Discuss some of the ways in which the concept of the 'person' varies cross culturally

The understanding of the ‘person’ in western society and culture has been directly associated with the human being and the self. This ‘person’ is the philosophical or moral aspect of the biological human. The Western (or Euro-American) concept of the person is unconsciously used as the absolute or model to compare and contrast against culturally different perceptions. Every culture, throughout time and space, has had an idea of themselves, their personhood. This essay discusses some of the ways in which the concept of the person varies through culture.
Schmitz (1998) analysis of the linguistic history of the term ‘person’ serves as a background to the concept and how the modern, Euro-American meaning formed. It also shows how a concept can vary cross-culturally. The term derives from the Roman ‘Phersu’ cult – a goddess who marked her subterranean transition. Theatrical Rome saw a ‘dramatis personae’ – masked character, and so the term came to be associated with communication through representation and hidden agents. Law in Rome dictated only a man be seems as a person of/in law (slaves, children and women were not referred to as “persons” in Roman jurisprudence). Greek prosopon merged with persona to emphasise the visually expressive encounter of face to face communication with humans. Mauss (1938) also analyses the linguistic history of the term and finds the Latin the ‘persona’ is the ancestral mask or disguise.
Thus the modern concept of the person in Euro-American societies has developed from this linguistic understanding. In the late seventeenth and eighteenth century ideas about the person as an individual truly developed. The foundation of modernity led to a rethinking of the concept of the person which focused on the individual, an agent in society measured by their possessions or objects.
Kippenberg critically analyses Geertz’s (1973) implication that the concept of the person is universal between cultures (Kippenberg 1), stating quite rightly that conceptions of the person vary greatly between cultures, as we shall see.
The understanding of the person from Euro-American cultures has typically stressed upon the importance of the individual as an independent entity. However, the Eastern (usually Asian) understanding centres on the importance of the community (or family) and the dependence of the individual on others for their personal well-being. Susan Lang’s analyses (2003) the differences between American adults and indigenous Chinese adults’ recollections of personal memories. Seeing as memory has a profound impact upon our ideas about self and identity, this is rather good example for analysis. Wang states that memories form our ‘auto-biographical self’ (Wang in Lang 2003: online article). Wang found that Americans generally remembered lengthy and specific memories with elaborate emotion – generally with the self as the central character in the memory story. However Chinese memories were brief, factual accounts that centre on a collective activity with emotional neutrality. This provides another example of cross-cultural difference of the concept of the person – individual versus group-oriented notions.
Another example of this is the notion of the gendered person. In Euro-American society, there are clear cut expectations or ideas of the female and male person or what they should be. In Moore’s (1993) analysis of Gendered Anthropology, Anna Meig’s (1990) study of the Hua tribe of Papa New Guinea is used to discuss gender and personhood. Gender is socially categorised on genetalia as well as whether the individual has more or less of female substances e.g. the female substance can be transferred through everyday casual contact, eating and heterosexual sex and can lead a gentially male being socially defined as female. This shows that the idea of categorising the gender of a person can be done very differently between cultures.
Tan’s (2003) study of the mixture of kastom (custom or tradition) and Christianity within a group of Taiwanese concludes interesting theories regarding the concept of the person. He suggests that the ‘co-existence of two distinct concepts of the person and the different ways of articulating those concepts which shape the dynamic but often contradictory relationship between tradition and Christianity (Tan 2003: 1)
Concepts of the person are related to views of death, as Bloch’s (1988) article argues – that a ‘punctual’ death assumes a person is a ‘bounded individual’ – a separate entity that is either joint and live or divided/dead an typically found in the western society. A ‘transitional’ or ‘processual’ view of death assumes the person as an ‘unbounded person’, one that lives within a holistic society. This unbounded concept of the person allows for a continuation of the person’s parts existence after their death e.g. their lineage or may survive even though the actual individual is deceased (Bloch 1988: 15-7). However Bloch suggests there is not necessarily a great distinction between these societies and that world religions with their universal concepts help to combine the notion of the individual and holistic side of a person.
Fortes (1973) suggest the individual is the biological part of the person whereas the ‘person’ is the human as created and defined by society, something Radcliffe-Brown argues – humans as individuals being objects of physiological or psychological study, whereas the human as the person is an object for study by a social anthropologist (Radcliffe-Brown 1940: 193-4; Fortes 1973:24-86). Kirmayer’s (2007) discussion argues that the implicit model of the self is based on the culturally defined concept of the person and that the model of the person used in most forms of psychotherapy is directly based upon the Euro-American (western) value of individualism. This form, compared with socio-centric, eco-centric or cosmo-centric views is found in different environments.
Tan’s (2003) study of funeral practices of the Tjauqau in Taiwan agrees with Bloch’s theory that funerals are an important cultural institution which joins the traditional cultural and local, non-world religious aspects of society. However it appears the traditions of a society play more important on the holistic side of the individual, where societies that have world religions do not tend to practice the rituals upon the unbounded person. The African understanding of the person varies between dualistic – the body and the soul, found in Igbo languages of Nigeria; and sometimes a tripartite – the spirit, body and soul, found in Yoruba languages of West Africa. Here the spirit or ori mediates between the two parts of the person. Peltzer’s (2002) article on person perception of sub-Saharan Africa focuses on a trichotomy of people.
Firstly, there are the traditional people who are little affected by modernisation. Secondly, there are traditional persons who live or transport between the traditional and modern environments. These are usually between home and work or ancestral home and urban dwellings. The final variation is the modern individual, participating within a contemporary, (post)industrial world (2002: 2). The traditional person exists in an authority dimension where the importance of father (in patrilineal societies) or mother’s brother’s (matrilineal) authority exists so as to prolong the role of the ancestral’s omnipotent existence. The life stages or birth, eventual death are seen as a passage into the system from present to pass (Peltzer 2002 : 3). The person’s status is elevated in old age, whereas this contradicts the western concept that old age leads to fragility and reduced importance in society.
This concept differs from the second variation of person, where authority and teaching is passed down to siblings or same-age persons. Here, the importance of the clan as a collective force is important, with an emphasis of ‘shared’ knowledge. Goals are group-based, not person-based, the person is fused with the clan and their value resides within the group. To the individual and the group, if they are separated they are worthless in every sense. Travelling outside of the clan puts pressure on the group and the individual but is necessary for the well-being of both. The final variation – the modern person – lies within a mind-body-environment dimension. The three parts of the individual are interrelated i.e. natural elements, components of the body and states of mind. Where the body prescribes to the western concepts of person, the mind remains detached and retains the traditional beliefs. The inclination to fuse or integrate experiences is favoured rather than extracting certain components of belief (Peltzer 2002: 4-5). This is similar to the funeral rights of the Taiwanese.
From this brief analysis of theories of the concept of the person and examples of the person in different cultures, we can see, there is much discussion. Interestingly, most of these theories and discussions found so far analyse the concept of the person in relation to the behaviour of people observed after the death of community and family members; thus analysing life by death. Rituals have a great impact upon what is understood of and how different cultures can make sense of different concepts – particularly that of the notion of the self and person.
The concept of the person concerns linguistics, and is important in social, religious, political, medical and judicial realms. Religion has had, and continues to have, a profound impact on ideas about the ‘person’ for so many cultures. Indigenous religions focus upon the elements of the person left after death, and concepts of the person are more often dualistic and non-western cultures focus upon the role of the person within the community. Where there is cross of western and non-western ideology, we see a combination of the beliefs of the person, which I have discussed in relation to Asian and African traditions.
The main difference, as analysed by Peltzer, is that the western person is socialised by objects, whereas the non-western person is socialised by people (Peltzer 2002: 5 quoting Agiobu-Kemmer 1984: 189). The western concept of the person is ideologically defined as self-enclosed and often autonomous, and generally the non-western concept of the person is integrated within the community, or the family, and is not always concerned with the physical presence of the body of the individual, but what their existence means for the group as a whole.