When we come across differences professionally and personally, we all run
the risk of some degree of ethnocentrism due to our understandable comfort
with our own culturally based beliefs and practices. Our practices make so
much sense to us. They seem so right. It can be hard to imagine how anyone
can do or believe anything differently. When ethnocentrism co-exists with
power, cultural oppression can occur. Whether we are psychologists or
lactation consultants (or anyone else with the power to impact people's
lives), we must guard against the blind exercise of our cultural and
personal biases in our work. We have much to learn from each other--if we
wipe out all of our differences, much knowledge will be lost. The art of
breastfeeding has been lost in many families and societies in exactly this
manner.
Cultural competence is not casually acquired. It takes specialized training
and/or unusual life experiences. Yet training for ethnorelativistic
thinking is routinely neglected in most fields. Bennett (1986)
characterized the stages of the development of ethnorelativistic thinking
as follows: 1) denial, 2) defense, 3) minimization (trivialization of
differences), 4) acceptance, 5) adaptation and 6) integration. In the stage
of integration, people are able to apply ethnorelativism to their own
identity by evaluating phenomena relative to cultural context.
Bennett, M. J. A developmental approach to training for intercultural
sensitivity. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 10, 179-196.
My favorite quote on the importance of diversity is from Octavio Paz, the
great Mexican poet:
"What sets worlds in motion is the interplay of differences, their
attractions and repulsions. Life is plurality, death is uniformity. By
suppressing differences and peculiarities, by eliminating different
civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death. The
ideal of a single civilization for everyone, implicit in the cult of
progress and technique, impoverishes and mutilates us. Every view of the
world that disappears, diminishes a possibility of life."
There is strength in our diversity.
Cynthia
Cynthia Good Mojab, MS Clinical Psychology
(Breastfeeding mother, advocate, independent [cross-cultural] researcher
and author; LLL Leader and Research Associate in the LLLI Publications
Department; and former psychotherapist currently busy nurturing her own
little one.)
Ammawell
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web site: http://members.home.net/ammawell
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