– Cultural behaviours are just ones that have been shaped specifically within both big and small groups (and in many ways and even by pairs of people) and those outside the group might not have had these behaviours shaped
– Calling some behaviours ‘cultural’ without further observations and documentation of the contexts does not explain anything; it does not add anything at all; it is just more words
– You need to provide at least the following for analysing cultural contexts:
- Who are the group?
- What behaviours have been shaped over time?
- What social consequences happen when people in the group do these behaviours?
- What happens when people do these behaviours as a group?
- What happens when people do not do them?
- What happens when an outsider does these behaviours?
–Cultural behaviours sometimes seem weird to outsiders… but this comes from the very definition of culture
– Once you analyse the social and economic consequences for people in the group the cultural practices usually make sense as to how and why they were shaped
– If you want to describe all the contexts for cultural behaviours and patterns, this requires special methodologies; variations on participatory and intensive research