Enculturation and

Re-socialization
Effects of Enculturation and resocialization

Nidhi Kulkarni
3/25/2017
Enculturation and Re-Socialization
Enculturation refers to the process through which we learn about the culture we live
in. Through enculturation, we learn what behaviors, values, language, and morals are
acceptable in our society. We learn by observing other members of our society, including
our parents, friends, teachers, and mentors. Enculturation provides a means for us to
become functional members of our society.

Enculturation is the process by which the values and norms of a society are passed on to
or acquired by its members. The totality of actions within a culture establishes a context
that sets the conditions for what is possible within the society. Learning in this context
becomes a life-long process developed through rhetoric in the form of speech, texts,
images, gestures, and practices that reaffirm the technological, economic, political,
social, ideological, and philosophical bases of the culture. (Rieder, 1996)

Enculturation is the process by which people learn the requirements of their

surrounding culture and acquire values and behavior appropriate or necessary in that
culture. (Grusec & Hastings, 2007). As part of this process, the influences that limit,
direct, or shape the individual (whether deliberately or not) include parents, other
adults, and peers. If successful, enculturation results in competence in the language,
values, and rituals of the culture (Grace, 2009).

For example, we have learned the values of being respectful, kind, and obedient from
our parents and religious institution. We have learned how to dress from our friends,
movies etc. we have also learned appropriate behaviors from observing our family,
friends, and other individuals in the society. Which means that we are doing well in
college, home life and social life which means that we are successful members of the
society

Enculturation, says E. Adamson Hoebel, is "both a conscious and an unconscious

conditioning process whereby man, as child and adult, achieves competence in his
culture, internalizes his culture and becomes thoroughly enculturated." One internalizes
the dreams and expectations, the rules and requirements not just for the larger society
seen as a whole, but also for every specific demand within the whole. Society does
whatever is necessary to aid any one of its members in learning proper and appropriate
behavior for any given social setting and in meeting the demands of any challenge.
Enculturation begins before birth and continues until death. Thus, one learns respect for
the symbols of the nation through reciting a pledge of allegiance and singing the
national anthem in school. He learns with whom he may be physically violent (a
wrestling competitor) and with whom he cannot (the little girl down the street). He
becomes aware of his rights and obligations and privileges as well as the rights of others.
(Mayers, 1988)

Resocialization is the process by which one's sense of social values, beliefs, and norms
are re-engineered. This process is deliberately carried out in a variety of settings such as
in many single parent households and military boot-camps, through an intense social
process that may take place in a total institution. (resocialization)

Video Deconstruction
The video of Enculturation by David Tyler, he talks about the aspect of a native Pueblo
Indian which is a Native American Indian tribe in Arizona, United States. We can see
that we see how the whites from the East came to the west, the land of the author keeps
on repeating the phrase kachina, what have I done? Kachina is an ancestral spirit in
the Pueblo Indian mythology, who is believed to visit the Pueblos at intervals and acts as
a messenger between the Pueblos and the God. It can be inferred that the author is
trying to tell kachina that due to the resocialization with his tribe he is being infatuated
by the American way of living.

The singer says that the people who came from the east had fair skins and carried guns
and they came one by one. The eastern cities are shown as beautiful dreamland and in
the next frame they show the native tribal land with dry land, grass and mountains. He
also says that the eastern cities are great cities which have spread like dreams. He then
talks about the way in which they used to live before the eastern came to stay with them.
He says to kachina that the sun and the moon have taught him everything that he knows
but then now that the easterners have come things have been changing and he wants
kachina to send him a sign that will take him back to the old days, the times where he
was born and bought up, the time where they followed their own culture and werent
modernized. This is shown in the video in various frames. Initially they used to stay in
tents and huts but now they stay in buildings, they used to have long hair, head gear and
the native rugged attire but due to enculturation and re-socialization, the hair is cut
short and set in a manner, the head gear is dismissed and the attired is changed to a
sophisticated suit. While their original get-togethers were about singing, dancing and
merry making in the field, now they are made to sit in rows in disciplined manner one
frame in the video shows their original housing which was made of limestone, bricks,
clay and water which is turned into a museum for the tourists later.

The shift in the clothing to way of living shows the way in which the east has influenced
the west and how their preferences of products have been changed. This also showcases
the requirement for the availability or access of various lifestyle products and brands to
be available in these tribal regions of America. We see that how the process of
enculturation and re-socialization has helped the westerners to adapt to the eastern
cultures

Effects of enculturation in India

Today in this era of globalization the Indian market has gone through a dramatic
change. Growing global interdependence of resources and the production of consumer
products are affecting the cultural, economic political and social well-being of
consumers. Due to the forces of globalization in India there is a transformation in the
consumer culture as the consumer of India primarily those who are residing in the
cosmopolitan cities of the country are increasing adapting the culture of west, which is
also evident from their purchasing behaviour as they prefer the brands of foreign origin
and this phenomenon is called consumer acculturation. International marketing
managers and practitioners have been long interested in the field of consumer
acculturation due to its direct impact on the sales of the foreign brands and its thorough
understanding can be capitalized by them to profit their respective businesses

Researchers like Cleveland and Loroche have attributed globalization as a driving force
to consumer acculturation (Loroche, 2007). Similar findings had been produced by
many other researchers like Douglas S.P, (Craig C.S., 2006) and Cleveland etc.
(Cleveland M, 2009) who argued that with the increase in globalization, consumer
culture & behaviour the world over is homogenizing and the whole world is
transforming into a place following similar culture. This implies that local culture in
India too is being influenced by these persistent forces of globalization which leads to a
change in the consumer culture and behaviour (N, 2012)

The best example is Indian immigrants living in the west. We can see that even though
their original culture is different from the western culture they are trying to adapt to
their culture by changing their lifestyle and consumption pattern. This change is
happening due to resocialization and acculturation.

And when we talk about the advertising industry, the advertisers weave the ads in a
intricate manner focusing on the global phenomenon or trend. This is all possible due to
the re-socialization that is happening between the countries of the world and also due to
enculturation .for example the ads for the big Indian brands like Abof, Fastrack, Titan,
Raymond etc, have a hint of western culture. Hence, we can say that the Indian brands
have modeled their offering based on the western approach.
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