LESSON 3: The Self from the Anthropological Perspective

ENGAGE

Getting to Know You

➢ How can I get my students to know each other better, or how

can I get to know other people?

➢ This game helps people become more acquainted with each

other – helping people learn and remember names and as
people share about their unique interests, experiences, or
fascinating, as people explain these details about themselves.

EXPLORE

Short Video

Watch the Anthropological Perspective of Self:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ5pcHeWLUM

EXPLAIN

• In Anthropology, to belong to a people is not necessarily implying a legal association

to a country but it entails a responsibility to live and protect the country’s cherished
values. To belong and relate to a culture means to adopt, accept, and treasure its
entire way of life.

CULTURAL IDENTITY AND NATIONAL IDENTITY

• Culture is derived from the Latin word cultura or cultus meaning care or cultivation. It
is analogous to caring for an infant. Because an infant has prolonged dependency,
he or she has to be taken care of by the people around him or her. The infant has to
learn from them so he or she can better adjust while growing up in her or his immediate
cultural environment.
• Identity refers to “who the person is,” or the qualities and traits of an individual that
make him or her different from others. There are many ways to distinguished people.
 An example is identifying them in a geographical context or based on where they
come from.
• Cultural identity refers to the identity or feeling of belongingness to a certain culture
group. it is an individual’s perception about himself or herself anchored on race,
gender, nationality, religion, ethnicity, and language.
• The cultural identity theory explains why a person acts and behaves the way he or she
does. It makes sense of how an individual is influenced by the cultural contexts he or
she is situated in. a single person can possess a multiple identities, simultaneously
making him or her part of many cultural groups. These identities overlap and form the
identity of an individual.
• A nation is a group of people built on the premise of shared customs, traditions,
religions, language, art, history, and more.
• National identity refers to the identity or feeling of belongingness to one state or
nation. It is socially constructed. It is influenced and shaped by material and non-
material cultures. Material culture such as the national flag, emblem or seal is
representative of all the people who are part of a nation. Non-material culture
embodies the shared understanding of a group of people which includes norms,
beliefs and traditions. National identity requires the process of self-categorization.

BRIAN MORRIS’ ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE SELF

• He reiterated that the self is not an entity but a process that orchestrates an individual’s
personal experience. As a result of this process, a person becomes self-aware and self-
reflective about his or her place in the surrounding world.
• The concept of the self for him is defined as an individual’s mental representation of
his or her person, as kind of self-representation. The concept of other in relation to the
self, refers to how one perceives the mental representations of others.
• He stated that the most crucial form of interaction and exchange takes place neither
between the individual and society nor between the psyche and culture, but instead
between the self and his or her cultural environment as mediated by social practices.

DIALOGICAL SELF

• The dialogical self theory was introduced in 1992 by Hubert Hermans. The theory
regarded “self” as the “society of mind.” He posited the idea that the self is considered
as extended to significant others in the environment that populate the self as a
dynamic multiplicity of I-positions in which dialogical or monological relationships may
emerged.
• In this theory, an individual’s sense of self is established through how one identifies
himself or herself with the different positions he or she holds, internally or externally, to
himself or herself.
• An internal I-position refers on how one functions in himself or herself while an external
I-position refers to how one identifies himself or herself based on a particular external
factors. All these constitute the functionality of the self.
 • The dialogical self approach calls for the need for the I-positions to come in contact
with each other – to be in a dialogue with one another in order for a individual to
become fully aware of the different dimensions that constitute his or her self.
• Dialogical self was conceptualized in terms of dynamic multiplicity or relatively
autonomous I-positions in the extended landscape of the mind.
• The dialogical self is a relational concept of self. In Herman’s view, the autonomy of
self is not constituted in an internal intra-individual negotiation made by one I-position
with respect to another, but it is intensely interwoven with external dialogical
relationships with actual others.

INDIVIDUAL SELF, RELATIONAL SELF, AND COLLECTIVE SELF

• There are three fundamental selves, namely the individual self, the relational self, and
the collective self. The individual self reflects the cognitions related to traits, states, and
behaviors that are stored in memory. The relational self reflects cognitions that are
related to one’s relationships. The collective self reflects cognitions that are related to
one’s group.
• Each self is inherently social. Each self involves assimilations and contrasts, which
respectively occur between and within persons, and groups for the individual,
relational and collective self. Furthermore, each self is important and meaningful to
human experience.

IDENTITY STRUGGLES

• Identity struggle is a term introduced by Anthony Wallace and Raymond Fogelson. It

characterizes the discrepancy between the identity a person claims to possess and
the identity attributed to that person by others. When an individual perceives that he
or she is assigned a wrong impression, he or she will probably always defend his or her
identity. The best possible solution to this situation is to talk to the person and establish
a mutual understanding regarding one’s way of perceiving himself or herself as
opposed to how he or she thinks he or she is perceived by others. It has to be done as
soon as possible in order to prevent future conflicts. The confrontation, however, must
be done in a calm and respectful manner.