Online Lesson 1:
Part IV - Territory and Personal Space

Let's explore territoriality. Ethologists (people who study animal behaviors in relation to human behaviors) have described the territoriality of animals. How often we have observed birds sitting/standing on telephone/electric lines. They are all equidistant from one another. If one bird enters that line of equidistant birds, one bird moves to maintain the required distance. Have you been to a circus where often there is a lion tamer? The whip, gun and chair lion tamers use are really just for the show, the audience. Instead, they are experts in lion territoriality. They step in and out the lions' circle of territory and that is how they control the lions' movements. Do we humans have territories? YES! In my classes, for example, I have observed how students in the first day of class chose a seat and desk. In the second class meeting they may stay in the same seat or they may select another seat and desk. But by the third class meeting, everyone has established his/her territories for the rest of the semester. Like birds, they too are equidistant from one another. They claim their space by spreading their notebooks and baggage on the desks and on the floor. If someone enters that space you adjust your space until you are comfortable once again. I have experimented with this situation. In the middle of the semester, I asked students to move to another seat and desk space. They did it reluctantly and the effects became immediately evident. They found it hard to participate and they seemed very awkward as they kept on shifting hoping to adjust to this new space. But this shift in space also affected me! I kept looking for students in their regular space and I found myself in an awkward situation. It was hard for me to do my task as teacher. All of us had to spend time adjusting to our new arrangement before we could effectively do our classroom activities.

Edward T. Hall in the Silent Language (1959) describes a scene in the lobby of United Nations Building where an American diplomat was conversing with an Arab diplomat. The Arab cultural space for speaking to others is relatively very close as compared to Americans. Americans usually use 3-5 feet of distance from one another for normal group and dyadic interactions. Arabs comfortable space for speaking with one another is closer. In fact, Arabs like to use thermal communication, meaning that they like to be in physical contact as they converse. They tend to speak shoulder to shoulder, leaning into each other while simultaneously employing their olfactory sense and close eye gazes to communicate. Americans space for comfortable interactions is greater. So in Hall's description we see how the Arab diplomat in a very subtle manner attempts to get closer to the American as they speak to one another, while the American is trying to maintain his cultural space for speaking is backing away also in a very subtle manner. A dance is described as they move across the lobby each trying to gain and maintain their cultural comfortable space for speaking until such time that the American, who is constantly backing away, hits the wall while the Arab moves in! The Arab finds his comfortable space while the American is "sweating" and no longer listening as a result!

Mexicans in interaction touch each other with subtle hits on the arm as they speak! When you do this to an American they get very upset! American cultural comfortable space is reinforced in typical offices. The office desk are usually three feet wide; the American sits at his desk using the desk space as the buffer as the person sits opposite him maintaining the appropriate distance. I was in a Mexican business office in Mexico City and they too had the same desks as the Americans. But when I entered the office, the Mexican businessman came to greet me and we sat next to each other about one foot apart and had our discussion. It would have been awkward to him and for me to speak to one another with a desk in between.

Continuing with this Mexican context, let's move to another area in communication theory. In the US culture, we have sayings such as "don't beat around the bush" and "get to the point." We also have the axiom, "business before pleasure." In a similar Mexican office context, I had an appointment with the Mexican Commissioner of Education. My appointment was at 9:00AM. I was there at 10 minutes to nine. I informed the secretary who confirmed my appointment. Nine AM approached and I expected the secretary to let me into the Commissioner's office. Five minutes went by and I asked the secretary if he was in his office. He was in his office. I just waited…ten minutes went by and I asked the secretary if he knew I was waiting. She said he knew. Fifteen minutes passed and I was getting kind of upset; twenty minutes went by and then the commissioner came out to greet me and we entered his office. In this scenario I was using American cultural sense of time. If this were an American context, being there early was appropriate and being seen on time was also expected. Hall states that Americans will wait for two to three minutes before getting upset. Waiting five minutes they are really upset. Waiting more than 7-8 minutes or so would be interpreted as totally unacceptable and they would leave in anger! In contrast, waiting in the Mexican situation was seen as very polite and acceptable since the concept of time differs. We all have heard of "Mexican time, even Navajo time" meaning that they are always late. If this is expected, then in Mexican contexts one is never late…and to be early or exactly on time for the meeting is not expected. So the Mexican commissioner was being polite from his perspective. So time and the uses of time is certainly cultural! Back to the Mexican appointment. I entered his office and we sat close together and began to chit-chat. He asked me about my family, my background, what I had visited in the city, what my hobbies were, etc. He also pulled out a bottle of tequila around 11:00 am or so. We had a drink and continued to socially talk. Then he invited me to lunch. We went to his favorite restaurant and we continued to chat socially. I was getting a bit anxious because we still had not discussed the purpose of my appointment. We drank and ate and even extended our lunch to go hear Mariachi music at the Plaza Garibaldi. I was tipsy all afternoon and we never got down to business. In fact, later that evening he came by my hotel to take me out with his family---to see the sights and more social talk. Around two in the morning, he left me at the hotel and told me to come by his office again tomorrow at nine AM. This time I arrived late at 9:20AM or so and I immediately was received by him. We continued our social talk focusing on our adventures together the night before. Then by mid-morning he asked me what I wanted. I wanted permission to visit Mexican schools. He immediately wrote out a simple note with his signature and I was on my way to visit schools. What is the message in this scenario? In America, we believe in business before pleasure while in many other countries including Japan, "pleasure before business." This makes sense because how could one do business with a stranger? They want to know who you are first; they want to know what kind of a person you are before they enter into business! In American culture we do business first then we socialize---almost as a reward.

Another area of cultural differences in communication lies in the form of discussion. In America, when we ask a direct question, we expect a direct answer. If you don't provide a direct answer, we say "Don't beat around the bush" or "Get to the point." When I risk asking my father what normally is considered a formulaic question, "Dad, how are you feeling today?", the expected American response may be quick such as "I'm feeling fine, thanks" or "I'm not feeling too good right now." But my father if asked this question might begin with "Well, when I was a young man, a horse knocked me down, kicked my back and I was injured. My mother got mad and hit the horse and then my father was mad because the horse was his best of the lot! My old man loved horses and I rode horses before I could walk. Etc." My father would continue with the story for many minutes and within that story the message that his back hurts today would be evident. He does not respond directly as expected in American culture. He spins a story and within that story the point of the story becomes evident but hidden to the American ear. They may hear the story but may not detect the answer they expect because they don't tend to listen because he's "beating around the bush." Many of my Native American students at NAU receive ugly frustrated non-verbals from American peers when they spin their stories in addressing my questions in the same manner as my father. Their written assignments are in the same form. You may want remember this story as you work with Native Americans, Hispanics and many Asian cultures!

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