity, so as to be able to analyze them based on a common category. The critics of the model on the other hand argue that the method works on the mere assumption that the two are indeed similar. However the core of this study is to create the understanding and description of cultures just like sociologists and anthropologists; that cross the hidden boundaries of cultural difference in their perception and interrelation with the members of the given culture. In this process they reduce the diversity of these cultures like descent, kinship and family hood, without comparing it with their own. However the contrast is that we must use our cultural understanding as the basis to understanding what we perceive in the other cultures. This approach is applied to avoid imposing our understanding of culture; through which we will seek to create distinctiveness, uniqueness and question the integrity of the cultural formations like behaviors. This approach would further create the distinctiveness and reaffirmation of the boundaries; making them apparently increases in turn making the researcher not to question the reality, and basis of the given cultural formations. This phenomena further leads to blurriness of the boundaries due to the confusion; and thus we have to look at the contradictions between reality and the evident appearance.

This paper is out to examine in detail the ways used by individuals; in perceiving their community’s symbolic devices of distinctiveness, distinctiveness itself and the maintenance of this awareness in symbolizing the community’s boundaries. In this case we have to penetrate the community’s boundaries; in order to experience and gain a sense of how they are comprehended by the members. This can only be achieved through the appeal to their intimate consciousness; by seeking the meaning attributed to them by the members and disregarding the significance we might be inclined, or socialized to. As a measure to achieve this you make a basic distinction between the inside of the community, and the outside that is potentially polluting and the inside that symbolizes the community’s self.

To better understand this phenomenon; we discuss the Seychellois healer who was observed by Marion Benedict and later from reliable sources realizes that his work relied on the information acquired from gossip from even his avid clients. However in this context, there is a therapeutic value attached to confidential talk to bridge the disparity between the stressful realities; and the therapeutic fantasy of compromise that marks the boundary between the practice of this group and those of others. From such phenomena, anthropologists have been warned against confusing likeness of form to that of the substance. According to leach in his “political systems of Highland Burma”; adorned habits and technical behaviors express the essence that forms the distinctiveness of a society with regard to its importance; to the ways in which members map their social community despite its material irrelevance. However the same core value may be imperceptible to the outsider, despite its significance to the social boundaries of the community. Further, organizational forms should not be confused with essence due to the fact that the meanings attached to behavior go beyond the action or character of the behavior as may be perceived by others. Any behavior, despite the habitualness of its use; may be used as an emblematic aspect if the members of the group decide to bestow it with such significance. This can be explained using the “Cyrenaican Bedouin” tea drinking session in which frills are added to tea making and serving; using specified utensils along with unique conversation full of conspicuous zest, and specified additions of sugar and tea severally while being watched. Every case in this practice corresponds to an aspect of conformity, to the body of norms held within the societal boundaries. Failure to adhere to each step; would mean that the administrator is a deviant or an outsider therefore depicting lack of identity and conformity. The case narrator further argued that tea parties are held in Boston; but it is clear that only the naming is similar but the meaning attached to them are very different.

The boundary and social change

The issue of confusing substance and form; function and indigenous meaning; is significant in the framework of social change due to the influence on these communities by their neighbors. The processes of urbanization, industrialization, the supremacy of the cash financial system, centralization of markets, mass manufacture; the increased access to information and the mass media outreach; and the increased levels of movement, all weaken the societal boundaries. These forces lead to homogenization of social forms including language; political and family organization; economic practices; learning institutions; religious and recreational observances which make the communities develop a given resemblance with each other. The resemblance may also develop to be distinctive of the given country; which may further result in the demeaning of community boundaries as they become insignificant. This may further expand to demean the sub-national boundaries despite the fact that the homogeneity may be totally superficial masking the inner significant differences. The greater the pressure to homogeneity; the more communities turn to symbolical boundaries by giving the modified forms, meanings to be identified with them. Under these conditions politics, law, religion and kinship more than the economical resemblance, move towards becoming societal imperialism. The same may also lead to attempts of societal socialism, as an expression of determined dissimilarities masked by a characteristic structural form and manifestation.

However despite the use, amendments on the customary social figures and forms are modified to fit into the contemporary models. Social change is also often marked by a regulative course which is more than straightforward flatulence; through reconstituting indigenous meaning to provide media for the expression of native values. There is also the phenomenon where members of a group take a foreign social form; but primarily transform it symbolically such that it refracts the indigenous sense of communal self and distinction. As a result of the change in the social forms, the sensitivity to social boundaries finds expression in the same ritual practices that masked and muted the divisions.

Suggestions from the excerpts and conclusion

These two excerpts about community and obedience can be applied in the contemporary community; to show that the majority of the people get socialized to the authentic way of living and doing things. From this they become slaves to that very structure; form and channel of doing things without necessarily being coerced to do it. On the other hand the individuals who do not comply to the socialized modes of community and conduct; are viewed as either strange within the social system in place, or as deviants who deserve to be corrected or rather coerced to conform to the mainstream structures and forms. From the ideas in the excerpts; it is also evident that the majority of the people living in any given society are able to conform to the societal creations, and that they consider doing what is expected of them an obligation and cannot stop to watch the deviants go against the same creations.

Work cited

Cohen, Anthony. “ The Symbolic Construction of Community. London: Routledge. 1985: 39-49.