Cross Cultural Contact Essay Example

The source in summary is about cultures having an advantage if they embrace change instead of push away from it. Generally change in culture is enforced by globalization and the melding of peoples. This begs the question if cultures have to change to survive in this world or if multiple can thrive without harming each other. There are different conclusions that can be made from this problem; either all cultures should be able to survive, change is inevitable so in cultures it is just the development of culture becoming better and lastly somewhere between the two. When Minority cultural groups are open to accommodating and integrating through social globalization into the majority group, they help support the source by following its ideology, like with immigrants as they intend to become part of a different country and intern part of its culture. Society should partially accept the position that cultures willing to change have huge advantages. This is firstly because cultures that accept others allow for alliances and mutual benefits, some cultures have created a more advanced homogenized culture through accepting change, and lastly cultures that have embraced a more dominant one in the past have lost their culture entirely.

It is beneficial for cultures to meld and change because it allows for mutual diversification. Cross cultural contact has allowed for trade of ideas, beliefs, and resources through social globalization enabling groups to become more advanced. For example, the Métis people brought together culture and tradition that gave them advantages in the Fur Trade as French voyagers and majorly the Cree of the Red River region where they efficiently traded knowledge, weapons, and other useful tools bringing together the old world and the new one. Another example is the unity of people through language such as Haiti, Lebanon and Egypt. For the Haitian people they were colonized by the French and forced to work on sugarcane plantations, the African slaves and French colonists developed the Haitian Creole. This connection created collective identities through globalization of peoples and affirmed them. Lastly, English is seen as the business language and people have to change their ways of communication to match it. This is beneficial for international trade and agreements to be made when everyone can understand each other on a more basic level. When cultures are willing to change it allows for connections to be made and unity of groups.

Advancements can be found in cultures adapting to global change and demand by creating competition and learning from others. When they have incentive to become better, groups may use what other cultures are doing and develop different ways of doing things to better themselves. An example of this would be, the Industrial revolution in Europe was because of global incentives and influence for the demand of cotton and its products in India. For Europe they were driven to create capital, leading to East Indian Trading Company and inventions like the Spinning Jenny and Water Frame, this change gave Europe the advantage over India as they used manual labor. A further example would be the columbian exchange. This merging of Aboriginals and Europeans gave mutual benefits with new preventative medicines, animals, food, land, tools and technology which advanced both societies. Next, the truth and reconciliation commission worked to change the eurocentric belief through reparations and enforced the Canadian government to address the terrible past. Canadians willing to change have  put Canada ahead of other countries like the US in reconciling.

Cultures looking to advance themselves through change have been destroyed and lost completely. When they are too open to embrace others and change their own, they become homogenized and the minority culture is pushed to extinction. There are international organizations whose purpose is to protect culture and language. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is a great example of a group that fosters cultural diversity and heritage through “National policies and measures promote creation, production, distribution and access with regard to diverse cultural goods and services and contribute to informed, transparent and participatory systems of governance for culture” (unesco). An example of full assimilation instead of acculturation would be when the Muslims and Jews converted to the Roman Chatholic Church during the Spanish Inquisition. Many people continued to practice which showed their distaste for the new religion and unwillingness to change that gave them a disadvantage even when they did change socially. Lastly, the French Canadian culture is vulnerable to disappearing. Many Francophones are concerned the heritage and community will be lost compared to anglophones whose collective identity is not affected. Quebecers are concerned enough to create bill 101 protecting and affirming the French language in Canada that the people of Quebec do not want to change and should not have to. This all provides support confirming cultures are afraid of changing and are forced to unless action is put in place to prevent it.

In conclusion, cultures change from influence and if a culture is willing to change they can either find benefits or disadvantages. This is through adaptation of cultures mixing where both find benefit and can achieve allyship, where cultures become one and everyone is happy, and where they become one at the expense of the minority culture. It is important to realize different cultures have been lost but there is also an opportunity for new cultures to emerger or grow stronger. In the future the world needs to work together to protect culture and diversify as a whole while globalization happens without as many disadvantages.