Global Culture

openDemocracy readers are all over the world. As we anticipate the launch of our multiculturalism debate, we’d like you to tell us about life, or the view, or an event, on your street. Give other readers a glimpse of your world and see if they find it strange or familiar…

What I found particularly interesting was the final words of this request: “strange or familiar”. People all over the world did post for a few months and the debate probably didn’t go too far, but as you read through those little snapshots of life at any given street around the world, the mission to decide whether they are strange or familiar resonates as possibly a very important clue to determine the difussion of certain elements across cultural contexts:

We have “popsicle parties” on warm days in their front yard, shaded by a huge tree.

The President and his official aircraft occupy space above sometimes, craning necks for a few seconds whenever something large, noisy and governmental flies overhead. He lives a relatively short distance up one of the highways here, but hasn’t invited anyone to help the Secret Service boys barbecue a weekend brisket.

Oddly, the last glaciation left our notoriously boggy area with two drumlins running north and south with the lakes inbetween and our little town is between the lakes

The good thing about the street is that feel safe. Because it is a small side street, hardly anyone knows it so gangs of youth don’t bother to hang here. I’m a 22 year-old student who has travelled backstreets in South-Africa and Nairobi and survived, but too many of my friends have been mugged, beaten up or harassed by such gangs not to worry.

Reading through the posts you will catch a glimpse of what could very well be your own street, but once in a while there are snippets that will shift your mind into a completely different reality.
If you were to measure the degree of “strangeness” compared to your own cultural baseline the resulting map would likely show you those places that would be very interesting to visit, and possibly not all of them would be all the way around the world.