.jpg)
INTRODUCTION
= open with profile/stories of 10 individuals:
= C. is a Brit living in Monterey, married to an American, is consultant on construction projects in Senegal and elsewhere, often on the road, staying in 5-star hotels
= B is a Canadian international school teacher, living on compound, shies away from contact with culture, has distain for Senegalese and Senegalese culture
= R. is 6th grader, with Senegalese father and American mother
= M. is 4th generation Lebanese Senegalese, parents both prominent business owners in Dakar
= B. is an international school teacher, former PCV, avid Africa-phile, politics and the arts, avidly learning local language, actively engages/seeks out culture opportunities
= M. is young international school teacher, attracted to surf scene, youth culture, adventure sport
= E. is daughter of company executive, mother has private business, works with Senegalese, refers to them as her “boys”, opulent home
= Y. is son of prominent diplomat, actively connected to culture, infinitely curious
= A. is a Lebu fisherman, father of two
= S. is Senegalese, a Dakar taxi driver, father of three, city boy
= big questions: What is a cultural bubble? How do cultural bubbles work, particularly in an international setting? How does this apply our life in Dakar?
= refer to initial perceptive/opinion, now realize that it oversimplified, if not laced with hyperbole
SUMMARY POINTS
1. We inhabit psychological bubbles, which encapsulates all that we are: our beliefs, opinions and attitudes; our customs and traditions; our habits and conditioning; the totality of our self.
2. Can understand differing response to cultural milieu – in ourselves and others -- through an understanding of the bubbles in which we reside: how the milieu influences us, and how we tend to respond or react.
3. The culture of Senegal has tremendous depth and breath, and the depth/breath of our interaction with it is shaped by our interest/curiosity, the nature of our bubbles, and the social realities of living and working in the country. As M. commented, it’s all culture
4. We might identify the central points in Senegalese culture, and create learning opportunities around them. What are these central points?
NOTES x POINT
1. We inhabit psychological bubbles, which encapsulates all that we are: our beliefs, opinions and attitudes; our customs and traditions; our habits and conditioning; the totality of our self.
= We inhabit psychological bubbles
= Bounded/membrane enclosures that encapsulate all that we are
= All of our beliefs, customs, attitudes, opinions, habits and conditioning, our personalities, flow patterns of psychic energy, all of our pictures of ourselves, our needs/desires
= Stemming from our culture, or nests of cultures, ranging from family, region, nation, mixed with the idiosyncratic
= We experience our own bubbles at a young age through what is not us: our relations – friends, families of our friends, our community. We experience the similarities, how we resonate with others, and the differences, points of friction or disagreement
= The bubble defines whom we are, and its membrane protects us from threats, energy is invested in maintaining the boundary, without it, we experience nothingness, existential terror, loss of self
= We – the bubbles – vary in their physical properties and dynamics/responses
= All people in all cultures inhabit and maintain bubbles, a psychological body. It is necessary for the integrity of the self, it defines our self
= Tend to notice it when it is pressed against, when we encounter differences, friction, disagreement, punctured, encounters with another bubble, or embedded in a different cultural milieu. Marriage can be an intensified study/experience of bubble dynamics (my mother would never have been that cold), as points of resonance in a honeymoon period yield to differences, as the deeper, initially repressed aspects of the self begin to express themselves
= These are psychological worlds – complex, interactive, and conditioned, no less so than the external world, microcosm. Our bubbles are cultured, with patters of interaction
= We can study individual differences, how your bubble is different than mine, with respect to relative physical properties -- size, permeability, fortifications and guard posts, circulation, and psychological qualities reflected in the investment of psychic energy – where and how it is directed.
= Ways in which loss of bubble happens: where, under what circumstances?
= Bubble maintains the integrity of our personal meaning, constructs of the world that make sense, our sense of rightness, competence, confidence, self-justification, goodness
= It is our feeling of I, and we tend to choose from the environment evidence which confirms or reinforces that sense of self
= It is the psychological self, the totality of I, or many, constantly shifting small i’s
= We seek confirmation of our pictures of our self, as opposed to existential reality
= We react when the integrity is threatened, whether it be a poke, a rub, or a deformation: the sense of self is affected, and responds reflectively to right itself, to restore the picture, the whole, how we define ourselves; the bubble, and the membrane of the bubble, defines and protects the core of our integrity
= Homeostasis, equilibrium, in accord with habits and conditioning
= It is a world, no less complex and interactive than the external world, the totality of who we are
= Can view as a world composed of a culture, reflecting the culture of our youths, our models, our training; the nested cultural milieus in which we were raised are reflected in our bubbles, how else to explain it
= Pictures and imagination, no need to be consistent with reality, objective we are not – the hero, hard-bodied elite athlete, happy, fashion magazine-cover beauty, brilliant and insightful, object of envy and admiration, world traveler, clever and sensitive artist, eternally youthful/Peter Pan, wise King, courageous risk-taker, the suffering and lover, the clairvoyant psychoanalyst/magician, the selfless altruist, wealthy granter; secret knowledge, secret insight, can’t tell you, special, sacred insight, implying difference in status, worth; the common thread being that they are all false, all imaginary
= Bombarded by evidence to the contrary to our pictures)
= We all inhabit bubbles, the totality of who we are, our training, our habits and conditioning, beliefs and customs, our psychological and cultural worlds.
= We can observe an identical dynamic in individuals regardless of culture or place, be it Arona (a Lebu fisherman/diver from Plage Ouakam), Samba (a Dakar taxi driver from Yoff), Almamy (a Baye Fall tourist guide from Fass).
2. Can understand differing response to cultural milieu – in ourselves and others -- through an understanding of the bubbles in which we reside: how the milieu influences us, and how we tend to respond or react.
= Differences/similarities: amongst siblings (Mark & I), relations with parents (across generations), relations amongst relatives (within families), relations amongst friends of same community, relations across regions, cultures.
= Differ in how we respond: reacting with or without self-questioning, self-examination, reflection
= Differ in the degree to which we tend to identify, to hold fast to our identification, or reflect in the aftermath, separate
= Differ in our ability to be quiet, to be still, to try to be still, to listen, to be receptive
= Differ in the tendency to attend to universals
= Differ in the degree to which we identify with negative states
= Differ in the tendency to justify or question those justifications – what am I doing? why am I responding this way?
= Graphic of shared cultures
= Differences in the flow of psychic energy
= Differ in what attracts/repels us
= Differ in what are we afraid of
= Differ in relative locus of control
= Differ in all these personality traits
= Differ in the degree to which we are curious enough to press through apprehension
= Differ in our interest/ability to observe/reflect upon the dynamic – my reactions, separating/detach my reaction (meaning) from the object
= Differ in our willingness and capacity for self-observation as a context for learning
= Differ in our tendency to defend ourselves, to vigilantly maintain defensive perimeters
= Differ in our tendency toward project and confusion of projection with the object itself
= Differ in our tendency to transfer ones internal stagnations/internal blockages to object
= Differ in the degree to which we attend/explore causal links – how are things really connected?
= Differ in our ability/willingness to be or become small v need to occupy or fill the space
= Differ in the tendency to be quiet v to be center of attention
= Differ in the degree to which we identify with pictures of oneself and one’s life
= I can inhabit their bubble, can they inhabit mine?
= Differ in the degree to which we are satisfied with surfaces; doubt ones understanding of a situation, ask, what am I missing
= Differ in our intentions and aims (conscious or unconscious drives)
= Differ in how we respond when provoked, punctured, tripped, deformed, pressed, rubbed
= Differ in how we respond to anxiety
= Differ in our need for/pursuit of comfort: I’m comfortable/at ease only when certain conditions are met, limited by that
= Differ in the degree to which we understand the dynamics of psychological projection, transference, self-justification, attribution
= Differ in the degree to which we are susceptible to identification with negative states, whether focused on self (self-loathing, self-recrimination, sadness, depression), or others (blame, jealousy, envy, anger, resentment, account-making), whether active (enflamed), or passive (smoldering)
= Differ in our tendency to behave intelligently – set aims (charting course, requires a keel), on-going assessment of those aims (dead reckoning), reframing those aims as circumstances change (course correction), critically filter information to inform progress toward those aims (meteorology), observation of the process (routine maintenance of the hull) – as opposed to drifting, or piloting without a keel.
= Differ in the degree to which we assimilate to the norm – everyone likes me, everyone admires me, I fit in, everyone speaks highly of me
= In international setting, can view bubble dynamics in two ways, from outside in (how the milieu influences/impinges upon the bubble) and inside out (how we respond to the milieu)
= Differ in the tendency to look for misconceptions and misperceptions, and then challenge them.
= What do we feel safe/secure doing? About what are we threatened.
= The tendency to be condescending.
= Examples: Samba, R, H, B; we can analyze
3. The culture of Senegal has tremendous depth and breath, and the depth/breath of our interaction with it is shaped by our interest/curiosity, the nature of our bubbles, and the social realities of living and working in the country. As M. commented, it’s all culture
= The context of Senegal: characterizing the milieu – there is not one Senegalese, but a great many, not different than the range of cultural milieus in my home of Monterey County.
= We can ask: Which Senegal do you inhabit? What aspects of the culture have you experienced, and to what depth?
= It is true – we, the expat community here in Dakar, are buffered from Senegalese culture. In part, it is out of necessity. The difference between our customs and material wealth is extreme.
= We tend to live in a so-called third culture, a derived culture, composed of families who have greater identification with an international milieu, and education in international school attended largely by other ex-pats, than their home countries.
= My students themselves, at the age of 11 and 12, are, with rare exception, quite open and interested in learning about an experiencing Senegal, as are many/most of their parents. Families are busy – with their work, with sport, with travel. Having domestics makes the business of family life easier and more efficient.
= While the psychodynamics of bubbles contribute to the buffering, I now attribute much greater weight to the realities of living in Dakar – the need for privacy and security, given the fantastic disproportion between relative material wealth.
4. We might identify the central points in Senegalese culture, and create learning opportunities around them. What are these central points?
LINKS TO TERROR MANAGEMENT THEORY
Posts
1 comment:
Good thoughts. I have a couple friends being interviewed for jobs in Dakar. Hope they are lucky enough to land there.
Post a Comment