I imagine that tradition and modernity are in an eternal dance. As the music changes, so do their roles. Once new information flows in, be it through exposure to other cultures or novel research, norms and customs are called into question, and traditions are reexamined. That being said, the ebb and flow of the movements cannot always be harmonious. Sometimes, tradition and modernity will be at odds. One of the starkest manifestations of that can be observed in how people communicate and what that reveals about the cultural values they uphold. As the nature and purpose of interactions with others change, so do the bonds with them. Where conversations once primarily revolved around forming relationships and maintaining the apparent peace in them, they now also emphasize personal expression and freedom of thought.
1915 – Two Arab women engage in a high-context conversation, where communication depends on shared cultural understanding and non-verbal cues. Photo part of the Qatar National Library. Library of Congress.
High-context versus low-context cultures
Traditionally, Arab societies are considered high-context cultures, meaning that there is a stronger reliance on context than content to convey a message during interactions. Indirect and implicit communication is used and encouraged. On the other hand, Western societies are predominantly classified as low-context cultures. This means that interactions between people tend to be more direct and explicit, with a strong emphasis on the content rather than the context. It is important to note that these classifications are general, and there is more nuance to the communicative approach which varies from one region to another. These differences depend on a number of factors, among them location, which can be rural or urban, and cultural values, such as shame avoidance and self-expression. The different arenas which this communicative approach affects include topics of conversation, clothing style, posture, and bond formation, all of which will be explored through the lens of communication style, cultural values, and their corresponding regional prevalence.
c. 1898 – 1914 – Bedouin women preparing meals together demonstrate the communal nature and social structure of rural Arab societies, where shared activities reinforce cultural traditions and social cohesion. Photo by the American Colony (Jerusalem) Photo Department. Library of Congress.
Connectivity of identity in rural regions and how it intertwines with cultural values
In the Levant, high-context communication is noticeable in rural areas and villages, where communities are more tightly knit and collectivistic. There, it is not your achievements or character that make you, but rather that of your ancestors, whom you are an extension of. Individual image depends on the social standing of the family as a whole. For instance, the first question I am asked when I meet someone new in the neighborhood is, “Whose daughter are you?”, and if that does not yield an “aha” moment in the inquirer, they would then ask about my grandparents. People in villages know each other so well because they do not undergo the same rate of demographic change as those of urban areas. Houses are not identified by mere geographical location, but by the family they belong to. Standing on my grandmother’s balcony overlooking the view, I once asked her about a beautiful villa atop the mountain facing us. I expected to hear her opinion. Instead, she told me who its owners were and then relayed their life story.
This effortless access to personal information about anyone in the vicinity results in the prioritization of shame avoidance and approval seeking. The most universal demonstration of those cultural values is experienced at a very young age. When a parent reprimands a child for a certain behavior, the reason is simply “’ayb“/“it will bring shame,” and when they are praising them, it is usually followed by “bayyadtelna wejna”/“you’ve honored us.” My grandmother’s motto captures those sentiments perfectly. She says, “sitik thomma sitik thomma sitik thomma sohtik”, which roughly translates to “your reputation precedes your health.”
1905 – Palestinian women grinding coffee, a central tradition in Arab culture highlighting hospitality, respect, and community bonds. This practice is vital for social gatherings, reflecting the importance of communal activities. Photo by Keystone View Company. Library of Congress.
The effects of shame avoidance and approval seeking on communication style
Shame avoidance and approval seeking play a broad role in communication style. They manifest in a tendency towards ambiguous speech, as it leaves room for interpretation, hence alleviating the fear of judgment. This works because if faced with reproach, it can be chalked up to a misunderstanding. After all, an obscure statement is amenable to reinterpretation.
Take the example of guests overstaying their welcome. Someone in a high-context culture will not explicitly communicate that they want to be left alone. Instead, they will opt for presenting cues that hint at the fact. While the sun is still up, serving coffee and fruit is usually a sign that the visit is coming to an end. At night, expressing fatigue or yawning excessively will demonstrate that it is time for the guests to return home. Most times, people understand these prompts and respond accordingly. At their departure, the hosts would appear astounded and desolate, saying things like, “You’re leaving now? It’s still too early! Stay some more.” Sometimes the guests will be oblivious to the signs. The hosts may misconstrue this innocent misunderstanding as them being “bala zawq” or distasteful. On rare occasions, the guests may feel offended by these implicit cues, assuming that the hosts are bored or tired of their company. They may respond with things like “al hay’a te’ebto”, “it seems that you are tired.” This would be the hosts’ cue to reassure the guests that they are not tiring them by insisting they stay longer, while silently feeling bitter towards them. Of course, this is feasible as there was no direct indication of the hosts’ desire for the guests to leave. In a low-context culture, the hosts’ intention would be explicitly communicated, and the guests would not take it personally.
These interactions point to a skill, nay, a cognitive distortion, that is reinforced by the culture of shame avoidance and approval seeking: mind reading. The underlying message is that the comfort of others precedes your own, and enforcing boundaries is a boundary that you must not cross. A trend that pervades the traditions we uphold is prioritizing the presumed convenience of others, even when it may entail self-neglect. After all, zawq and ’ayb are concepts we operate on. We live to please, appease, and repeat. So generally, to be well received by the community, you are expected to exhibit a high level of attunement to the unspoken needs of others, and ensure that your own needs are also unspoken. However, this poses a challenge with the emergence of globalization, urbanization, immigration, and internet access in the Levant as these factors contribute to a significant shift away from the traditional high-context communication style.
Girls in relaxed settings balance traditional values with modern personal freedoms, showing the evolving shifts in contemporary Arab communities.Photo by Kinga Howard on Unsplash
Overcoming shame in conversation
As our lives become more fast-paced and the people in them more diverse, brevity and clarity become necessary for forming and maintaining relationships. Coming from an environment in which self-expression and belongingness are mutually exclusive, finding communities where they can coexist felt surreal. My first exposure to them was in Beirut, and I also found them in Amman, Dubai, and Cairo. There are many spaces in which minorities can openly express themselves without running the risk of being otherwise socially ostracized. People would join certain communities, whether through get-togethers, events, or clubs, and stay by choice rather than the pressure of social obligation. After all, those groups are maintained by inclusivity rather than the exclusivity I’ve experienced in rural areas. This was apparent through the difference in the permissibility of conversational topics, physical postures, and clothing choices, to name a few.
Within traditional communities, topics of conversation can include academic achievements, career accomplishments, or lighthearted anecdotes from day-to-day life. Speaking of your shortcomings and struggles is generally unfavorable, with the exception of physical ailments. However, the same sentiment does not extend to mental health. There is still plenty of stigma surrounding the topic within Arab rural regions and rurality in general. According to the traditionally-inclined spaces, you do not have mental illness, you succumb to it. It represents a lack of mental fortitude and strength of will. It is shameful. Aside from that, few have the time to even look inwards and acknowledge the possibility of mental unrest when so much of their energy is directed towards anticipating the needs of others. When recognizing abnormalities in their psyche or functionality, they tend to assign it to a circumstantial factor. Perhaps it is the weather or a vitamin deficiency. Any external attribution would work as they do not want to feel at fault. Lastly, there is an air of unease surrounding authentic emotional expression, considering that everyone is taught to conceal their internal experiences for the comfort of others. Sure, there are social scripts to console the pain of bereavement for instance. “العوض بسلامتك”/“may you be compensated with good health”, “الله يرحمه”/“may god have mercy on them”, are only a few of the many phrases commonly used to express condolences. Nevertheless, there is no guideline available to address the highly individual experience of psychological turmoil.
That being said, the perspective on the matter differs vastly in more modern spheres. The prevalence of social media and mental health awareness campaigns significantly destigmatized the topic. Opening up about struggles with mental health is met with empathy, acceptance, and compassion. There is no shame in expressing feelings. More importantly, seeking professional help is not only supported, but very much encouraged. In Beirut, the mental health awareness movement led to the increased accessibility of mental health services.
c. 1900 – 1920 – Women gather over coffee in a communal Arab ritual that reinforces traditional roles, social bonds, and cultural identity. Photo by American Colony (Jerusalem) Photo Department, part of the Matson Photograph Collection. Library of Congress.
Taking a stand by taking a seat
When it comes to physical posture in rural areas, it is more informed by patriarchal standards. There are masculine ways of moving and sitting that are unfit for women, and feminine ways that are unfit for men. Usually, women are instructed to sit with their knees and ankles together as a symbol of chastity and coyness. This, along with regulating their volume, is one of the first ways that they are implicitly taught to take up less space. Contrarily, men are encouraged to sit with their knees and ankles widely spread to represent confidence and power. Although these directions are enforced under all circumstances, there are additional ways of moving and sitting that are not acceptable for anyone, regardless of gender, exclusively in the presence of guests. For instance, sitting cross legged or lying down are considered inappropriate. In that case, it’s because getting physically comfortable implies you are not in the discomforting state of vigilance that is necessary to cater to the comfort of others. After all, when a guest visits, your main duty is to tend to them. Keeping them company comes second. Socializing is entrenched in a serve or be served framework, especially for women.
On the other hand, gatherings in nontraditional settings tend to be more informal, with no guidelines dictating the nitty gritty of one’s presence. This difference is demonstrative of the shift towards low-context communication. Physical features and context play less of a role as spoken conversation is the primary medium of relaying ideas. Additionally, there is no group of people exclusively responsible for serving everyone else. It is a more collaborative process. The hosts will usually make snacks and drinks available, but it is up to everyone to serve themselves. This represents the overcoming of the guest-host barrier. There is far less pressure to adopt a social role, and instead one’s energy can be focused on having fun and being engaged.
A young woman expresses her identity through her personal style, demonstrating the shift towards individual expression in contemporary Arab cities. Photo by Maksym Mazur on Unsplash. Photo by Maksym Mazur on Unsplash
Dress to repress, dress to represent
As stated earlier, more modern, urban communities encourage self-expression and freedom of thought, and the way we are dressed is what we say about ourselves before we speak. When I started university, I had been styling my outfits with the intention of appearing presentable. Whatever clothing was accessible and appropriate is what I went for. I did not pay much mind to whether I liked it or whether it reflected my personality. Consequently, I often disliked the way I dressed but did not yet have the means to change it. I recall talking to a colleague after class because I thought she looked interesting. As we talked, I felt the need to assure her that I am not who my clothes are painting me out to be. I thought that I looked plain, boring, and uptight. This view of my outfits made my interactions with others feel strained, because instead of being represented by my clothes, there was a layer of fabric misrepresenting me. This was not something that mattered in more traditional communities because people often dressed in a manner that is primarily occasion-centric, contrary to the modern person-centric way: self-expression was not high on the list when deciding what to wear. The main considerations when picking out an outfit were its relevance to the occasion, its representativeness of gender and socioeconomic standing, and its flattery of one’s physique within the bounds of modesty. On the other hand, in more modern spheres, clothes were used to portray one’s self-proclaimed identity and values rather than their predetermined attributions.
At the intersection of tradition and modernity, individuals struggle to balance personal expression, community expectations, and societal norms amid evolving cultural dynamics. Photo by Kinga Howard on Unsplash.
The balance of community and freedom
People in both modern and traditional spheres either uphold or challenge the dominant values within their cultures. We do not exist in a vacuum. As someone who’s lived in the intersection of both, in the form of a tradition heavy rural community and a modernized urban capitalist hub, it felt uncomfortable to conform, and draining to resist the pressure to. In the traditional rural context, I expected to find a sense of community. I found myself either foregoing self expression or risking social exclusion. The threshold for disapproval is low. People are easy to disappoint and hard to please. This highlights how the sometimes invasive collectivism of rural regions no longer fosters community. In the modern capitalistic world, I expected freedom. I came to find that it’s actually burnout around the corner. It’s a struggle to juggle a demanding career, a social life, a hobby, and a relentless pursuit of growth while maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Stagnancy weighs heavy in the face of a rapidly changing world, and conforming to the speed of change, although exhilarating, can be very tiring. The work life imbalance and hyper individualism imposed by late stage capitalism do not nurture freedom. After all, when things reach an extreme, they revert to their opposite. That is not to say that the grass is not green on either side. It just gets very muddy along the extremes.
References:
Al Jallad, N. (2010). The concept of “Shame” in Arabic: bilingual dictionaries and the challenge of defining culture-based emotions. Language Design: Journal of Theoretical and Experimental Linguistics, 12, 31–57.
Cheesmond, N. E., Davies, K., & Inder, K. J. (2019). Exploring the role of rurality and rural identity in mental health help-seeking behavior: A systematic qualitative review. Journal of Rural Mental Health, 43(1), 45–59.
Hall, E. T. (1976). Beyond Culture. Anchor Books.
Zaharna, R.S. (1995). Understanding cultural preferences of Arab communication patterns. Public Relations Review, 21(3), 241-255.
Tania Abdul Baki
Tania is a Math teacher, cat mom, and occasional music producer. She studied Psychology and Philosophy, and is particularly interested in discussions on the interplay of culture, cognition, and language with communication in interpersonal relationships. She is also a big lemon enjoyer.
