ABSTRACT

Richard A. Shweder, an anthropologist well known for his research on shame and culture, wrote that unlike a number of other emotions “shame is shame wherever you go” (2003, p. 1109), by which he meant that “deeply felt and highly motivating experience of the fear of being judged defective ... are probably found everywhere in the world” (p. 1116). He went on to say that despite what he saw as the invariant essence to the feeling of shame, there are quite diverse ways, even within a culture, for dening shame; quite diverse conditions for experiencing it, recognizing it, and communicating it; and great diversity in the meanings it is given. Thus, in Shweder’s view, even if the core feelings and social relationship aspects of shame are more or less the same from one culture to another, there is also much that varies. And other anthropologists who have written about shame have emphasized how across and even within cultures the context of shame, the social positions linked to various forms of shame, and the ways that people become shamed or are made aware of their shame vary and change from time to time (Lindisfarne, 1998; Rasmussen, 2007; Rosaldo, 1983). So shame must be analyzed in sociocultural as well as psychological terms (Kilborne, 1992; Rasmussen 2007; Rosaldo, 1983). And if one thinks of shame as Shweder and other anthropologists have, then shame is actually not a simple, unitary feeling/thought/experience that can be recognized and interpreted in a straightforward way no matter what the cultural context. Instead shame is a mix of feelings, thoughts, awarenesses, wants, values, and beliefs

that vary considerably from culture to culture, because cultures create, support, reinforce, and dene different feelings, awarenesses, wants, values, and beliefs. From that perspective we are challenged to discover and understand the differences among cultures in the form, expression, context, and meaning of shame as it relates to death.