• Formulate a research question that problematises a cultural experience you have had, and which addresses, for instance, a ‘puzzle’, inconsistency, observation, question or curiosity you experienced, either in a familiar or unfamiliar culture
• Define and compare the theories and perspectives presented in the course material and readings, and be able to evaluate their strengths and limitations for explaining a chosen cultural issue.
• Apply appropriate readings, theories and concepts taught during the course to analyse the chosen cultural issue
• Reflect critically on own cultural assumptions and situatedness, with a point of departure in analysis of experiences with a familiar or unfamiliar culture.
• Craft and apply a research methods approach that is appropriate for investigating the chosen research issue

Today’s BLC graduates are likely to be employed in multicultural organisations in Denmark and/or abroad. The ability to work effectively with people from a wide range of backgrounds is therefore increasingly crucial, both when in a foreign environment, and when ‘at home’ - e.g. in one's own organisational/work environment. Awareness of one’s own cultural situatedness and assumptions, both in unfamiliar and familiar contexts, are important elements in enabling this. 
  
“Cultural Identity and Analysis” is designed to foster and train these abilities. The aim of the course is to encourage critical reflexivity concerning students’ own cultural situatedness, and the ways in which they apprehend and negotiate difference both in a foreign context and at ‘home’. Students will be introduced to theories and concepts that will enable them to carry out a cultural analysis both of a familar context (where they feel 'at home') and of an unfamiliar/foreign context (where they do not feel 'at home). This is achieved in two ways in this course:

First, we will follow up on students’ experiences from their semester abroad in the lectures, using cases drawn from the ‘exchange log book’, an electronic media platform accessible only to the class and teacher, which students are required to post on during their exchange. We will use the posts as data and discuss them in the light of the course theories and concepts. Second, students will be introduced to the challenges involved in carrying out a cultural analysis of a familiar environment, e.g. a Danish organisation or institution (such as CBS, a workplace, sports club or family context). To analyse both these situations, students will be introduced to different theoretical approaches to culture, identity and difference (e.g. functionalism, interpretivism, theories of recognition, embodiment, stereotyping & self-stereotyping, cultural learning/acculturation), as well as autoethnographic approaches and writing techniques.

Students will thus be expected to draw on the perspectives and concepts taught during the course in explaining and reflecting on their experiences both in familiar and unfamiliar contexts. The cultural analysis techniques students learn during the course are also intended to equip students with conceptual and methodological tools that they can deploy when writing their bachelor project.

Guidelines for the exchange log book will be distributed at the end of the 4th semester before the students leave for their semester abroad.

This course will run for the first time in Spring 2024.

To be announced on Canvas