Republic of the Philippines

State Universities and

Colleges
GUIMARAS STATE COLLEGE
Buenavista, Guimaras
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
UNIT 1: The Self from Various Perspectives
LESSON 3: Anthropoloogical Perspectives of the Self

OBJECTIVES
At the end of the unit, the students will be able to:
 Explain how culture affects or shapes one’s identity;
 Recognize the contribution of anthropology in understanding the self; and
 Develop an insight on how to achieve the sense of self..

ACTIVATE
Complete your cultural identity checklist.

Gender
Age
Marital status
Sexual orientation (lesbaia,
gay, bisexual, transgender)
Skin color (black, brown
etc.)
Religion
Citizenship
language
Regional Identity (Ilonggo,
Ilocano, Kapampangan
etc.)
Economic status (poor,
middle class, rich)
Educational background
(Elementary, High School,
College)
Generation (generation X,
Millennials, generation Z)
Personality (Introvert,
Extrovert, Ambivert)

ACQUIRE
CULTURAL IDENTITY AND NATIONAL IDENTITY
Culture is derived from a lation word cultura or cultus meaning care or cultivation.
Culture is analogouos to caring for the infant. Because an infant has prolonged
dependency, he or she has to be taken care of by the people around him or her. The
infant has to learn from them so he or she can better adjust while growing up in his
or her cultural environment (Leanno & Corpuz, 2008). Throughout one’s life, he or
she functions according to the cultural context where he or she is situated. As one
grows old, he or she learns many things about his or her environment and realizes
what makes him or her different from other people. As an individual interacts with
people and makes sense of how he or she functions in the context of his or her
social and cultural background, he or she learns, that he or she has both personal
identity (the way he or she sees himself or herself as an individual) and collective
identity (the way he or she sees himself or herself as member of a certain group.

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 Republic of the Philippines
State Universities and
Colleges
GUIMARAS STATE COLLEGE
Buenavista,
Identity refers to “who the person Guimaras
is” or the qualities and traits of an individual that
make him or her different from others. There are many ways to distinguish people.
An example is identifying them in a geographical context or based on where they
come. People from the west are different from the people from east because they
are located on opposite sides of the world. Identity also refers to how a person sees
and expresses oneself.
Cultural identity refers to the identity or feeling of belongingness to a certain
culture group. It is an individual perception about himself anchored on race, gender,
nationality, religion, ethnicity, and language. One might identify himself as Filipino
because he embodies Filipino cultural ways and traditions to which he has been
exposed while growing up. While being a Filipino, one may also identify as a
Catholic because it is his religious background. The cultural categories that shape
one’s overall cultural identity prove how one’s cultural identity is meant to be
multidimensional.
The cultural identity theory explains why a person acts and behaves the way he
does . it makes sense on how an individual is influenced by the cultural contexts he
situated in. a single person can possess multiple identities, simultaneously making
him part of many cultural groups. These identities overlap and form the identity of
an individual.
A nation is a group of people built on the premise of shared customs, traditions,
religion, language, art, history, and more. National identity refers to the identity or
feeling of belongingness to one state or nation. Rupert Emerson, a political scientist,
defines it as “a body of people eho feel that they are a nation.” National identity is
socially constructed. It is influenced and shape by material and non material
cultures. Material culture such as the national flag, emblem, or seal is
representative of all the people who are part of the nation. Non-material culture, on
the other hand, embodies the shared understanding of a group of people which
includes norms, beliefs and traditions. National identity requires the process of self-
categorization. In self-categorization one must identify himself with a in-group
(identifying with one’s nation) and differentiate himself from the out-groups (other
nations). It brings out positive emotions like people, nationalism, patriotism, and,
the sense of responsibility one has to the nation he is part of. For instance, when
the national anthem is played, people are expected to sing and honor the flag since
they are part of the nation that honors the anthem.
BRIAN MORRIS’ ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE SELF
Dialogical self was conceptualized in terms of dynamic multiplicity of relatively
autonomous I positions in the extended landscape of the mind the self is described
as the microcosm of society where different internal and external factors and
components establish a whole these components work as a sort of network reliant
on each other in order to be functional I position relate to both the internal and
external one’s internal positioning of his or her self is influenced by how he or she
wants to be identified by others the self through the I positions is contextualized as
part of a broader whole global community collective history or in its capability to
function as part of a collective in this conception the I has the ability to move from
one spatial position to another in accordance with the changes in the space and
time it is situated in the I fluctuates among different and even opposed positions
and has the capacity to give each position a voice so that dialogical relations
between positions can be established the voices function like interacting characters
in a story involved in conversation processes of question and answer or agreement
and disagreement each of them has its own narrative of experiences from its own
position in time and space as different voices these characters exchange
information about their respective me’s and mine’s resulting in a complex
narratively structured self hermans, 2018

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 Republic of the Philippines
State Universities and
Colleges
GUIMARAS STATE COLLEGE
Buenavista,
Culture can be seen as the collective Guimaras
voices that shape the social positions of the
self such positions or voices are expressions of historically situated selves that are
particularly on the interface of different cultures constantly involved in dialogical
relationships with other voices hermans 2003
The dialogical self is a relational concept of self in herman’s view the autonomy of
self is not constituted in an internal intra individual negotiation made by one I
position with repect to another but it is intensely interwoven with external dialogical
relationships with actual others one’s moments of insights about himself or herself
and his or her actions are relational to others nurtured or discouraged by them the
relational self can be positioned at the intersection of time and space in the present
between past and future in the relation between the self and other the I is
positioned in internal and external spatialities in the constructivist view the self
does not have an existence apart from its surrounding for it is co-created in relation
with society the external dialogue between the self and other is interiorized in a
society of selves in the concept of the dialogical self internal self and external
dialogue are mutually inclusive since external conversations contribute to an inner
sense of self the self is constructed in the context of internal relations interpersonal
relationships and large social systems individuals participate in multiple
relationships in the community on the job ai leisure vicariously with characters in
different narratives they witness but are not part of people carry these myriad
traces of relationships which influence how they interact with their selves and
others gergen puts relationships at the heart of being human his central thesis is
that mental processes are in relationships not so much in the head of individuals
(Van Loon, 2018).
BRIAN MORRIS’S ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE SELF
Brian Morris reiterated that the self is not an entity but a process that orchestrates
an individual’s personal experience. As a result of this process, a person becomes
self-aware and self-reflective about his or her place in the surrounding world. The
concept of ‘self,’ for him, is defined as an individual’s mental representation of his
or her person, as kind of self-representation. The concept of ‘other’ in relation to the
self, on the other hand, refers to how one perceives the mental representations of
others. A clear separation between self and others seems to be universal, but the
meaning of this distinction varies from person to person [ Van Meijl, 2008 citing
Spiro, 1993 ]. At the same time, it seems obvious that the relationship between the
self and others is also a function of culture [ Van Meijl, 2008 citing shweder and
Bourne, 1984 ]. Morris [ 1994 ] stated that the most crucial form of interaction and
exchange takes place neither between the individual and society nor between the
psyche and culture, but instead between the self and his or her cultural
environment as mediated by social practices [ as cited in Van Meijl, 2008 ]. In view
of the dialectical relationship between the self and the cultural milieu, which is
assumed to be different depending on the dynamics of a society, a dichotomy
between western and non-western notions of self has long been embedded in
western philosophical and psychological traditions of thinking.
This idea about the self was long conceived by Marcel Mauss [ 1938 as cited in Van
Meijl, 2008 ]. Implicitly, he focused on the notion of the person as a cultural
category while reserving the conception of the self for the psychological dimension
of personhood. He added that the person or personality was considered primarily a
cultural conception, or a category of a particular community.
DIALOGICAL SELF
the dialogical self theory was introduced in 1992 by Hubert hermans the theory
regarded self as the society of mind he posited the idea that the self is considered
as extended to significant others in the environment that populate the self as a
dynamic multiplicity of i-positions in which dialogical or monological relationships

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 Republic of the Philippines
State Universities and
Colleges
GUIMARAS STATE COLLEGE
may emerge while from a spatial Buenavista, Guimaras
perspective the self is engaged in a process of
positioning and counterpositioning in a globalizing society from a temporal point of
view the self is part of a process of positioning and repositioning in collective history
and personal development (Hermans, 2018).
in this theory an individual’s sense of self is established through how one identifies
himself or herself with the different positions he or she holds internally or externally
to himself or herself for instance one may say I as member of my family I as
educator I as hardworking I as looking for contentment which are positions that can
be in sync all together an internal I-position refers to how one functions in himself or
herself while an external i-position refers to how one identifies himself or herself
based on particular external factors e.g.; internal I as empathic I as diligent external
I as brother I as part of an organization all these constitute the functionality of the
self
The dialogic self approach calls for the need for the i-positions to come in contact
with each other to be in a dialogue with one another in order for an individual to
become fully aware of the different dimensions that constitute his or herself when
positions are silenced or suppressed the self becomes monologic instead of dialogic
it is when positions are recognized and accepted together in their differences that
the self is seen as dialogic as a whole the dialogic self approach is designed to
stimulate the conversations between the internal and external positions of the self.
Dialogical self was conceptualized in terms of dynamic multiplicity of relatively
autonomous I positions in the extended landscape of the mind the self is described
as the microcosm of society where different internal and external factors and
components establish a whole these components work as a sort of network reliant
on each other in order to be functional I positions relate to both the internal and
external one’s internal positioning of his or her self is influenced by how he or she
wants to be identified by others the self through the I positions is contextualized as
part of a broader whole global community collective history or in its capability to
function as part of a collective in this conception the I has the ability to move from
from one spatial position to another in accordance with the changes in the space
and time it is situated in the I fluctuates among different and even opposed
positions and has the capacity to give each position a voice so that dialogical
relations between positions can be established the voices function like interacting
characters in a story involved in conversation processes of question and answer or
agreement and disagreement each of them has its own narrative of experiences
from its own position in time and space as different voices these characters
exchange information about their respective me’s and mine’s resulting in a complex
narratively structured self (Hermans, 2018).
Culture can be seen as the collective voices that shape the social positions of the
self such positions or voices are expressions of historically situated selves that are
particularly on the interface of different cultures constantly involved in dialogial
relationships with other voices (Hermans, 2003).
The dialogical self is a relational concept of self in herman’s view the autonomy of
self is not constituted in an internal intra individual negotiation made by one I
position with respect to another but it is intensely interwoven with external
dialogical relationships with actual others one’s moments of insights about himself
or herself and his or her actions are reational to others nurtured or discouraged by
them the relational self can be positioned at the intersection of time and space in
the present between past and future in the relation between the self and other the
I is positioned in internal and external spatialities in the constructivist view the self
does not have an existence apart from its surrounding for it is co-created in relation
with society the external dialogue between the self and other is interiorized in a
society of selves in the concept of the dialogical self internal self and external
dialogue are mutually inclusive since external conversations contribute to an inner

4
 Republic of the Philippines
State Universities and
Colleges
GUIMARAS STATE COLLEGE
Buenavista,
sense of self the self is constructed in the Guimaras
context of internal relations interpersonal
relationships and large social systems individuals participate in multiple
relationships in the community on the job at leisure vicariously with characters in
different narratives they witness but are not part of people carry these myriad
traces of relationships which influence how they interact with their selves and
others gergen puts relationships at the heart of being human his central thesis is
that mental processes are in relationships not so much in the head of individuals
(Van Loon,2018).

IDENTITY STRUGGLES

Did you experience being described as stubborn, lazy, unsympathetic,

undisciplined, bossy, thick-skinned, insecure, perfectionist, impatient,
uncooperative, hostile, careless, insensitive, undisciplined, and many other negative
descriptions? Hearing one or many of these enumerated negative descriptions may
probably hurt your emotions. In this kind of situation, you could either accept or
deny and defend yourself against these negative expressions. Regardless of the
truthfulness of how people perceive you, it provides opportunity for self-reflection.
Your response to how people describe you will depend on your own perception of
yourself. Some people can be confrontational or non-confrontational towards how
others identify them. In a world of many observant eyes, no action is almost
unguarded. People are quick to judge who others are. People’s actions in every
situation vary depending on physiological and psychological states. An individual
can be unsympathetic because of particular individual issues but people,
sometimes, fail to consider any justification for why one can be unsympathetic. This
is called identify struggle.
Identity struggle is a term introduced by Anthony Wallace and Raymond Fogelson. It
characterizes the discrepancy between the identity a person claims to possess and
the identity attributed to that person by others. When an individual perceives that
he or she is assigned a wrong impression, he or she will probably always defend his
or her identity. The best possible solution to this situation is to talk to the person
and establish a mutual understanding regarding one’s way of perceiving himself oor
herself as opposed to how he or she thinks he or she is perceived by others. It has
to be done as soon as possible in order to prevent future conflicts. The
confrontation, however, must be done in a calm and respectful manner.
IDENTITY STRUGGLES
Did you experience bring described as stubborn lazy unsympathetic undisciplined
bossy thick-skinned insecure perfectionist impatient uncooperative hostile careless
insensitive undisciplined and many other negative descriptions hearing one or many
of these enumerated negative descriptions may probably hurt your emotions in this
kind of situation you could either accept or deny and defend yourself against these
negative impressions regardless of the truthfulness of how people perceive you it
provides opportunity for self-reflection your response to how people describe you
will depend on your own perception of yourself some people can be confrontational
or non confrontational towards how others identify them in a world of many
observant eyes no action is almost unguarded people are quick to judge who others
are people’s actions in every situation vary depending on physiological and
psychological states an individual issues but people sometimes fail to consider any
justification for why one can be unsympathetic this is called identity struggle.
Identity struggle is a term introduced by Anthony Wallace and Raymond fogeison it
characterizes the discrepancy between the identity a person claims to posses and

5
 Republic of the Philippines
State Universities and
Colleges
GUIMARAS STATE COLLEGE
the identity attributed to that Buenavista, Guimaras
person by others when an individual perceives that he
or she is assigned a wrong impression he or she will probably always defend his or
her identity the best possible solution to this situation is to talk to the person and
establish a mutual.
Understanding regarding one’s way of perceiving himself or herself as opposed to
how he or she thinks he or she is perceived by others it Has to be done as soon as
possible in order to prevent future conflicts the confrontation however must be
done in a calm and respectful manner.

APPLICATION & ASSESMENT

1. How are yourself and identity constructed and influenced by your culture?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
2. Have you experienced identity struggles or discrimination? How did you
defend your identity?

3. What is a distinct characteristic of you ethniticity like “Guimarasnon”?

______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________

References:
Alata, E., Caslib B. Jr., Serafica J., &Pilawen R. (2018). Understanding the Self.
Manila, Philippines: Rex Book Store.
Arcerga, A. &Brawner, D. (2018). Understanding the Self. Quezon City: C & E
Publishing Inc.
Corpuz, Ronald M. (2019). Understanding the Self. C & E Publishing Inc.
Go-Monilla, Ma.Jocelyn A.(2018). Understanding the Self. C & E Publishing Inc.
Villafuerte, Salvacion T.(2018). Understanding the Self. Nieme Publishing House
Co.Ltd.

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Republic of the Philippines
State Universities and
Colleges
GUIMARAS STATE COLLEGE
Buenavista, Guimaras