Week 1/Week 2

I agree with Baumann in his evaluation that individuals belong to different communities. Sometimes, those communities—at a superficial level—may not be compatible and even seem to contradict each other as well. For example, as part of a university community, I am encouraged to participate in social norms such as being outspoken, disagreeing and questioning professors as well as standing out to be noticed. However, as a member of the Filipino culture—at the risk of exaggeration—I am expected to fade into the background when I am in the presence of people with authority. At a personal level, I belong to a community of friends as well as a community of family. There are practices that I would not perform depending on the community I find myself in. For example, there are some topics I wouldn’t talk about with my family that I would gladly share with my friends such as what happened Friday night. I wouldn’t necessarily talk to my friends the same way I would talk to my parents as well. With my friends, I’m more sarcastic and open. I don’t curse but my vocabulary, in general, is more liberal and less polite. Moreover, there’s also a certain divide within those communities as well. Depending on the friend I’m talking to, I’m either more or less lax. I can act more silly when I’m talking to one roommate than I necessarily would with the other.

One of the things I found interesting in the Kumaravadivelu section was Bourdieu’s idea of “habitus.” He described it as the different ideologies or qualities that an individual acquires from the different environments he/she experiences in. These habituses are also a result of what the individual thinks or believes while in that specific environment. At a point, both individual and environmental factors shape a habitus on certain degrees. These habitus then shape a person’s way of thinking and viewing the world. Depending on how we view a factor’s importance, there’s a certain degree to which we are influenced by that particular ideology, experience or environment we are faced with. As such, one culture might have a more impact on our individualness compared to another. As far as language education and culture is concerned, there are differences from one educational system to another, different sets of social norms from one university setting to another and each is as rich in its political, social and educational complexity. However, when we only emphasize on those differences, we run the risk of Othering as well. We run the risk of polarization and in thinking that one system is better than the other. We might not even consciously think so and it might not even be an overt act.