How Cultures Conflict in Native American Vs. European Culture - Term Paper Example

American Literature Culture is an indispensable part of conflict and conflict resolution. Cultures are comparable to rivers running through our relationships and lives that give us messages shaping our perceptions, judgments, attributions, and ideas. Cultures are always unconscious, even though powerful, and influence conflicts. Cultures also attempt to resolve conflicts in imperceptible means. Culture is more than just language, food, and dress customs. Some cultural groups may share ethnicity, race, or nationality though they arise from socioeconomic class, ability and disability, cleavages of generation, sexual orientation, language, religious and political affiliation, and gender among others. It is significant to note that cultures change always and have a relationship with symbols of life dimensions. Symbolic dimensions can be places where we make meanings and enact consistently our identities. Therefore cultural messages from our origin convey what is important to us, who we are and what relationships we have with others (Hall 20). This paper seeks to address the first question: explain how cultures conflict in “Native American vs. European Culture. As Nina (2007) puts it, cultures conflict in such a way that cultural messages makes what people in a cultural group know that the outsiders knows not. These cultural messages are like a series of lenses shaping what we do not see as well as what we see, how the group interpret and perceive, and where they draw boundaries. Cultures conflict such that they shape the values and involve the currencies and starting points of every individual group. What is perceived as important by one group may not mean anything to the other group. For example starting points, places natural to start from with group or individual concerns with particularities or big picture. Currencies may be the things that a particular cultural group care about so much and shape and influence their interaction with other cultural groups (Armstrong 31). Cultures are basically embedded in all manners of conflict since human relationships is the origin of conflicts. Particular cultures affect the way people frame, name, blame, or attempt to resolve conflicts. It is a cultural question whether at all there is an existence of conflict. According to the readings, labeling interactions as conflicts and scrutinizing them to smaller content sections is a Western approach distinctly and obscures other relationship aspects. Culture is a major factor in conflict, whether it influences it gently or subtly or it plays an essential role. There is always a cultural component for every conflict touching us where we make meanings, where it matters and where we hold our identities. Some cultural conflicts arise from territorial, sovereignty or boundary issues. Such conflicts may also be about representation, acknowledgement, or legitimization of distinct identities, and ways of being, living, and making meaning (Hall 24). Cultural conflicts between Native America and European have been wrought by generational culture. This results into strained relationships and inaccurate communication. Conflict is permeated by culture. Generally, culture and conflict are inextricable. This is because whenever differences prevail in communities or organizations, culture is often present and shaping attitudes, outcomes, perceptions, and behaviors. Cultures that are shared by majority or dominant groups usually seem normal or natural. For example Native American culture and European culture are so dominant that they seem normal to the people of those nations. Effects of other different cultures are only noticed when they attend to behaviors labeled strange or exotic. Even though culture and conflict are intertwined, conflict resolution approaches minimize influences and issues of culture. According to the readings, culture acknowledgement and bringing, to conflicts, cultural fluency, can help all types of groups or people make more adaptive and intentional choices (Armstrong 34). The Native American and European cultures are very important. It is also significant to acknowledge the role of these cultures to the prevailing conflicts among the groups. Therefore response plans should be kept in mind. We need to develop come sort of comfort with our cultures as a pivotal part of conflicts, failure of which we may be tangled in complexity and remain limited to our cultural lenses. Cultural fluency mentioned earlier is one of the integral tools used in managing and disentangling multilayered and cultural conflicts. We therefore need to be familiar with cultures. Cultural fluency may increase awareness of other cultures, how they work and how they intertwine with relationships during harmony or conflict. Hence, we need to understand various dimensions such as; communication, roles and identities, approaches of making meanings, and ways of framing, naming, and taming conflict. Cultural conflicts may be tamed differently depending on cultures. This process of conflict resolution entirely depends on the cultural sense of a group on what they term as their goal or what is needed. The same variations are evident in other dimensions of cultural fluency. For example, every cultural group have a different way of communication, a varying way of naming and framing, a distinct means of making meanings, and different approaches of taming conflict (Nina 43). In summary, culture is an indispensable part of conflict and conflict resolution. Cultures are very important and make an integral part of the existing conflicts. However, there is no one fit for all technique of conflict resolution. Culture is always a factor in conflict and the more the cultural diversity, the higher the likelihood of conflicts. Cultures are comparable to rivers running through our relationships and lives that give us messages shaping our perceptions, judgments, attributions, and ideas. Cultural fluency is a core competency in intervening in conflicts. It entails recognition and respectfully acting from an understanding of communication, means of making meaning, ways of framing, naming, and taming conflict, and roles and identities that vary across various cultures. As discussed earlier in “Native American vs. European Culture, it is significant to acknowledge that cultures will always change and demonstrate a relationship with symbols of life dimensions (Nina 45). These symbolic dimensions are places where the cultural fluency dimensions are made such as making meanings and enacting consistently to our identities. It is also worth noting that cultural messages from our original groups convey what is important to us, who we are and what relationships we have with others. Summing up, we can say that culture is more than just language, food, and dress customs. In addition, some cultural groups share ethnicity, race, or nationality though they arise from socioeconomic class, ability and disability, cleavages of generation, sexual orientation, language, religious and political affiliation, and gender and the list continues. This paper has therefore addressed how the cultures conflict in “Native American vs. European Culture. Works Cited Hall, Edward. Beyond Culture. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. 1976. Print. Nina, Baym. The Norton Anthology to American Literature, New York: SAGE. 2007. Print. Armstrong, Starkey. European-Native American Warfare, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998 Read More