Thinking about culture

Working as a tour guide, you will be in contact with a range of people from different cultural backgrounds. While this aspect of your work may be challenging, it will also be interesting and personally rewarding.

You will need to be aware of cultural considerations – your own, your clients’ and the Anangu traditional owners of Uluru–Kata Tjuta National Park.

Take a few moments to think about how you define culture? Some possible ways to think about culture might include:

• A person's heritage and world view
• The customs and civilisation of a particular people or group
• The behavioural expectations we impose on ourselves and others
• A binding force that enables a group of people to identify themselves as 'us'
• 'The way we do things round here'
• The way a group of people agree to be
• The way we live, the way we behave, our beliefs, values and customs.

In essence, culture is the way a group defines itself – this can be within a family, a workplace or a country. Having cross-cultural awareness involves remembering that not everybody defines themselves in the same way.

Source: Australian National Training Authority 2002, Work in a Socially Diverse Environment, Trainee Workbook.

So what is your culture? Can a person belong to more than one culture? Look at the questions in the following reading. How would you answer these questions?

Take a few minutes to look at the following reading and think about the questions posed.

Reading: What is my culture? (pdf)

The following reading is taken from the Uluru–Kata Tjuta National Park Plan of Management and presents the key messages of the Park and the reasons behind them.
Reading: Uluru–Kata Tjuta National Park key messages (pdf 437kb | UKTNP Handbook pp.8-9)

 

The further readings in the right-hand column are suggested for those who have the time and interest in pursuing added knowledge about this topic.

Teaching traditional skills: an Anangu tour guide teaches a visitor some traditional cultural knowledge (photo: Anangu Tours)