Final Wiki Assignment: 

Using Wise as your source, post about what you have taken away from the readings and discussions in this class. What have learned about yourself or others cultures/co-cultures? What insights, if any, have you experienced? Feel free to discuss several different topics but remember to cite the text (any chapter is fine).

     I feel that throughout this course I have learned a lot about myself.  I mean this in that, I feel that I’ve realized that it wasn’t just my friends and my family growing up that made me who I am, but actually the whole of my culture around me.  I never quite realized before just how many factors can go into what makes a person, a culture, or any group of people exactly what or who they are.  Understanding a person’s territory is one of the best ways to  understand who a person is.  I have found it very interesting learning about the concept of territorialization, how it relates to identity and all of the things we do that make up the territory which we claim as our own and how that relates to who we are. A person’s territory can be anything from a spot they claim on a bus to their room, their house, or even their country.  I find it interesting how there are so many different factors that can make up a person’s territory.  Wise states, “The processes of cultural territorialization are not just about crises and transformation, but the everyday construction of identity,” (146).  Territory is about music, traditions, values,  identity and so much more.  While each of us are born into a certain territory, it is the territory of someone else.  And throughout our lives it is up to us to make our own territory through many processes of deterritorialization, and reterritorialization.  In reference to territories Wise also says, “…many…are created through symbols and habits, and these change,” (12). So while we must be able to define ourselves before we can even begin to define our territory we must also understand that our territories are fluid and will change as our lifestyles do. And, of course, we can only define who we are through a process of trial and error.  Finding out who one is does not happen easily, but it is what makes everyone their own person.  Even once we believe that we have finally found out who we are, there is no guarantee that we are going to stay that way.  I feel that one of my absolute favorite quotes came from Gilles Deleuze in the Wise text, Deleuze states, “…there is no ‘I’ just the habit of saying ‘I’.  There is no self, just the continual process of territorializing to express self, to search for self,” (12).  I think I enjoyed that quote so much being as that is how I’ve always felt.  The feeling of searching for yourself, and just when you think you’ve found it something happens and everything you thought you knew about yourself changes in an instant.  But I also believe that this is what makes life so interesting, the continual learning about who we are and why it is that we are that way.  While the process of defining and then redefining ourselves may seem frustrating during the present, not knowing who you are, when you look back at how you’ve arrived at any point in your life you can see that it has been an incredible journey.  And of course, it isn’t over yet.

Week 13

Option #1: How do you define your own cultural/co-cultural territories? Be specific and use examples.

Week 12 

Option #1: Select one song or artist/band or genre of music that you would use to exemplify your personal or a co-culture you belong to and the role it plays in signaling who you “are.” Be specific and use examples.

In the Wise text there is a quote by Josh Kun that says, ¨music is experienced not only as sound that goes into our ears and vibrates through our bones but as a space that we enter into,¨ (77).  With this in mind and relating it to the song I chose, which is Neighborhood by Arcade fire, I can definitely see what this quote means.  There is a line in the song that says, “…then we think of our parents, well whatever happened to them.” And to me, this goes along with, not only my personal life, but also the lives of so many people in my culture.  We all strive so hard to be individuals and move away from everything we know and then life moves so quickly that all of a sudden we think of something and realize that we have no idea what has happened to any it.  I know that within my own life I can personally relate to this in that by moving across the country I don’t keep in contact with people like I use to and some days I’ll find myself thinking about an old friend and how I haven’t talked to them and I wonder what they’re doing where life has taken them, and of course, I can´t answer any of these questions about them.

And to take this one more step and relate the line in the song to the Kun quote the line isn’t just something that I am hearing when I listen to the song, but it is something that I can actually feel and be a part of.  In this way music becomes a living part of me that I can connect with. 

Week 11

Wise and Kjeldgaard (pp. 71-72) discuss the idea of the “consumptionscape” – how we construct our culture through the act of consuming local, regional, national, or global goods. Within the context of this chapter - describe your own consumptionscape and how it impacts your cultural self.

When talking about consumptionscape and Greenlanders Wise says, ¨Discourses of identity had to do with creating and maintaining a local cultural identity,¨  (72).  However, that is not how I see the culture in which I live in.  It seems that people are less concerned with a local identity and more concerned with their own individual identity. Therefore, the consumptionscape within my culture is much more broad than that of those living in Greenland.  For my own person consumptionscape, living in New York City I can find pretty much anything I need and/or want right in my area.  While many of the things I consume may be made elsewhere around the world, they are all right here, readily available to me.  So I would say that the way in which this impacts my cultural self is that within my culture I except everything to be right there when I want it.  And so I feel that that is the way in which I view my culture (people get what they need when they need and do not have to wait).  While this may sound like a “spoiled” outlook on life, it was the way in which I was raised and continue to live.

Week 10

Often the media we consume reflects our culture.  Select a television program or movie that embodies or bridges your cultures or co-culture. Describe that particular cultural aspect, explain why you think it’s a good representation of your culture and link it to the text. 

A television show that I feels embodies the culture in which I live is Everybody Loves Raymond.  The reason I feel this embodies my culture is that it portrays the lives that many children growing up in the culture believe their life will be like or even what they hope for.  In the show you have the main family, with their ¨2.5 children¨ two parents, I believe there is even a dog, and a close relationship with your relatives even if they bug you most of the time.  And, while this reflects the ¨average American family¨ (even though I don’t feel that is so much the case) it definitely described my family and therefore I could often relate to what was going on in their household as a child growing up with such a close knit family.

As Wise states, “Audiences tend to prefer content they can relate to,” (50).  And for me, since I could relate to this show (and because my parents always watched…probably because they could relate as well) I would watch  it every week and would always feel that I could relate and/or see something that reminded me of my own family and, therefore, I would connect that show with the culture around me, being that not only was that what my own  family was like, but many of my friends’ families as well.

Week 9

Strategic essentialism is a way to express an “essential identity” (which in practicality do not exist) but it is important to express that identity (gender, race, ethnicity, etc) at a particular time and place (p. 14). See text for examples.

 Recall a time and place where you either practiced strategic essentialism or witnessed it practiced by a friend, relative, or co-worker (not in the media or via hearsay). Be specifc. How did it make you feel? Was it effective?

When thinking of a time when I witnessed strategic essentialism my mom and her co-workers come to mind.  She works in a pharmacy as a pharmacy technician and her and one of the other techs would get on each others’ nerves and it would interfere with the task at hand because they would be arguing about one thing or another and not getting their work done as quickly as they should have been.  By way of strategic essentialism they both eventually saw that they were both pharmacy technicians and they did this job because they wanted to help people, and they, therefore, set aside their differences and found a commonality in their title and the goals that their title entailed.  This resulted in better work ethic from the both of them, and both of them being happier, knowing that they were working to increase the quality of life for the patients they were serving. 

Wise states, “…there are times when… an appeal to an essentialist  identity is useful,” (14).  I definitely think this is true for this situation being that by them finding a common ground they were able to get more done in their work.  As for how I felt about it, I was not only proud of my mom for setting aside her differences, but I was also glad to see that people can find common goals no matter how many differences they have and work together.  And in the end, their strategy was very effective and worked well for everyone involved.

Week 8

The telegraph changed reality by, for the first time, separating transportation from communication. This had many capitalism to the idea of the multilevel transformative nature of technology. Impacts ranging from the development of monopoly

Ideology of the internet – how has it changed reality (culture/communication) in general and for you specifically?

Carey states, ¨...changes int technology go unanalyzed except for classifying them within various stages of capitalist development,¨ (158).  I feel that this definitely applies to the internet in that people don't really analyze or think about the impact it has unless it is helping them achieve something.  However, the internet has done much more than help to develop capitalism, it has also largely changed the way in which we view the world in general.  In general, the internet allows us to pick and choose the events of world that we wish to hear about.  Whereas in pervious years, when watching the news, you would sit and watch the entire broadcast and hear everything.  In a way, I feel this has changed our reality in that our views are more narrow of what is going on because we may not be seeing the "big picture".

I feel that for me specifically, while the internet is my only source of news, that if I was using other sources of news I would see many other viewpoints and opinions, but because I am able to so easily pick the stories I want to see and/or read, I only get the news I want, not the whole of what is going on in the world.  Therefore, I feel the internet has "altered my reality" in that I choose what to hear and what to ignore. 

Week 6

Carey (p. 152) states that “we are awash now in nostalgia for the future.” In what ways does your “nostalgia for the future” impact your present? That is, unlike nature, we construct our worlds teleologically (designed or directed toward a final result). How are your actions now designed to create your specific future? Please avoid generalities dealing with education to get a better or good job, make you smarter, etc.

Week 4

How will new technology affect the development of your future “cultural-self?” Using technological developments of past “communication revolutions,” project into the future. Think about how culture in the past might have been influenced by the technology of the time and how new technologies (say in 15 years – 2024) might impact our personal cultural selves. Try to use specific, rather than general, historical references or concepts from the text.

     McLuhan states, "The electronic age, if given its own unheeded leeway, will drift quite naturally into modes of cosmic humanity," (Carey, 89).  To me, it seems that McLuhan is saying that the electronic technology that may be new to us now, will ultimately become part of our own humanity, our own reality.  Therefore, in reference to how this technology will affect my own cultural self seems that new technology will slowly shape who am I am within my own culture.  therefore, if we allow technology to come into our lives then it also becomes a part of who we are and affects how we act within our own culture and community.

     When you examine the new technology of today, you can already see that it will work to make old methods obsolete.  One example of this would be online news and email.  There is talk that there may soon no longer be mail deliveries on Saturday.  This is due to the fact that by so many people communicating via the internet, actual paper mail is becoming unnecessary.  This can be tied in to what McLuhan said in that by allowing email to come into our lives "unheeded" it has already began to make such a large impact on communication that we are slowly needing the postal service less and less.  And, therefore, email is taking on its own form of humanity, it's own place within humanity.

     The way in which I feel this affects me is that I rely almost completely on email, social networking sites and texting to keep in contact with people.  So, in the future, I feel that nearly everyone will see "snail mail" and many phone conversations as a thing of the past.

Wk3

What is the “value” of a college degree? Why did you choose to attend college and what are your expectations (specific or general) for earning a degree?

The value of a college degree, to me, is that it is a bit like insurance. Even in today's world when many more people are getting their degrees than in the past, it still gives you that added edge. Therefore, the value (the insurance-when it will pay back) is when you go to find a job, you will have that degree that specializes you in a certain field. And if you are going against someone with the same amount of experience as you, but you have your degree, then, chances are, you are going to be the one that is more likely to get the position.

The reason I chose to go to college was basically because I had a certain field of work in mind (investigation) since the sixth grade. And I knew that in order to increase my chances of getting a job in that profession that I would have to earn my college degree. Therefore, my expectations in going to college and getting my degree were that it would help me to gain more of an understanding of the field and that once I was done it would help me to actually obtain a career in the investigative field. And not only do I expect that the degree will allow other to see me as more fit for the job, but also that I will have more confidence in myself that I am the one that is best for the position.