Where Do We Go From Here

79 WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? A Close Reading All of us have encountered a different culture at one time or another, be it through work, travel or moving to a new location. Sometimes it’s a new subculture we’ve heard of but don’t know and sometimes it’s a brand- new culture with a different language. What happens when people from different cultures meet? Anthropologists have long described such encounters between two different cultures in terms of host and guest . The visitor/outsider is a guest and must receive the hospitality of the host in order to be welcome among them. In the complex exchanges that occur when guests and hosts meet, many dynamics are at work. A key goal of these interactions is to find a common ground, a shared understanding and knowledge of expected, forbidden, and permissible actions. Ideally, this shared understanding will include matters of morality (what is acceptable for both of us), religion (who are our gods), value (what matters for both of us), symbols (what means what) and so forth. Another goal is to negotiate the three main phases of interaction: welcome, stay, and farewell. The consequences of getting this wrong can be everything from embarrassing (though guests do allow hosts to make mistakes not normally accepted – and vice-versa) to catastrophic, as recounted in George Thompson’s book, How to Get Along with Your Church , which tells the story of a new minister in a parish whose welcome, stay and departure totalled less than seven days (!):