You’re looking in an overseas direction, maybe even beginning the sacrifices to get there.
Perhaps you’ve sold the Volvo, put the kids’ bikes on Facebook Marketplace, said goodbye to the grandmother you’re not sure will make it to your first home assignment.
Reading Time: 8 minutes
We’re excited to welcome back Sheri of Engineering Ministries International for her final post of her invaluable three-part series on “cultural icebergs”–this time, evaluating collectivist vs. individualist societies.
EMI mobilizes architects, engineers, construction managers, and other design professionals–including those through an incredible internship program–to provide design services for those helping the poor. We’re talking water projects, hospitals, schools, orphanages, you name it. Meanwhile, they raise up disciples and trained professionals in-country.
Sheri applies these cross-cultural points poignantly to the elements of designing cross-culturally–but we believe you’ll find inescapable parallels to any cross-cultural work.
Hopefully it will help jumpstart real solutions for cross-cultural sensitivities, and help any culture manifest Jesus Christ according to its own cultural icebergs.
It may even reveal unseen obstacles to our presentation of the Gospel.
****
It was morning in East Africa. A team of EMI designers disembarked from the landrover, excited to return to the site.
Last year they had come to survey the land and design the first building: phase one of a new hospital. The team had worked hard to give Moses, the ministry leader, a plan that was beautiful, practical, cost-effective.
Now they would see the fruit of their work.
Yet as they entered the construction site, their eyes met a surprise. The building floor level was some three feet higher than designed, necessitating stairs and a steep ramp.
Mike, the EMI project leader, was a civil engineer who had developed a good relationship with the ministry over the last two years. He turned to Moses with a questioning look.
Moses offered an explanation: “When we started construction, some friends of the ministry raised concerns about flooding.”
Over the week, the EMI team urged Moses to return to the original design. “The data from the survey and soil tests indicated that flooding will not be an issue. Raising the structure unnecessarily increases the cost. The steep, makeshift ramp will be challenging for patients.” Yet each time Moses politely deflected these attempts, deferring to other unidentified advisors.
The Cultural Iceberg, adapted by Sheri L. (2016) from work by Edward T. Hall (1976). Art by Anna Seeley and Abby Smith.
In my first post, I introduced the cultural iceberg concept: An idea that culture exists both above the waterline and below.
Above the water is The What, or that which we can observe with our senses.
Below the water lies The Why, or the intangible, subconscious aspects of culture. These include attitudes, beliefs, expectations, values, and assumptions.
This greater mass of culture lies beneath the waterline, and we must go out of our way to recognize and understand it.
Culture specialists often explore a particular aspect of culture in terms of a spectrum or continuum of values (Hall; Hofestede; Storti).
These continua are useful tools for comparing the general values of one culture to another. My second article focused on communication: How words and context are used to communicate truth. In this final ‘Iceberg’ post, we’re looking at identity: How do I understand who I am?
Every person everywhere belongs to groups. At the very least, we all have family, ethnicity, and nationality.
The identity aspect of culture explores how much we look to our various groups for our sense of worth, social role, and security. How tight or loose are our social ties?
Storti’s continuum for concept of self in culture. Craig Storti, Figuring Foreigners Out: A Practical Guide, 1999, 52
From birth onward, members of collectivist societies are integrated into cohesive in-groups that protect them throughout their lives in exchange for loyalty and service.
Within the collective, roles are clearly defined. The group tells the individual who they are and what they are expected to do.
Most people of the world live in collectivist cultures. This includes the vast majority of Asians, Africans and Latin Americans, as well as parts of southern and eastern Europe and several North American subcultures.
Individualistic society is the opposite. The interests of the person take priority and social ties tend to be flexible and impermanent.
North Americans and northern Europeans tend to be on the individualistic side of the spectrum.
A culture’s proverbs are often revealing expressions of its values:
Reading Time: 7 minutes
We’re excited to welcome back Sheri of Engineering Ministries International. EMI mobilizes architects, engineers, construction managers, and other design professionals–including those through an incredible internship program–to provide design services for those helping the poor. We’re talking water projects, hospitals, schools, orphanages, you name it. Meanwhile, they raise up disciples and trained professionals in-country.
Sheri applies these cross-cultural points poignantly to the elements of designing cross-culturally–but we believe you’ll find inescapable parallels to any cross-cultural work. Hopefully it will help jumpstart real solutions for cross-cultural sensitivities, and help any culture manifest Jesus Christ according to its own cultural icebergs.
It may even reveal unseen obstacles to our presentation of the Gospel.
****
It’s a balmy day in one of India’s oldest cities. Our EMI project team—a mix of North Americans and Asians—is gathered around a conference table as we eagerly share the latest iteration of our master plan for a new training center.
The clients are a married couple, Indians who have given up lucrative careers to work in a difficult and sometimes hostile region. As the project leader lays out the trace paper and begins his presentation, I watch the clients carefully. The husband leans in to listen. The wife sits back, arms folded, legs angled toward the door. Both are nodding and smiling. Both say they like the new draft, but I’m not so sure.
The Cultural Iceberg, adapted by Sheri L. (2016) from work by Edward T. Hall (1976). Art by Anna Seeley and Abby Smith.
In my last post, I introduced the concept of the cultural iceberg: the idea that culture exists both above the waterline and below. Above the water lies The What: that which we can observe with our senses. Below the water is The Why: the intangible, subconscious aspects of culture which include attitudes, beliefs, expectations, values and assumptions. The greater mass of culture lies beneath, and we must go out of our way to recognize and understand it.
Culture specialists often explore a particular aspect of culture in terms of a spectrum or continuum of values (Hall; Hofestede; Storti). Though individual preferences within a society do vary, these continua are useful tools for comparing the general values of one culture, relative to another.
Some of the more commonly discussed values continua include comparisons like these:
In this article, we will focus on the area of communication: how words and context are used to communicate truth.
Every person from every culture communicates, both intentionally and unintentionally. Each of us uses a variety of means to do so – words, gestures, tone of voice, silence and touch. Even clothing, posture, and use of space and time convey a message.
Experts estimate that anywhere from 70-93% of communication is nonverbal. With so many means of communication at our disposal, we have to choose which to prioritize when giving and receiving messages. Do we prefer to spell things out explicitly or do we let others read between the lines? Do we give more weight to words or to the context of those words? Our choices depend a great deal on our cultural background.
High- and Low-Context Communication illustrated. Adapted from Moreau, Campbell & Greener, Effective Intercultural Communication: A Christian Perspective, p.130.
In a society where communities are close-knit and relationships are long-lasting, it’s natural to rely on shared experience and mutual understanding to communicate ideas. In these High Context or Indirect societies, communication is usually indirect and non-verbal. Many things do not need to be spelled out explicitly. To be blunt might even cause offense, as it can imply a lack of respect or a desire for distance.
Situationally, families and close friendships tend to be high context. Globally, most of Asia and parts of Africa, Latin America and southern Europe operate this way.
In a society where relationships are more transient and less holistic, where people have fewer experiences in common, it is more important to be clear, precise and explicit. To be indirect invites misunderstanding and confusion. Rather, the dictionary definitions of words are given priority over any nonverbal or otherwise indirect message. These cultures are called Low Context or Direct.
Situationally, legal contracts, building codes and computer coding languages are good examples of very low context communication. Regionally, northern Europe and North America tend to be low context cultures.
Storti’s continua for directness and the role of context in communication. Craig Storti, Figuring Foreigners Out: A Practical Guide, p.99
Reading Time: 6 minutes
We’re excited to welcome Sheri of Engineering Ministries International. EMI mobilizes architects, engineers, construction managers, and other design professionals–including those through an incredible internship program–to provide design services for those helping the poor. We’re talking water projects, hospitals, schools, orphanages, you name it. Meanwhile, they raise up disciples and trained professionals in-country.
Sheri applies these cross-cultural points poignantly to the elements of designing cross-culturally–but we believe you’ll find inescapable parallels to any cross-cultural work. Hopefully it will help jumpstart real solutions for cross-cultural sensitivities, and help any culture manifest Jesus Christ according to its own cultural icebergs.
It may even reveal unseen obstacles to our presentation of the Gospel.
It is 4:42 a.m. I wake up in an orphanage in south-eastern India.
Though tired from yesterday’s EMI project work, I cannot remain asleep as a mosque’s siren signals the start of Ramadan fasting.
Wide awake, I lie in bed and listen to the other sounds around me. A Hindu neighbour rings a tiny bell as he chants his morning prayers at the family shrine. A vendor shouts the names of fruits for sale. A rooster crows. Without warning, a teenage girl slips silently past the curtain that functions as the door to my room and bows at my bedside with a tray of hot tea.
Every day in India reminds me that this place is different from the America of my childhood. Yet our work with EMI begs the question, just how different is it? How does living and working in a radically different culture affect design? Isn’t a building still a building? At the end of the day, aren’t all people really the same inside? Doesn’t the bond of Christ bridge the gap within our culturally diverse teams and the clients we serve so that we don’t have to worry about differences?
Every traveller quickly learns that people from other nations eat different foods, wear different clothes, and speak different languages.
But culture runs much deeper. As with icebergs, the greater mass of any culture lies beneath the surface, under the waves. We must become adept at recognizing these icebergs and the essential aspects of culture which lie below the waterline.
Anthropologist Edward T. Hall first developed the iceberg concept in 1976 as a way to understand human societies. He explained that the parts of culture which we can observe with our senses—clothes, food, gestures, music, etc.—are just the tip of the iceberg. You might call these the What.
Above-the-water concepts are explicitly passed on by other members of that culture, as when I teach my toddler when to wear shoes or use her “indoor voice.” Since these aspects of culture are consciously learned, they are also more easily recognized and changed. Thus, on a project trip we might learn to eat spicy food, sing a Spanish song, or bow rather than shake hands.
The Cultural Iceberg, adapted by Sheri L. (2016) from work by Edward T. Hall (1976).
But the visible, above-the-water part of an iceberg indicates an invisible and much greater section below. These below-the-water aspects of culture are, by far, the more important and more influential parts. They include attitudes and beliefs, values, expectations, and assumptions—the essence of worldview. The below-the-water parts of cultures can be called the Why.
Since these generally subconscious components of culture are caught by watching those around us more than they are explicitly taught, they are much harder to identify and change. Most of us have never stopped to consider our own under-the-water culture, let alone another’s.
So how can we begin to recognize the cultural icebergs around us?
One effective method is to look for “ripples.” Just as a disturbance on top of the water can indicate something submerged beneath, it is possible to use what you can directly observe to lead toward what you can’t.
Sirens do not tend to sound at 4:42 a.m. unless there is a good reason. That’s a ripple. When you hear the What, start looking for the Why.
Let’s look at some cultural examples below. What can the visible or audible cues around us tell us about a people’s values, beliefs, assumptions, and expectations?
The What:
My toddler is learning to wear shoes at specific times & places, and to speak more quietly inside than out.
The Why:
What am I implicitly teaching her about cleanliness, respect, and notions of space?
The What:
Muslims fast during the month of Ramadan.
The Why:
How do Muslims’ beliefs about God, sin, and salvation affect when and what they eat?
The What:
The teenage girl at the orphanage feels free, perhaps even obligated, to enter my room without knocking at 5:00 a.m.
The Why:
What are her beliefs about the values of privacy, status, and hospitality?
Remarkably, even when we recognize differences in terms of religion, food, language, and dress, it is still easy to proceed with our cross-cultural work relatively unaffected. (For those of us in design, perhaps it’s as if survey maps, buildings, and water systems exist apart from culture.) It is tempting to believe that visible differences are a façade, and that people are really the same deep down. Thus it follows that good design–or good community work, church work, or business-as-mission–should be carried out in basically the same way around the world.
If we persist in this assumption, however, we run the risk of making significant errors in both the process and products of our labor.
Consider a few observations, based on real project trips with Engineering Ministries International. What might these above-the-water ripples indicate about the deeper culture of our teammates, clients, and host countries?
Visible:
In the Sunday church service, the team observes that men and women sit on opposite sides of the room with a buffer space of 3-4 feet down the centre of the hall.
Invisible:
How does this culture preserve the modesty and dignity of both genders? What do they believe are the proper roles for men and women? How will this affect their values & expectations for a building or campus design?
Visible:
The lead architect gives a computer presentation of the team’s work so far. The client has little to say in response except “It looks so beautiful!”
Invisible:
What might this client believe about status, respect, and computer technology? If there was something he didn’t like or agree with, would he feel free to express himself? How might someone from that culture communicate something negative?
Visible:
Overflowing sewage on the campus interferes with training events, but the ministry leadership state they are “unaware of any problems” at the site.
Invisible:
What might this culture believe about covering shame? Which would they consider the bigger issue – leaking sewage or loss of face? How will these values affect their reception of design “solutions” from a team of troubleshooting engineers?
This post originally appeared at EMIworld.org, and is gratefully reprinted with permission.
Editor’s note: Sheri makes some astute observations about what we don’t see–and how it affects others’ response to us and our ministries…and even our personal, culturally-nuanced portrayal of Jesus Christ. Suggested exercises:
Begin to keep track, perhaps in a notebook, of cultural ripples. Becoming observant of the “what” is a clear first step.
With safe cross-cultural relationships and with others who share your culture, gently present your questions.
Compare interpretations of the “Why”. How do Westerners’ perspectives, for example, differ from nationals’ explanations?
Keep track of overarching cultural principles, and seek to apply them to future interactions as you assemble a fuller, more accurate picture of the invisible.
Ask yourself,
What could be counter-cultural or even offensive about our methods of ministry?
Which of these methods are inherent to the Gospel–part of the “stumbling block” of the Cross (i.e. needing to humble ourselves and repent–see 1 Corinthians 1:23)?
Which of these are unnecessary obstacles carried over from our own culture and/or freedom in Christ (Romans 14:13)?
How can I be a “Jew to the Jews”, so to speak, becoming “all things to all people, that by all means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22)?