 | We are currently in Brussels, Belgium for the next 4.5 weeks in a dorm-style living center with 11 other missionary units for Cross Cultural Ministry Internship (CCMI), where we're learning (among other things) how to assess, engage, and assimilate into another culture, how to learn a language, and how to plant a church. We've spent our first three days of class learning about culture and "ethnography." Assuming that many others are just as ignorant of this word as I was, I'll quickly explain. |
"Demographics" are looking at statistics and information about a particular culture. For example, "demographics" would look at the percentages of Christians versus atheists versus Buddhists in a given area. "Ethnography," in contrast is the participation in and observation of cultural interactions and behavior and then attempting to understand why those things are occurring in that given culture. This is major work of anthropologists, and we are being trained how to do this so that we can each enter our host cultures and learn to strategically observe the culture, ask questions, and discover why the culture is the way it is and how that affects behaviors and interactions. We've even got opportunity to practice ethnography as we were sent out in teams into different areas of Brussels to observe different cultures and make predictions as to why they are doing what they're doing. Obviously, then, we have to fight against making generalizations after just a few observations. Ethnography would ideally be done over a long period of time with many experiences and observations to help us refine our conclusions. But it is awesome practice. So instead of just walking down the street and enjoying the new sights and sounds, we are training our brains to be watching, listening, and smelling in order to guide our conclusions about the culture. This kind of work will help us immensely as we move into a host culture and learn to live and work there.
Today we looked at four ways that culture is measured, and each country is given a rating from 0 - 100 which I'll put in parenthesis next to each country below. I'd like to go through what we learned as it applies to Romania versus the United States and the way we are anticipating that these differences may affect us. Hopefully this will also give our friends and family back home ideas of how to pray for us specifically as we assimilate.
Today we looked at four ways that culture is measured, and each country is given a rating from 0 - 100 which I'll put in parenthesis next to each country below. I'd like to go through what we learned as it applies to Romania versus the United States and the way we are anticipating that these differences may affect us. Hopefully this will also give our friends and family back home ideas of how to pray for us specifically as we assimilate.
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