I predominantly agree with the assessments in Figuring Foreigners Out in terms of the points it makes around key cultural differences being rooted in individualistic vs collectivist values, differences in nonverbal communication norms and assignments of meanings, monochronic vs polychronic approaches to time, internal (more activist) vs. external (more fatalist) attitudes towards life, and indirect vs. direct communication norms. The one thing that struck me as odd in this reading was its categorization of different cultures as “high context” or “low context” as these terms seem to be conducive to creating a hierarchy of cultures which I never support, however, I am likely failing to properly understand the usage of this terminology. Most of the generalizations in this reading are acknowledged by saying that every culture is a combination of the poles it describes, despite typically leaning towards one or the other. The only statement in this reading that I question is how the "foreigners" we are attempting to understand are determined to be foreign (and what perspective that means it is inevitably forwarding), or how the question of foriegn to whom? is being determined. These ideas relate to both my own native culture (American: individualistic, monochronic, internal value systems), and my target culture as they would to any culture. My experiences living in countries in Latin America leads me to believe that many Latin cultures lean more towards a polychronic attitude towards time at least when compared to the United States.
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