Patterson, P.

What do we talk about, when we talk about Culture? Reification, Tautology and Process in the Concept of Culture
Patterson, Patrick B.

The concept of culture is widely used in popular media, business, politics and public health as a way to explain motivations behind behaviours. As such, culture change is often recommended as a way to achieve organizational goals and there is an extensive literature extending back decades advising how to achieve culture change. While the concept of culture can provide insights, the ways it is used are often based on reification, which treats culture as an independent 'thing' that can be manipulated separately from the people and contexts where it is found, and fall into tautological logic traps that undermine the effectiveness of change efforts. Culture has been a central concept in anthropology for more than a century and theoretical work from that discipline has the potential to help avoid some of the pitfalls in using the culture concept. This paper will briefly present the alternative offered by applying a social constructionist anthropological approach to the culture concept, and explore some of the advantages such an approach can offer public health researchers.