ERASMUS+ PROGRAMME, KEY ACTION 2

CAPACITY BUILDING IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Furthering International Relations Capacities and Intercultural Engagement to

Nurture Campus Diversity and to Support Internationalisation at Home
(FRIENDS)

Unit 6: Understanding Ethnic and cultural diversity –

multicultural citizenship and ethnic identity
Part 1
Dr. Cemre Erciyes

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the second chapter of Friends MOOC. I am sociologist Dr. Cemre Erciyes at Aydın
University, Turkey. In the next three units we will be together learning key concepts of
cultural diversity including ethnic origin, language and gender and discussing hidden
barriers in cultural communication.
The first unit we will be together in is called Culture across Time and Space.
Time and Space, concepts we each have an understanding of, but how does it relate to
culture? Before coming to this discussion let’s look at what we will learn in this Unit.
Slide: Objectives of Unit 4
o Video 1: Understanding cultural diversity, ethnicity and race
o Video 2: Insights: Cultural diversity on campus
o Video 3: Concepts of minorities, diasporas, globalisation and transnationalism
o Video 4: Insights: Experiences of a scholar from India in Istanbul.
o Video 5: Subcultures
o Video 6: Insights: Vegan-Queer Activism
o Video 7: Multiculturalism
o Video 8: Being an African Student in Turkey

In this video we will first focus on concepts of diversity, ethnicity and race. In the next video
you will hear insights from our campus and how divers a single university environment can
be. You will hear our students at Istanbul Aydın University talking about their ethnic and

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views
only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the
information contained therein. 1
cultural backgrounds. The third video of this Unit will focus on the concept of minorities,
diasporas, globalisation and transnationalism. You will also listen to the experiences of a
scholar from India talking about her life in Istanbul. Then we will look into the characteristics
of subcultures followed by another insights video where you will hear a queer vegan activist
talk about their experiences and understanding of what it means to be the “other” in a
society. The final section will focus on theories of multiculturalism. Are we living in melting
pod societies or salad bowls? Or have we moved from these theoretical understandings and
become more culturally self-aware and we can live and communicate in harmony within all
the diversity the contemporary everyday life offers? Before we wrap up this unit you will
hear an African Student Society at Istanbul Aydın University talking about his experiences.
Now that we know where we are headed, let’s get back to how does culture change across
time and space. What makes a culture distinct from another at a certain time or place?
You have already learnt what culture is and key principles of cross-cultural studies. When
we refer to a specific culture, we refer to a medium of meaning and behaviour at a certain
time and place. What you understand of belonging to a certain cultural group, how you
should act, behave, dress, communicate to be representing that culture can be different from
what your parents, what your grandparents and their parents understood of it.
Slide: What influences culture?
Think about yourselves. Do you consider yourself as belonging to a certain culture? What
about other people you meet – do they identify you as belonging to a certain culture? Even
when you refer to being a “world citizen” you refer to a “way of being”, “way of thinking” and
“way of communicating” with everyone else.
So, what has made you who you are?
Your culture is influenced from where you are from, what is your ethnic origin, what
languages do you speak, your gender, your family, education, religion, history, the media you
follow, what is acceptable behaviour in your environment, what are the basic common values
and your encounters with different cultures.
Let's take the example of Europe. In Europe there are currently 360 larger or smaller
minorities and peoples. Of these only 5 of them construct one seventh of all Europeans. And
there live 768 million Europeans whose ethnic distribution does not correspond with
Europe’s political division into the 47 states. Despite the fact that we see similar life styles
and values all around the world, thanks to the global processes and increased
communication, the traditional cultures are still shaping the everyday experiences of people.
And this creates diversity.

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views
only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the
information contained therein. 2
What should we understand from diversity? “The concept of diversity” as defined by the
University of Oregon in 1999, “encompasses acceptance and respect. It means understanding
that each individual is unique, and recognizing our individual differences. These can be along
the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age,
physical abilities, religious belief, political beliefs, geography or other ideologies. It is the
exploration of these differences in a safe, positive and nurturing environment. It is about
understanding each other and moving beyond simple tolerance to embracing and
celebrating the rich dimensions of diversity contained within each individual.”
As this definition suggests race and ethnicity are the key dimensions of diversity. So, let’s
look at these concepts up close.
Race is a reference to what people look like, to their physical characteristics such as the
colour of the skin, bone structure, hair or eye colour. Though in most cases you may think
that you can guess the race of a person by visual markers, there are variations in physical
appearances of people from the same origin, even siblings. For example, I have been taken
as a local in India when I travelled there for a wedding, wearing traditional Indian dress. Seen
as a “different race” was my friend also wearing a Saree and I was asked at the wedding by
2000 people where she was coming from. This is just an example of how race can be
understood differently in different places.
In its time dimension, race and the ideas connected to race have a historical association with
slavery, colonialism, political and economic repression. That oppressive past must be
remembered and it must be understood that race is a social construct based on physical
markers and there is still racial prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination in the everyday
life.
Another concept we will focus on is ethnicity. Ethnicity, different from race “refers to the way
in which social and cultural difference, language, and ancestry combine as a dimension of
social action and social organization, and form a socially reproduced system of classification”
(Fenton 1999). According to Eriksen (1996) “the most fundamental fact of ethnicity... is the
application of a systematic distinction between "we" and "the others"” The moment a group
comes into contact with another, ethnicity appears. This contact can be through migration,
through unrecognition of a desire for nationhood, being a minority in a diverse society or
some other reason.
A recent study from the World Values Survey, which you have learnt in the first chapter,
found out that “ethnicity is indeed associated with fundamental differences in values,
attitudes, and preferences... however, there are many other sources of variation in culture,
not associated with ethnic identity”. The study argues, “some regions in Latin America
feature a weak degree of association between culture and ethnicity, while others like sub-
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views
only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the
information contained therein. 3
Saharan Africa and Asia feature more overlap. The degree to which ethnic classifications
reflect deep differences in cultural attitudes varies across regions, so the extent to which
ethnic identities are primordially given or constructed varies across locations.” (Desmet
et.al. 2017). In other words, ethnicity, like race, have some fundamental elements but it is
also a construct in time and space.
Now come and meet with a diverse set of students from Istanbul Aydin University in the next
video.

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views
only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the
information contained therein. 4