Spotlight on Students: Cultural Relativism vs. Ethnocentrism

Pictured above are various types of resumes.  Readers should be aware that resume standards vary by profession and one should consult appropriate Career Counselors to ensure they are formatting their resume appropriately for the job they are applying for.  Image source: MacGuire 2020

 

This post highlights the work required of my SA 202: Introduction to Anthropology students.  Students were given the opportunity to explore a different culture through two lenses, cultural relativism and ethnocentrism, and through this exercise learn about themselves and the other culture. Several students were given the opportunity to have their exemplary work featured on the blog, and the students who provided permission have their work featured here in this and the following blog posts.   Please show your appreciation for their work through the comments.

 

By: Ragavi Premnath

 

Everyone has their own way of doing things, whether that be texting a friend, driving on the right side of a street to your work, or submitting a resume in hopes for a new job in a new place. No matter who the person is, culture plays a huge role in an individual’s everyday actions. There are, however, differences in the way one perceives culture. Cultural relativism and ethnocentrism can have varying impacts on the ways humans interact with each other and accept what others may deem as unconventional. For example, two Human Resources employees, Morgan and Kennedy, were reviewing resumes from several job applicants who were wishing to pursue a career in America. As they were reviewing the resumes, they found one from an international applicant who shared more information than was necessary for the job, such as their religion, names of spouse and children, and a photo of themselves. This made Morgan and Kennedy’s job more difficult as they had to take the extra step to fix the resume and send it in with the proper information as a means of protecting the individual who sent in the application. Individuals who are not familiar with the proper customs of a standard American resume might send in a resume with the standards that their own culture deems proper for the job. There are surely multiple different ways to have interpreted the above scenario, but this paper is mainly intended to focus on two main interpretations: ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.

The book Anthropology: Asking Questions About Human Origins, Diversity, and Culture defines the term ethnocentrism as “[the] feeling that everyone else does things the wrong way and that our way of doing things is right” (Fuentes, Vivanco, Welsch, 36). In opposition to ethnocentrism is cultural relativism. Cultural relativism is another approach in which anthropologists view the cultures of different individuals in order to gain a better sense of the diversity that makes each individual unique. The authors of the above text define cultural relativism as the way in which “we interpret and make sense of another culture in terms of the other culture’s perspective, using their own goals, values, and beliefs rather than our own to make sense of what people say and do” (Fuentes, Vivanco, Welsch, 37).

From the above scenario, it is easy to see that both Morgan and Kennedy interpreted the international applicant’s resume in an ethnocentrism fashion. Fuentes, Vivanco, and Welsch state, “we are constantly judging their society and how it does things by our own goals, morals, and understandings, we cannot ever understand them in their own terms” (37). However international applicants may feel about the correctness of their resume, ethnocentrism stands as an obstacle to accepting other cultural methods of writing resumes in America. Such characteristics of ethnocentrism bring about a feeling of frustration to those who have a hard time understanding other cultures, such as the two Human Resources employees, and often will direct judgement towards those that cannot easily accustom themselves to the American norm. Anthropology: Asking Questions About Human Origins, Diversity, and Culture claims, “we do things-or think things out-in the “right” way and everybody else thinks and does everything incorrectly” (Fuentes, Vivanco, Welsch, 36). Both individuals failed to understand where the international applicant was coming from and immediately felt anger towards the applicant who had no idea that their resume was considered inappropriate in American culture.

 In a new perspective, Morgan and Kennedy could have behaved in a culturally relativistic manner to the international applicant’s resume. Instead of feeling frustrated and making comments about the resume, Morgan and Kennedy would have then proceeded to make the changes necessary to the resume and update their website with the required information needed on resumes from everyone in order to help those outside of American cultures fill in a proper resume structure. Fuentes, Vivanco, and Welsch claim, “no group of people is homogeneous, so it is impossible to judge an entire culture based on the actions or beliefs of a few” (37). Therefore, in this instance it is impossible to judge the entire country based on the international applicant’s submission. They also state, “understanding another culture in its own terms does not mean that the anthropologist accepts and defends all the things people do”  (Fuentes, Vivanco, Welsch, 37). This is a true fact given that Morgan and Kennedy still needed to go forth and make changes to the international resume for proper submission. In a culturally relativistic manner, both can carry out this task perhaps with an empathetic demeanor instead.

After viewing both interpretations of this scenario, I can conclude that either interpretation could be valid based on the given situation and setting. As a student of Hindu faith and having grown up in America for most of my life, I can understand the frustration that Morgan and Kennedy faced upon reviewing the load of resumes although it did seem a little rude. At the same time, I can also understand how applicants who are not familiar with the resume process might submit something that is not generally accepted but will not quite know that it is incorrect. If I were either of the two human resource employees I probably would not have been as frustrated as they were, but I would have proceeded to fix the resume issue and then would lodge a complaint to the head of the department to update our website with accurate resume information. By doing this I would have been impressing a culturally relativistic approach upon the situation. If I were to portray an ethnocentric manner, I would have probably sent the resume back with a note saying to fix the document with the necessary information. This would not be an accurate representation of my actual behavior, but it is rather a suggestion of what it could be. Overall, ethnocentric and culturally relativistic interpretations take place in our everyday lives in any action that we choose to take.

Work Cited

Agustin Fuentes, Luis A. Vivanco, Robert L. Welsch. Anthropology: Asking Questions About Human Origins, Diversity, and Culture (1st ed., pg. 36, 37). Oxford University Press, 2017.