Acculturation

Acculturation, according to Melville Herskovits, is the process by which culture is transmitted from one group to another, and the process in which individuals learn the customs, norms, and values of the group. The acculturation process in a consumer culture is not completely dissimilar to acquisition of norms and values in nonconsumer societies. Indeed, this process can be traced back as far as the Roman Empire, where the center of the empire acculturated non-Romans and Romans alike into Rome's cultural vortex, where extensive trading of consumer goods and services occurred.

In both ancient and modern times, the acculturation process has been precipitated by warfare and invasions in which stronger societies overpowered weaker societies, thus forcing vanquished societies to adopt the victors' languages, religions, and other cultural and societal attributes. The societal acculturation process can be seen most clearly by analyzing the central role of the city of Rome in socializing citizens from the far corners of the Roman Empire to Roman law, values, and customs. The acculturation process in which the non-Roman is subjected was aptly expressed in the slogan, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.” Whether due to force, other types of coercion, or because they have accepted the customs and values that are different from their volition, acculturation as an ongoing procedure may itself be very limited, partial, or total, with the latter representing assimilation.

The Roman Empire was probably the first international state to regularize and standardize patterns of consumption because of the vastness of its territory. These patterns would come to denote consumptive patterns from the collapse of the empire, the evolution from feudalism to capitalism, transformation of the commodity markets from farming to manufacturing and industrial, and the transition from rural to urban life. For populations engaged in the process of cultural change and cultural acquisition, and whose lives might be changed in the process, E. Franklin Frazier's insightful dual acculturation dichotomy would seem appropriate, though he intended the model to address the black culture in the South as it was shaped by the culture of Jim Crow. For Frazier, material acculturation involved the conveying of language and other cultural tools, whereas ideational acculturation involved the conveyance of morals and norms. This point made by Frazier with respect to black Southerners can be said to parallel the views and actions of many groups that must engage with larger, more dominant groups within specific political and demographical boundaries. The issue here is that individuals and groups may consciously decide to accept the language and visible cultural tools of a new or dominant culture without accepting and internalizing the morals and norms of that culture.

In the modern era, the acculturation process was accelerated by the combination of the growth of cities, the continuing urbanization process, the scientific revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the intensification of European colonialism, which fostered the view that conquered colonies were [Page 2]sources of goods that might be available for citizens of Western nations. The slave trade was a part of this goods-and-services process. However, until the mid-to late nineteenth century the acquisition of many goods and services was only possible for the rich and members of the upper class.

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