Oshiri Culture

PRAGMATIC APPPROACH TO CULTURE AND TRADITION: An assessment cum study of Oshiri Autonomous community The term culture, society and tradition are an age-long concept primarily used as a means of identification. THE INTERPLAY OF CULTURE AND SOCIETY However, the terminology of culture goes hand-in-glove with society. Culture and society are intricately related. In this way, the former is regarded as beliefs, behavours, objectives and other characteristics common on the members of a particular group or society. While the later is seen as people who interact in such a way as to share a common culture. The cultural bond may be ethnic or racial, based on gender, or due to shared beliefs, values, and activities. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines culture as an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations or the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group. According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, society is an enduring and cooperating social group whose members have developed organized patterns of relationships through interaction with one another or a community, nation, or broad grouping of people having common traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interests. Famoyin V. O. (1978) states that, “society has a geographical meaning and so

refers to people who share a common culture in a particular location’’. It is however on record that when the terms culture and society first acquired their contemporary meanings, most people in the world worked and lived in small groups in the same locale. In the recent period, these terms (culture and society) have lost their usefulness because of increasing number of people interacting and sharing resources globally. J. O. Oyede (1987) states that, “people tend to use culture and society in a more traditional sense. For example, being a part of a racial...