From an anthropological perspective, food is part of how we identify ourselves and also the cultures we belong to. Food structures our identities, social behaviour and frames our concepts of others. Food is one of the ways we most commonly experience foreign foods. What we don’t eat is as important to what we do in defining who we are. We can look at the similarities and differences between ‘east and western’ cuisines as an illustrative tension of formative cultural identity.
Tag Archives: culture decanted
October
19
Eating yourself: We consume identity through food?
posted by Culture Decanted
Food is central to the evolution of man and culture. Eating food performs a base nutritional function; it is its symbolic role in either supporting or differentiating individual, social and cultural identity that is more influential. We consume our identities through our food and drink choices. The changing nature of modern society is resulting to differences in what food communicates and how we use it to develop and express our identities.
October
08
The Semiotics of Cutlery: Eating food symbolically off course.
posted by Culture Decanted
Hunger is a universal physiological drive but we also take great delight in eating. While cuisines and cooking is astonishingly diverse, cutlery has remained remarkably elementary. While we need to eat, food more broadly is used across individual, social and cultural dimensions to build, share and demarcate our identities. How and what meaning cutlery adds to this semiotic conversation is worth degustation. Cut, Stab and Scoop are how we eat, but what meaning is within these gestures?
September
21
Why are we taking the super out of the supernatural stories: another postmodern symptom?
posted by Culture Decanted
Why are we taking the super out of the supernatural stories: just another postmodern symptom? There is a tendency of modern films and TV shows to recycle supernatural stories by finding secular or mundane explanations for their supernatural themes. This trend is driven by the continuing postmodern agenda to find rational explanations for everything and challenge existing meta-narratives in culture. To illustrate this, ten examples of dominant supernatural themes are explored as having secular explanations for their plots.
September
13
Cradle to Coffin: A Semiotic Model of Life and Death
posted by Culture Decanted
There is nothing that influences human behavour as strongly as the power of life and death. It is possible to create a semiotic model that conceptualize how we create meaning on the journey from the womb to the grave.
September
07
Emerging Metaphors for the Human Body
posted by Culture Decanted
Emerging Metaphors for the Human Body Metaphors are the cognitive tools through which we understand ourselves and the world (Lakoff and Turner 1989: xi). One of the primary metaphoric resources is the human body. Probably, since we first became self-aware, we have been fascinated with our bodies: psychologically and culturally. “Man is the measure […]
August
27
Semiotics of the Birdcage
posted by Culture Decanted
A semiotic analysis of the birdcage as a cultural status symbol. Why is this symbol used so consistently by luxury and fashion brands? What is the history of the birdcage through to today? What are the psychological drivers that influence the engagement with the birdcage in society today? Since the birdcage is linked with fashion, what does this suggest about women and how they are framed in societal discourse?
August
15
Why are we no longer in love with our Cities?
posted by Culture Decanted
Why are we no longer in love with our cities? We personify cities, give them human characteristics.
We create our identity from where we live. Are we projecting something, of how we see ourselves, onto our cities?
July
31
The Psychology of the Maze as a Modern Symbol
posted by Culture Decanted
Why are we still a-maze-d by labyrinths? With a diverse range of permutations, the Maze is a symbol that has been with humanity since the pre-historic era. So pervasive is the labyrinth within human symbolic communication, it is impossible to think of a human era where it was not a deep structural metaphor […]
July
14
The Semiotics of the Doppelgänger: the Double in Popular Culture
posted by Culture Decanted
The Semiotics of the Doppelgänger: the Double in Popular Culture One of the themes from the last blog I wrote on ‘evil’, was the nature of how this is depicted in popular culture from a semiotic perspective. This started out with a Kantian perspective, that evil is something that all of us have the […]
July
06
The Semiotics of Evil
posted by Culture Decanted
What is evil? In the postmodern Western world, evil is something that has become almost robbed of its ability to horrify us. Increased global communication and knowledge inure our responsiveness with a daily news diet of ‘evils’. In entertainment, with many of the anti-heroes of TV being serial killers or sociopaths, we’re becoming increasingly desensitised […]
June
21
How are our brains changing in the Modern Era?
posted by Culture Decanted
Our brains are changing size and we are getting stupider? It’s enough to give you a brain-ache. Do any search on the human brain today and there is a lot of contradictory information about what we know about it. Some believe it’s getting larger, others that it’s shrinking. We’re getting more intelligent or getting […]
June
16
ARE ROBOTS TAKING OVER THE WORLD?
posted by Culture Decanted
ARE ROBOTS TAKING OVER THE WORLD? “Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein In my last post, I was exploring why we are scared of the future, a fact that emerged is that there is no one word or phobia to cover ‘fear of […]
June
13
Opening a Window to the Future [Part 2]
posted by Culture Decanted
Why are we so negative about the future?: Future Part 2 “The future is like a dead wall or a thick mist hiding all objects from our view’ William Hazlitt, 1822 Cultural Metaphors of the Future One of the manifestations of the authenticity trend in society today is the cherry-picking what parts of […]
June
11
Why are we so scared of tomorrow? [Part 1]
posted by Culture Decanted
Why are we so scared of tomorrow? To paraphrase the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, ‘humankind has never had it so good’. Well it’s probably more accurate to say that in many ways our collective-cultures have never been so advanced, with the potential of helping so many. So why do we find western culture […]
June
07
What is a real carrot?
posted by Culture Decanted
What is a real carrot? About a week ago, I was speaking to a mum and the topic of shopping in supermarkets came up. It was a wide-ranging conversation and the benefits and concerns she expressed about shopping were similar to what other mums have talked about. In summary, supermarkets are convenient, good value and […]
June
02
What does a beard mean? [ Beards: Part 2]
posted by Culture Decanted
“We have now for many centuries triumphed over nature to the extent of making certain secondary characteristics of the male (such as the beard) disagreeable to nearly all the females – and there is more in that than you might suppose” C.S. Lewis Hair has a rich depth of symbolism that dates back to the […]
June
01
The Hipster Beard [ Beards: Part 1]
posted by Culture Decanted
‘Trust the man who hesitates in his speech and is quick and steady in action, but beware of long arguments and long beards’. George Santayana Beards are very topical at the moment, with the rise in popularity of the Hipster Beard. It’s probably worth attempting to explain what Hipsters are, although they may have […]
May
27
Names that shape us [names: part 3]
posted by Culture Decanted
People’s fates are simplified by their names. Elias Canetti The preceding discussion, I was looking at the mythical and historical power in naming things. There is another aspect to this discussion is the power our names have over our actions: consciously and subconsciously. “…(there is) the sometimes quite grotesque coincidence between a man’s name […]
May
27
The Signature Resigned [Names: part 2]
posted by Culture Decanted
Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable. W. H. Auden It is easier than ever to have multiple identities online; allowing us to be the virtual persona we might wish we could be. At a time when individualism is a driving force in western society, it’s ironic that so […]
May
26
The Power of Naming. [NAMES: PART 1]
posted by Culture Decanted
The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.–Chinese Proverb Naming things is a human need. Naming things is how we make sense of the universe. Francis Bacon popularised the saying ‘knowledge is power’ and there is power in naming things. It’s a common genesis story across a range of different […]
May
24
A RED HERRING [ SEEING RED: PART 4 ]
posted by Culture Decanted
“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember, […]
May
23
BEING IN THE RED [ SEEING RED: PART 3]
posted by Culture Decanted
“The effect of this colour is as peculiar as its nature. It conveys an impression of gravity and dignity, and at the same time of grace and attractiveness”. -J.W Goethe An evolutionary perspective alone doesn’t shed light on why we see red used in so many different contexts. As discussed previously, our attraction to […]
May
22
Why does red flag sex? [Seeing Red: Part 2]
posted by Culture Decanted
Why does red flag sex? Red is also a sensual colour. There have been studies that link the colour red to the perceived attractiveness of partners. When men or women wear red, they appear more attractive to their partners. While some connotations of red are socio-cultural, we find many shades of red in the animal world, from […]
May
22
What is our appetite for the colour Red? [ Seeing Red: Part 1]
posted by Culture Decanted
“I love bright red drinks, don’t you? They taste twice as good as any other color.” ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables What is our appetite for the colour Red? From an evolutionary perspective, the colour red is believed to excite and engage our eyes because it was a beneficial evolutionary-adaptation for a […]
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