GLOBALIZING THE LOCAL AND LOCALIZING THE GLOBAL The formation and transformation of cultural systems and identities Success Okeke Chijioke Social Anthropology Diploma Essay 2019 Our culture lies as the substratum of subsequent different forms and shades of identities that emerge. Having an identity is part of, if not the main essence of living. All we contribute to our world and society is a product of who we are. This goes a long way to describe how important it is for our identity to have an amount of stability, at least at the core of it The major problem associated with wiping out a cultural system from the world’s cultural map, is the difficulty of correctly retracing it with time. I believe that the best way to retain an effective cultural identity is by ensuring that cultural systems are relevantly and reasonably preserved. CONTENT Introduction 1 The formation of cultural systems and identities 2 The formation of Greek cultural system and identities 3 The formation of Igbo cultural system and identities 5 The transformation of cultural systems and identities 7 The transformation of Greek cultural system and identities 7 The transformation of Igbo cultural system and identities 8 The reconstruction of cultural system and identities 9 Conclusion 11 Bibliography 12 i INTRODUCTION The words ‘Culture’ and ‘identity’ can be used interchangeably depending on the context, though they might be different, but with a strong nexus. Culture is basically defined as a group of people’s way of life. It is the system of public meanings that structure their living. Identity describes how individuals define themselves within their environment through a given culture. Culture lies as the substratum of subsequent different forms and shades of identities that emerge. Therefore cultural identity is the identity or feeling of belonging to a group. On the other hand, it is also the feeling of being different from another group. To effectively describe an identity, it has to be against others to be clearly seen. It is part of an individual’s or a group’s self-conception and self-perception. Just as a building foundation (sub-structure), culture seems to be more stable in description compared to the identities (super-structures) that are formed on its premise, which are more fragile and susceptible to change at a slightest encounter with others. Culture and the identities that reflect it, go through changes in a continuum from old to new, to form a historical narrative. With time the difference between the old and the new becomes very clear, yet the processes that create this difference could be so complex and difficult to appreciate. This is because the change occur rhizomatically, making it almost difficult to control, as so many internal and external factors happen to affect cultural pattern and definitions to create new patterns with time. In this essay, I would be looking into how the culture and the identity of a people get formed, influenced and transformed. I believe it can be interesting to trace this ‘in-between’ spaces of transformation. It can go a long way to help us see how external (global) and internal (local) forces play different roles to metamorphose cultural systems and identities into a new versions of themselves through a system of fusion or synthesis, or into a new branch of an already existing one through a system of acculturation (supplanting). Whenever these forces get to the extent of total acculturation, it teleologically leads to a disappearance of cultural system and identities from the cultural map. This makes the global cultural account more deficient. Patrick Lumumba posited (in his speech made in a cultural event in Anambra state Nigeria, 2019), that though culture is dynamic, we still have to be welded to our cultural values in other to be recognized as who we are. How far can these changes go? How fast do they occur in cultural systems, practices or in identities? What are the agents that cause these changes? Can they be controlled and why is it important to control these changes? These are the different questions and aspects I would be discussing in this essay. I will also be discussing different cultural identities that have gone through transformation, example the Greeks, and the Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria who are going through fast cultural and identity transformation. 1 THE FORMATION OF CULTURAL SYSTEMS AND IDENTITIES Culture is a complex topic of study for sociologists. It exists anywhere humans exist, with variations from one culture to the other. This is because a combination of different elements or aspects come together to form a people’s unique way of life. Culture is simply defined as the people’s way of life which is visibly expressed in both their material and immaterial activities. It seems easier to appreciate a cultural system within an ethnic group by looking at how they carry out activities to satisfy needs especially the basic ones. With reference to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Maslow,1943), culture can well be expressed in our quest to satisfy our needs for food, shelter, safety, communication yet it transverses even with more complexity into the unseen believe and evaluation systems of the people. So it is seen from the concrete believes and practices that are shown as the people carry out their daily activities like; eating, bathing, communication, clothing to events like; building, marring, education, working, worshiping, even to their immaterial perception and responses to their world and to one another. A cultural system can also anthropologically be defined as those socially transmitted patterns for behavior characteristic of a particular social group. In Keesing’s references, Some earlier representative attempts at definition reveal different facets of culture: That complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. (Tylor 1871) The sum total of knowledge, attitudes and habitual behaviour patterns shared and transmitted by the members of a particular society. (Linton 1940) [All the] historically created designs for living, explicit and implicit, rational, irrational, and non-rational, which exist at any given time as potential guides for the behaviour of man. (Kluckhohn and Kelly 1945) The mass of learned and transmitted motor reactions, habits, techniques, ideas, and values-and the behaviour they induce. (Kroeber 1948) The man-made part of the environment (Herskovits 1955) Patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artefacts. (Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1952) (All as cited in Keesing, Roger M & Strathern, Andrew J. 1998, 15 ). We already know that racial differences are based on our genetic dynamics, so it is more biological than psychological. But cultural differences are results of how we think about what we see. What we are looking at might be the same, yet the eyes of our mind through thoughts and imaginations attach different evaluations to them. So people of same culture tend to have a common understanding and evaluation of their physical and non-physical environment. From this culture stems different identities, which can be describe as how individuals define themselves within their environment through a given cultural spectrum. Identity is both about difference (from other people) and sameness (to people one feels attached to). Since a peoples’ identity is encoded in their world view, as posited by Sarup (Sarup,1996 as cited in Ikebude, 2009, 9), understanding this world view, therefore, can lead to an understanding of the identities. Identity is most importantly 2 about being different from other people or groups, because it is most effectively defined against others. The difference between how communities of people perceive and interact with their world eventually gives us our different cultural identities. Cultural identity is the identity or feeling of belonging to a group. It is part of an individual’s or a group’s self-conception and self-perception which is related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, gender, locality or any kind of social group that has its own distinct culture. In this way, cultural identity is both characteristic of the individual or group, but also of the culturally identical group of members sharing the same cultural identity or upbringing. Though with more detailed study, the uniformity might end at the layer of ideas and beliefs but varies more in their actual individual behavior and perspectives which create individual identities. fig. 1. An illustration of culture - identity relationship, drawn by Success Okeke To throw more light on the complementary relationship between cultural commonality among members of a society and their individual identity diversity Schwartz argues; The distribution of a culture among the members of a society transcends the limitations of the individual in the storage, creation, and use of the cultural mass. A distributive model of culture must take into account both diversity and commonality. It is diversity that increases the cultural inventory, but it is commonality that answers a degree of communicability and coordination. (Schwartz 1978, 423 as cited in Keesing, Roger M & Strathern, Andrew J. 1998, 19) In this part of this essay, I will be looking at some major aspects of cultural commonality and diversities within some cultural systems. Which has eventually made the cultures rich in subgroup and individual identity differences. It appears simple when we try to define culture at a generic or objective level, but once we start zooming in into the different subjective identities it has created at the subgroup level it becomes complex. Then when we zoom all in into the individuals identity relatively to the common culture it becomes really complex. Now ideas and ideals are been mixed, refined, challenged, and tested all from different microcosmic perspectives. So at this point different subjective shades and reflections of the objective cultural identity begin to emerge from within. The formation of Greek cultural system and identities During the “Greek Dark Ages” as it is called, before the archaic period, people lived scattered throughout Greece in small farming villages. As they grew larger, these villages began to evolve. Some built walls. Most built a marketplace (an agora) and a community meeting place. They 3 developed governments and organized their citizens according to some sort of constitution or set of laws. They raised armies and collected taxes. And every one of these city-states (known as poleis) was said to be protected by a particular god or goddess, to whom the citizens of the polis owed a great deal of reverence, respect and sacrifice. (Athens’s deity was Athena, for example; so was Sparta’s.) However, by the dawn of the archaic period in the seventh century BC. the citystates had developed a number of common characteristics. They all basically spoke same language. They all had economies that were based on agriculture, not trade: For this reason, land was every city-state’s most valuable resource. Most city-states believed strongly in freedom for her citizens. Also, most had overthrown their hereditary kings, or basileus, and were ruled by a small number of wealthy aristocrats. Though their citizens had in common what Herodotus called “the same stock and the same speech, our shared temples of the gods and religious rituals, our similar customs,” every Greek city-state was different. The largest, Sparta, controlled about 300 square miles of territory; the smallest had just a few hundred people. Comparing two of the major city-states (Sparta and Athens), shows how differences within a culture can yet emerge to create more diverse identities and groups. These two city-states were quite different in aspects of ideals of customs, politics, economics civil rights and more. Sparta was known for their strength, discipline, individuality, beauty, sports, and learning. The idea of dedication to the state military has left the Spartans little or no time for art and literature. On the other side, Athenians placed a heavy emphasis on the education, fitness wealth arts, architecture, and literature. The Athenians built thousands of temples and statues that embodied their understanding of beauty. Concerning human right, rights of women were a little more elevated in Sparta, yet the city that had an overall greater respect for human rights, would be Athens. One reason why Athens had a greater respect for human rights is that they had a direct democracy, while Sparta had an oligarchy. Athens’ direct democracy had elected officials including ten generals, magistrates, and others. They also had a council of five hundred. Their job was to oversee the decisions made by the assembly. Unfortunately, the assembly was open to all citizens except women. Women had no contributing role in politics. The assembly passed laws and made policy decisions. The assembly met on the hill of the Pnyx to make these important decisions. On the other hand, Sparta had an oligarchy. They had two kings who controlled the army and religions of Sparta. They also had five overseers who were elected to do regular every-day operations of Sparta. In a manner of saying, Sparta was the ‘conservative’ while Athens was the ‘liberal’. They really differed in their idea of getting along with the rest of the Greeks. Sparta seemed content to keep to itself and provide army and assistance when necessary. Athens, on the other hand, wanted Sparta Athens Argos fig. 2, 3, 4, 5. Some ancient Greek city-states, retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 4 Corinth to control more and more of the land around them. These differences between Athens and Sparta eventually led to war between the two city-states. Known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC). Both Sparta and Athens gathered allies and fought on and off for decades because no single city-state was strong enough to conquer the others. The formation of Igbo cultural system and identities The Igbo people (ndi Igbo), are one of the largest ethnic groups in African with about 24 million people speaking the Igbo language across the world. Settling today at the south central and southeastern part of Nigeria. The earliest found settlements in Igboland date back to 4500 BC in the central area, from where the majority of the Igbo-speaking population is believed to have migrated. The northern Igbo Kingdom of Nri, which rose around the 10th century AD, is credited with the foundation of much of Igboland’s culture, customs, and religious practices. It is one of the oldest existing monarchy in present-day Nigeria. Traditional Igbo political organization was based on a quasi-democratic republican system of government. In tight knit communities, this system guaranteed its citizens equality, as opposed to a feudalist system with a king ruling over subjects. This government system was witnessed by the Portuguese who first arrived and met with the Igbo people in the 15th century. With the exception of a few notable Igbo towns such as Onitsha, which had kings called Obi, and places like the Nri Kingdom and Arochukwu, which had priest kings; Igbo communities and area governments were overwhelmingly ruled solely by a republican consultative assembly of the common people. Communities were usually governed and administered by a council of elders. At the center of her cosmological view, the Igbo people believe in a philosophy that portrays residential territory and their home representing a microcosm of a universe of three-worlds: the land, the sky and the spiritual. Her architecture takes meaning from this concept of a three-world universe, where God, gods, the dead, the unborn, and the living interact. At the core of Igbo religion/spirituality is Chukwu (the most supreme deity). Most of the Igbo social and religious life revolve around the belief in the existence of Chineke (another name for Chukwu), which means the supreme creator, the creator of everything, including the lesser gods. Achebe says that ‘chi’ is regarded as always being with one and directing the person’s actions here on earth. (Achebe, 1958) Below Chukwu are a pantheon of lesser gods such as Igwe (the sky god), Ala (the earth goddess which was considered superior to Igwe and Agwu), and Agwu (the patron deity of health, divination, and all creative arts, including architecture). The superiority of the land goddess over all other deities in traditional Igbo depicts the role and importance of women in the Igbo culture. fig. 6, 7. The Igbo culture further divided along political system, dialect, gender and boundary lines , drawn by Success Okeke 5 The Igbo people have a melodic music style into which they incorporate various percussion instruments; the Udu (which is essentially designed from a clay jug) an Ekwe (which is formed from a hollowed log) and the Ogene ( a hand bell designed from forged iron). Other instruments include Opi (a wind instrument similar to the flute) Igba, and Ichaka. They also have a style of music called Ikorodo, which involves a vocal performance accompanied by several musical instruments. Though the Igbo people had a strong cultural bonds and commonality, they are if not the most diverse of the three major ethnic groups in Nigeria. Their culture is further divided into many subgroups, due to dialects and boundaries especially on both sides of the Niger River. Igbo-speaking peoples can be divided into five geographically based subcultures: northern Igbo, southern Igbo, western Igbo, eastern Igbo, and northeastern Igbo. Two types of political systems have been distinguished among the Igbo on both sides of the Niger River: the democratic village republic type, found among the Igbo living to the east of the Niger River, and the constitutional monarchy type, found among Igbo in Delta State and the riverine towns of Onitsha and Ossomali livng west of the Niger. Most of the villages or towns that have the latter type of political system have two ruling monarchs one female and one male. The obi (male monarch) is theoretically the father of the whole community, and the omu (female monarch) is theoretically the mother of the whole community; the duties of the latter, however, center mainly around the female side of the community. Women engage in village politics (i.e., manage their affairs, separately from the men). They do this by establishing their own political organizations, which come under an overall village or town Women’s Council under the leadership of seasoned matriarchs. It was this organizational system that enabled Igbo women and Ibibio women to wage an anti-colonial struggle against the British in 1929 known as the Women’s War (Ogu Umunwayi). Both types of political systems are characterized by the smallness in size of the political units, the wide dispersal of political authority between the sexes, kinship groups, lineages, age sets, title societies, diviners, and other professional groups. To summarize this chapter, I think it is important to understand that culture as a people’s way of living, could actually be interpreted as an average expression of the world-view of the subgroups and individuals that belong to the cultural identity. So as much as it shapes the people’s way of life , the people also in different times and spaces refine and reshape the culture through their different world-views. fig. 8. Different individual identities in subjective subgroups and identities reflecting the objective cultural identity, drawn by Success Okeke 6 THE TRANSFORMATION OF CULTURAL SYSTEMS AND IDENTITIES Cultural systems and the identities that reflect it go through changes in a continuum from old to new to form a historical narrative. This changes occur in different times and spaces, through some internal/local and also external/foreign agents. As objective as culture may look, it gets transformed and reshaped by subjective perceptions and conceptions (identities) of different people who in return are defined by it. These could be perceptions and conceptions that stem from but not limited to factors like age, gender, experience, religion, politics and encounter with other cultural identities. The relationship between the people’s culture and the people’s identity is not linear but more of a ‘back and forth’ movement, as each tries to transfer its meaning to the other. At this point I would like to suggest that as these waves of transformation move, cultural systems at the foundation level seem to be more rigid compared to the identities that were founded on it which are more fragile. So identity shift can be going on at the individual level while the culture more or less remains stable. Yet with change in time and space both get transformed, but to what extent? The strength of the agents of these changes is one thing and where they come from (local or foreign) is another thing. From the level of an individual force to a social force, a new idea can be introduced and adopted into a cultural system. Even if it is an individual who has introduced this new world-view, he/she could be a great political, social, or academic force. If ignoring the new idea comes with no consequence (physical or psychological), then it does not have same strength of impact as one that does. For example a woman trying to express her fashion ideas which is different from what the custom says, will make more impact if she has other women in agreement with her. Yet depending on how the voice of women is regarded in that culture, she might form a stronger expression with some men on their side. It might as well be easier if she was the queen of the community whose knowledge and experience is trusted by the people. Yet an idea might as well receive different responses on the premise of where it is coming from. If one belongs to the community and knows and practices the customs and traditions, he will be responded to differently compared to a foreigner who is ignorant of the system. The latter will have to exercise more mental and physical strength to prevail. Typical examples of varying strength of local and foreign agents of cultural and identity change, have been displayed so many times in the past. From different imperial forces, to different revolutionary forces, to different colonial forces, to the present global force of modernism through technology. The transformation of Greek cultural system and identities The culture of Greece has evolved over thousands of years, beginning in Mycenaean Greece, continuing most notably into Classical Greece, through the influence of the Roman Empire and its successor the Byzantine Empire. Other cultures and states such as the Frankish states, the Ottoman Empire, the Venetian Republic and Bavarian and Danish monarchies have also left their influence on modern Greek culture. Before the external forces like the roman empire and the Ottoman empire, the subgroup divisions within the classical Greece was an internal force of cultural transformation. This was clear as the 7 subjective city-states and individual world-views kept on challenging what could be seen as the objective Greece culture. At the heart of city-states that made up the classical Greece was the concept of freedom, but they had different ideas on how to express and sustain it. The Spartans believed they can express and sustain their freedom through building a hardcore warrior society, while the Athenians believed they can through building a well informed and diplomatic society. The Spartan idea of freedom was to be self sufficient, with little or no trade or transactions with others. The Athenians thought that by being free, they should be able to do what they wanted, trade with others and exchange influences with others too. Maybe it is not wrong to say that possibly the Athenian women envied the Spartan women, who had more to say in their society. This could be an internal challenge to the objective Athenian viewpoint on women. Eventually the classical Greek culture encountered stronger transformational forces of the foreign agents. Of which the earliest deep transformation was impacted by the roman empire. The Greek economy had already collapsed during the period of Roman expansion, and was incorporated into the Empire. With the decline of the latter, the establishment of a Christian Eastern Empire reorganized much of the region (Friedman, 1992, 838). a heavy religious tension was established between the original Greek religious believes and the Roman Christianity. With time, during the Byzantine realm (eastern Roman empire) , Christianity eventually gained a strong influence. By the time of the Ottoman empire, religion has almost become a substitution for ethnicity as the division between Christianity and Islam grew. With Christianity spreading wide among Greeks, it ended up being a very deep transformation of the original Greek cultural identity. The transformation of Igbo cultural system and identities Following the British parliament’s abolition of the slave trade in 1830, the British royal navy had opened up trade with coastal towns Bonny, Opobo and further inland on the Niger with Asaba in the 1870s. The palm oil industry, the biggest export, grew large and important to the British who traded here. British arrival and trade led to increased encounters between the Igbo and other polities and ethnic groups around the Niger River and led to a deepening sense of a distinct Igbo ethnic identity. Missionaries had started arriving in the 1850s. The Igbo, at first wary of the religion, started to embrace Christianity and Western education as traditional society broke down. Christianity had played a great part in the introduction of European ideology into the Igbo society and culture. Often time through erasure of cultural practice; adherents to the denominations were often barred in partaking in ancient rites and traditions, and joining fraternities and secret societies were forbidden as the church grew stronger. The cosmological view at the center of the Igbo cultural practices, which reflected in her architecture was also changed. For instance, Igwe, as god of the sky, is omniscient, and controls the terrestrial bodies, while ensuring that rainfall and sunshine are provided in moderation. Rainy season is a time when the earth is provided with water and the forests bring forth timber and palm fronds for building. In dry season, building materials stored at the end of the rainy season are used, and there is little or no rain to disturb building work. Ala, the earth goddess (the superior god), is an omni-present witness to all the actions of people living on its earth. It provides the mud with which the building is shaped. A creative talent, which Agwu controls, is needed for building and wall decoration. When Christianity was brought by the Europeans, who taught the Igbo that God 8 lived in heaven, the superiority bestowed upon Ala was transferred to Igwe (Aguwa, 1995 as cited in Ikebude, 2009, 23), hence, the saying, “Igwe ka Ala” (the sky which is superior to the earth). Beyond these mythical way of understanding their world, the materials that were used to interpret them into art and architecture had practical and environmental relevance. They answered the practical climatic and design questions of the tropical environment. For example, the mud material from the earth, kept the interior spaces cool even when it was hot outside. These practical solutions were also swept away as they have been fused with the religious views. Nsibidi (also known as nsibiri, nchibiddi or nchibiddy) was a system of writing indigenous to the Igbo culture. It is apparently an ideographic script, though there have been suggestions that it includes logographic elements. The symbols are at least several centuries old: Early forms appeared on excavated pottery as well as what are most likely ceramic stools and headrests from the Calabar region, with a range of dates from 400 to 1400 BC. Outside knowledge of nsibidi came in 1904 when T.D. Maxwell noticed the symbols. Before the British colonization of the area, nsibidi was divided into a sacred version and a public, more decorative version which could be used by women. Aspects of colonization such as Western education and Christian doctrine drastically reduced the number of nsibidi-literate people, leaving the secret society members as some of the last literate in the symbols. Local/old Foreign/ new fig. 9, 10, Transformation of Igbo architecture, image retrieved from http://ukpuru.blogspot.com/2011/10/mbari-house.html. fig. 11, 12. Transformation of Igbo written language,image retrieved from https://www.nairaland.com/2554987/history-nsibidi-ancient-igbo-alphabetsw The reconstruction of cultural system and identities With time the difference between the old and the new becomes very clear, yet the processes that create this difference could be so complex and difficult to appreciate. This is because the change occurs rhizomatically, making it almost difficult to control. Many internal and external factors happen to affect cultural pattern and definitions to create new patterns with time. Since the importance of having an identity to exist cannot be overemphasized, people try to reconstruct their identity after encounters with transformational forces. Working on one’s own identity, be it Greek, Hawaii, Norwegian or Igbo, means relating the past 9 history (and culture) to the present time. Hence working on one’s identity means actively creating continuity. Creating continuity means creating a perception of oneself and one’s people being the same through history. Just as Friedman said: Making history is a way of producing identity insofar as it produces a relation between that which is supposedly occurred in the past and the present state of affairs (Friedman, 1992, 837). This could be viewed in contrast to the statement made by Hindess and Hirst that: Historical events do not exist (in) and can have no material effectivity in the present. The conditions of existence of present social relations necessarily exist in and are constantly reproduced in the present. (Hindess & Hirst 1975, 312 as cited in Friedman, 1992, 853). Today, when globalization has become a strong wave, the fight and struggle in the politics of identity has become a more difficult one. Especially when the past culture referred to as the premise of identity reconstruction is challenged or denied as being true. This depends on how far the transformation went and what it produced. It is might be acceptable if the original is transformed to new shades of itself, by integrating the foreign to the local in a complementary way. For example, in the Igbo traditional wedding a foreign idea of cutting a cake was introduced. It remained a beautiful and locally welcomed idea as the cakes are baked in the shape of traditional images like palm tree, clay pots, local musical instruments etc. It could be easy to trace the old as so many parts of it is relevantly and reasonably preserved. On the other hand, in a case where it is a total supplanting of the local by the foreign with traces lost, it becomes a more difficult struggle. These changes cannot be stopped but can be controlled to a reasonable extent. With reference to the illustration below: If conscious efforts are made, the cultural systems and identities will end up being metamorphosed into new versions of themselves through a system of fusion or synthesis of the global and the local, where the original local identity remains traceable ( case ‘A’). On the other hand if nothing is done, it metamorphoses into a new branch of an already existing one through a system of acculturation (supplanting). in this case tracing the original local identity is difficult or even impossible (case ‘B’). If all local cultural identities are taken over by globalization we end up without identity (case ‘C’ ) A B C fig. 13. Possible transformation and reconstruction models of cultural systems and identities, drawn by Success Okeke 10 CONCLUSION Having an identity is part of, if not the main essence of living. All we contribute to our world and society is a product of who we are. So having a good perception and conception of who we are goes a long way to determine and define our living. Having a wrong self definition makes living difficult. No one is automatically born with a subjective position of identity, rather it gets formed with time and space through a cultural spectrum. Lacan, proposed that a child between the age of 6 to18 months becomes able to separate himself from the world by recognizing him/ herself through the mirror (Benvenuto, Bice & Kenndy, Roger, I986, 52). Culture is the foundation on which our group and individual identity is built. Theoreticians have defined identity in very different ways: as a structure that accounts for narcissism and is part of the ego; as the ability to remain the same despite changes; as a feeling of continuity; or as the sum of representations of the self. This goes a long way to describe how important it is for our identity to have an amount of stability, at least at the core of it, for us to exist amongst others. When a cultural system goes through heavy transformation identity crises becomes the aftermath. So conscious actions have to be taken to slow down the rate and weight of cultural metamorphoses, to avoid a total acculturation. This effort, especially from within and at any level, has to be put in place so that the cultural account of the global society will suffer lesser deficiency. This preserves the beautiful moments we experience when different cultural systems and identities meet. The major problem associated with wiping out a cultural system from the world cultural map, is the difficulty of correctly retracing it with time. It will be difficult for the individuals or subgroups who are trying to reconstruct their identity because what they are trying to trace, is a complex system which was a product of both subjective and objective influences. Same goes for anthropologists who through ethnography tries to understand the cause and effect of a people’s life. I believe that the best way to retain an effective cultural identity is by ensuring that cultural systems are relevantly and reasonably preserved. 11 REFERENCES A. H. Maslow, A Theory of Human Motivation, Psychological Review, 1943 Leach, Edmund: “An anthropologist´s Reflection on a Social Survey”. In Jongmans & Gutkind (eds.): Anthropologists in the Field , Assen: Van Gorcum, 1967 Keesing, Roger M & Strathern, Andrew J. Cultural Anthropology. A Contemporary Perspective, Harcourt Brace Collage Publishers, 1998 Jonathan Friedman, The Past in The Future: History and the Politics of Identity, University of Lund. 1992 Benvenuto, Bice & Kenndy, Roger, the works of Jacques Lacan, London : Free Association Books I986 Chukwuemeka Ikebude, Identity in Igbo Architecture: Ekwuru, Obi, and the African Continental Bank Building, the College of Fine Arts of Ohio University, 2009 Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, William Heinemann Ltd., 1958 Godwin Chikwendu Nsude, The Traditional Architecture of The Igbo of Nigeria, School of Architecture and landscape Dartford, 1987 Comparison of the Greek City States- Athens and Sparta retrieved from https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Comparison-of-the-Greek-City-States-Athens-PKS9L9EJDB6A, 2018 Culture of Greece, retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Greece, 2018 Rise of City-States: Athens and Sparta, retrieved from http://www.ushistory.org/civ/5a.asp, 2008-2018 Igbo People, retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igbo_people, 2019 Igbo People, retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Igbo 12