Talk:Cross-cultural studies

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The cross-cultural studies of communities has been avery essential factor in determining the humanistic characteristics. Exploring the various cultural practices has helped in solving some existing ethinic conflics.We need to have an adequate information on other peoples cultures-how they rdact to certain phenomenas,their way of life, their economic activities,technology,and lastly their physical environment.Through the study of cultures human beings are abble to interact and socialise together with other cultures.With the study of culture we shall be in a position to aviod factiors such as cutural relativism we shall be abble toget the truth behind the origin of a particular culture without relying on false assumptions of the West Okuomi Ojuock62.56.156.69 09:18, 23 January 2007 (UTC)ooooo[reply]

Cross cultural example in Holland Michigan The Holland Area Arts Council is honoring local African American artists during the month of February 2007, known as Black History Month. This event is one of many recognizing the diversity of Holland, Michigan, historically known as Tulip City founded by Dutch immigrants in the 19th century. This is a clear example of a community DOING what many only talk about.

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 21 January 2020 and 3 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): TeresaVarrialeGonzalez. Peer reviewers: TeresaVarrialeGonzalez.

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Recently, I looked for an article in Wikipedia on cross-cultural psychology, and was amazed to find that Wikipedia does not have one. Can I propose that an article on this subject is added to Wikipedia? ACEOREVIVED 19:04, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

would people who watch this page please review the article, Early infanticidal childrearing, which makes many claims about anthropology and about non-Western societies? I was once involved in a flame-war with another editor, and it would be inappropriate for me to do a speedy delete or nominate the page for deletion. More important, I think others need to comment on it. I engaged in a detailed exchange recently with one other editor here, on the talk page; you may wish to review the discussion but it is getting involuted and I ask that you comment separately. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 12:34, 31 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cultural universal (also referred to as Human universals) is a stub article with not enough notability for its own page, and I thought I'd propose a merger in favor of deletion. I personally know very little about this subject but a detailed and concise history is found on the site linked below.

It seems there were a few studies done on this, initially with a linguistic perspective, then the topic broadened a bit after WWII (George Murdock) until interest was lost in the mid-sixties. Since then, a book was published in 1991 with a comprehensive (but largely ignored) list of universals and a German scholar is working on the subject currently.

Maybe this deserves a mention?:

This interest in the exploration of universals was dampened following Clifford Geertz’s relativist critique of universals as banal, vague tautologies, trivial, and as mere clichés in his 1965 essay, “The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man.” -Antweiler, C. Our Common Denominator: Human Universals Revisited. New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2016 (found here: https://www.lindenwood.edu/files/resources/89-93.pdf) DHHornfeldt (talk) 14:50, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. The topic very much meets
  WP:GNG and is a concept distinct from comparing cultures as a field of study. See Google Scholar: [1] Crossroads ^-talk- 06:06, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • As you say, cultural universals is a concept, cross-cultural studies is a field of study. I'm saying there isn't enough to material for more than a dictionary definition of cultural universals, however the history of its use does fit into cross-cultural studies. Thank you for voting that the concept has notability. If you think we should keep it as a separate page, please share how it could be made into a complete article.DHHornfeldt (talk) 15:22, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: As Crossroads notes, anthropological universals is absolutely a notable enough concept to meet
  WP:GNG
  to be covered, though where, I'm not yet certain. I'm skeptical that there isn't enough information about cultural universals to cover on its own, and skeptical of the characterization of "lost interest" or "dampened" interest (especially due to a single anthropologist's critique). Relatedly, the critique by Geertz probably isn't the sole detractor and so there's probably enough out there for a full section in the standalone article covering them.

But, skepticism isn't certainty and I haven't yet gone looking for publications on the subject. For now, I'm leaning against the merge and would support keeping the standalone article.

--Pinchme123 (talk) 22:57, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Response Since both comments cited the
  WP:GNG I feel I mis-worded my original proposal. To reiterate, written well, I have enough notable material for only a couple of paragraphs. In 2017 Donald Brown wrote an article about the impact of his 1991 universals book (found here: https://literary-universals.uconn.edu/2017/06/25/human-universals/
  ) in which he states:

"Much of the attention universals received in anthropology in the twentieth century, notably in the U.S., consisted of denial or minimization of their existence and significance (notably, see Geertz 1965)."

Brown also admits his universals list was only used in one scholarly book and a fiction novel. Additionally the Google Scholar link provided by Crossroads has nothing listed from the last twenty years. Everything I have found on the subject reflects a major turning point in cross-cultural studies in 1965. I understand your skepticism that this is all the material on the subject, more input is what I'm hoping to achieve here. I started a discussion on the Talk:Cultural universal page asking for input on Dec 29 and received none. I would like to write up cultural universals either in a single section on this page, or integrated into the 'Modern era of cross-cultural studies' section. If any additional material ever turns up, we could always grow or split as needed. DHHornfeldt (talk) 17:16, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose: After an easy search of JSTOR and Web of Science for the exact phrases "cultural universal," "anthropological universal," and "human universal," I see there are hundreds of sources deploying the phrase available on both. I find no reason to limit discussion of the concept to a single book by a single author, even if that book is the only collected list of universals (I have no idea if this is the case). In other words, there are hundreds of published manuscripts identifying universals or engaging with the concept, showing there's plenty of research to draw from to flesh out a full WP article on the subject. Even just this past year this was published: "Cultural universals: sacral space in Siberian and Far East folk myths." The article, "Boundaries of historical consciousness: a Western cultural achievement or an anthropological universal?" published in 2019 contains an entire section devoted to explaining "what constitutes an anthropological universal." And this second article has as one of its citations, "Human universals, human nature & human culture" from 2004. Seems there's more than enough ongoing use of the concept and explanations of it, found quite quickly with little effort, so there's likely plenty out there from a wide diversity of scholars.

Considering that this discussion appears to have arisen from one editor's misunderstanding of confusing genetically-coded territorial behavior with the concept of "culture" and thus a "cultural universal," I'm even further skeptical of the suggestion that there isn't enough material to expand a stub on the concept to a full article. So I must oppose.

--Pinchme123 (talk) 19:33, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose, per Pinchme123. —Brigade Piron (talk) 17:20, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]