Culture has been a subject of great interest for academic scholars, social scientists and practitioners for a long time. Understanding culture is believed to be a difficult exercise by many, several attempts have been made in the past to explain and explore the meaning and dimensions of culture. Use of metaphors is a unique approach adopted by Martin J. Gannon to understand culture in depth. This approach led to the first edition of his celebrated book, Understanding Global Cultures: Metaphorical Journeys through 17 countries. In its fifth edition Gannon collaborated with his colleague at California State University, San Marcos, Rajnandini Pillai to make certain amends in the previous work.
Understanding Global Cultures: Metaphorical Journeys Through 31 Nations, Clusters of Nations, Continents, and Diversity Fifth Edition is organized into 35 chapters divided into 12 major parts. The first part introduces the concept of cultural metaphor which is described as any major phenomenon, activity, or institution with which all or most of its members closely identify cognitively and/or emotionally. Authors describe how these cultural metaphors were constructed relying upon the work of cross-cultural psychologists and anthropologists. By using these metaphors, authors chose to profile nations. Base culture and its evolution across national borders and for two continents are also mapped in the book.
Part II of the book is on exploring the authority-ranking cultures, in which there is a high degree of collectivism but also a high degree of power distance. These cultures emphasize that superiors and subordinates have obligations towards one another that transcend job descriptions. In most of the cases these authority-ranking nations are ruled by large clans or families or have ethnic and religious groups around which such clans form. The national metaphors considered in this group include the Thai Kingdom; the Japanese Garden; Bedouin Jewelry and Saudi Arabia; The Turkish Coffeehouse; Don Ganh; the two sides of Vietnam; The Polish Village Church; and Kimchi and Korea. Recent trend has witnessed the shift from authority-ranking governments through democratic reforms. However, the commonality between these cultures is hierarchies with strong leadership positions at the top.
Parts III and IV extensively cover egalitarian cultures. High degree of individualism and low degree of power distance (horizontal individualism) is a hallmark of egalitarian culture. In Part III egalitarian cultures of three Scandinavian counties, Sweden, Finland and Denmark have been discussed. These countries display most extreme type of egalitarianism currently existing among nations. Same violation would attract different penalty from two different groups of people, those equipped with more resources would be paying more whereas those with lesser resources will be asked to pay less. Part IV takes a look into egalitarian cultures of non-Scandinavian nations such as Germany, Ireland, Canada and France. These countries tend to have high tax rates to support many social programs.
Under market-pricing cultures in Part V, authors use American football as a cultural metaphor to understand USA. In USA, football is more than just a sport it is a symbol of common belief and ideas. The speed, movement, constant aggressiveness and intense competition typically describe the US culture in most perfect sense. The Tradition British House metaphor is used to understand Britain. Authors describe this using the model of invisible glue where people are closely linked by shared values and expectations. The other models used to understand modern Britain is nation being divided into three class lines (upper, middle and lower) and division of nation into two classes of very privileged and socially disadvantaged.
Taking a departure from common and widespread culture, Part VI is an attempt to explore Cleft National Cultures. Cleft National Culture means that the major ethnic groups are so clearly separated that it is difficult to form a national culture. This makes it difficult to identify a culture metaphor expressive of major values of all ethnic groups of that nation. The metaphors used in this part are, Malaysian Balik Kampung; Nigerian Marketplace; Israeli Kibbutzim and Moshavim; Italian Operal; and Belgian Lace. Part VII describes the phenomenon of being torn from the cultural roots because of major assaults on the core values of their cultures. This part provides two outstanding account of such culture in the form of Mexico and Russia. The metaphors used are The Mexican Fiesta and The Russian Ballet.
Part VIII discusses the Base culture and its diffusion across borders (cultures of Nations). Base culture of Chinese through a discussion of China’s Great Wall and cross-cultural paradox in discussed in this part. Chinese living in various nations through expatriation is explained by an analysis of the Chinese family altar. In the last chapter of this part the creation of Singaporean culture is discussed whose population is predominantly Chinese. The Singaporean hawker center is used as a metaphor for Singapore.
Part IX of the book, discusses the culture of a fascinating nation, India, which has great ethnic, religious and geographic diversity. The country possesses more contrasts and diversity than many other nations in the world, but it still succeeds in showing a great degree of unity. Under the first chapter, with the usage of “the dance of Shiva” as a metaphor, authors take a look at the dominant culture, Hinduism. It unmistakably takes through concepts of cyclical Hindu philosophy, cycle of social interactions and the work and recreational cycle. Second chapter in this part looks at the diversity part of the country with the metaphor; a kaleidoscope of diversity. Brief account of the kaleidoscope of religions and cultural celebrations is presented in this chapter. Origins and early roots of religions like Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism is also discussed in the chapter. Cricket is also a subject touched upon in this section as it is widely considered as the most celebrated and popular sport in India.
When we talk about metaphors there can be a relative degree of ambiguity as it may be interpreted in entirely different manner in different nations. This difference in meanings of metaphors is discussed in Part X. Authors have chosen two metaphors of Spanish and Portuguese bullfight to describe culture of these two nations. There is a stark difference between two bullfights in Spanish bullfight the bull is killed, whereas it is only harnessed or stopped physically in the Portuguese bullfight. Part XI takes a look into two popular music as cultural metaphors for two South American countries, Brazilian samba and the Argentine tango.
Having profiled ethnic groups, nations and group of nations, in Part XII, authors make an attempt to profile continents. Understanding the complexity of assigning metaphors to the continents, authors selected two continents Australia and Africa. The cultural metaphor used for Australia is Australian Outdoor Recreational Activities and for Africa the Sub-Saharan African Bush Taxi. These metaphors try to capture the essence of entire continents in discussion.
This book is a significant work in the broader domain of understanding culture. Book demonstrates how metaphors are guidelines to understand what members of a culture consider important. Authors have successfully used metaphors to explain culture of different ethnic groups, individual nations, cluster of nations and two continents. This book is a recommended read for a multitude of audiences, including academicians, researchers, practitioners, students and anyone who is interested in understanding culture. The most significant feature is the selection and use of metaphor to effectively describe culture, new information and experiences in different nations will continue to enrich these metaphors from time to time. However, some researchers may also point out a weak link that the evidence gathered and presented for each of the metaphor is to support the point made by authors. This can still be dealt with the argument that each culture does not have one single culture and it always undergoes constant slow change. The length of the manuscript is 680 pages which is certainly not on the higher end considering the amount of writing required to sum up the culture of a country or a continent under one metaphor. The paperback of the book is prices at $80, which is a value for money catering to the need of variety of audiences.
