What is Culture?

Culture is a very broad word, so seeing as I intend to discuss it a lot it makes sense that I define what the word means in the context of my writing. To do this, I want to introduce some related concepts. The first of these is the concept of a cultural group.

So what is a cultural group?

A cultural group is a group of people that are related through some sort of shared feature about how they lives. There are many different types of cultural groups, such as religions, nationalities and fanbases. People who were born in Finland may, for example, follow certain social rules and customs that are unique to the people in that country. Those people would be a part of the Finnish cultural group. People who identify as Muslim, believe in Allah and take part in Islamic religious ceremonies would be part of the Islamic cultural group. Likewise, people who are interested in Football, watch Football matches regularly, and keep up with the discussion around Football are a part of the Football cultural group.

It is worth clarification that a person’s cultural group is not dictated solely by one’s physical features. It is possible that a person from Finland does not participate in Finnish cultural practices much at all, and thus, such a person would not really be considered a part of the Finnish cultural group. Being Finnish by birth and being culturally Finnish is not the same thing, despite the fact that being Finnish by birth does often play a significant role in someone becoming culturally Finnish.

Your culture, and your cultural groups are a product of how you live your life. This includes the language you speak and the traditions you follow. It includes the ways in which you interact with people and the world. Your culture is not set in stone, and there is an element of choice in what cultures you are a part of. If you are Finnish (by birth), your default national culture is the Finnish Culture. You don’t really have a choice in your default national culture, but it is possible to switch away from your default national culture in favour of another.

For example, if you were to start living more in line with Japanese cultural customs and traditions as opposed to Finnish ones, then you might be culturally Japanese despite being Finnish by nationality. Of course, there are many people who would argue that it is possible for an individual to have multiple cultures of the same type. This is a seperate discussion in its own right, so I’ll leave it for another day.

There is one more thing I want to cover before concluding the definition of culture. This is the concept of a cultural space. The way to think about this is that each cultural group must have a home. The cultural space for the Finnish culture is the country of Finland. A cultural space for Football culture might be the stands of a football ground, or a Football related social media page (it may be noted here that it is possible for a single culture to have multiple cultural spaces). Cultures that exist in online spaces will likely have cultural spaces like forums, websites and comment sections.

It is important to note, that people from outside of Culture X may still exist within the cultural space of Culture X. The main point to understand about a cultural space, is that it must be dominated by its corresponding cultural group. The concept of cultural spaces is vital to defining culture, because without its own cultural space, a culture would cease to exist.

So lets revisit the title question: What is Culture?

Using the terms defined in this piece, a culture is the way of life, or a set of customs and/or traditions acted out by a cultural group that exists in at least one cultural space. If culture is the “what”, then the cultural group is the “who”, and the cultural space is the “where”. There are different types of culture, which include, but are not limited to: Religious Cultures, National/Regional Cultures, Fanbase Cultures and Corporate Cultures.

In future posts, the concept of culture will be expanded upon further based on my own observations. In addition, I’d also like to write about cultures and subcultures that I admire, or that I consider myself to be a part of.