Culture

Although various attempts have been made to define culture, traditional definitions of culture have been very limited in scope. Historically, culture has been defined as a series of traits shared by a group of individuals. That is, the concept of culture has been understood as shared norms that shape individual behavior. These behaviors have been interpreted as being standardized rules for a group of individuals. Despite the unifying traits that organize and, at times, define cultural groups, culture has been traditionally construed as a monolithic variable that is stagnant or fixed both in time and space. Defining culture in such a way fuels a discourse that essentializes individuals of particular cultural groups by universalizing the existence of a uniform set of traits that is shared ...