Bleeding cultures a cross-cultural exploration into the behavioral outcomes of tight and loose cultural contact zones

Abstract

In the era of increasing global interconnectedness and decreasing cultural insularity, investigating how individuals navigate conflicting cultural norms and behavioral choices is increasingly important. This paper focuses on the impact of the contact between religiously tight cultures and industrialized, liberalized loose cultures on menstruation-related practices and traditions. In-depth interviews conducted in Jerusalem and Mumbai revealed that the nature of contact between these two conflicting ecologies impacted which traditions are adopted and how they are molded. Diffused contact, as was witnessed in Jerusalem, leads to more hybridized behaviors, and religious and non-religious practices are performed simultaneously. Whereas a more concentrated contact, as was seen in Mumbai, leads to the performance of religious norms only in situations where figures of authority can issue sanctions. Moreover, it was also found that individuals used considerable self-reflection to decide how and which practices to adopt. These findings imply that individuals are agentic operators, and that they exert considerable influence on their environment and how they adopt the cultural norms that surround them. This paper leaves scope for further research on the nature of cultural contact zones and the role of self-reflection in the collaborative co-construction of cultural norms. This paper also hopes to provide insight towards helping resolve intra-group conflict.