Beyond Culture

Hall (1914-2009) is an American anthropologist. He served in the United States Army in Europe and the Philippines during World War II—an experience that incited his lifelong interest in culture and cross-cultural relations. Renowned for his work on nonverbal communication, cross-cultural understanding, and proxemics, or the study of how human space usage affects behavior and social norms in communities, Hall left an indelible mark on the field of anthropology and is often heralded as the founder of intercultural communication studies. Hall’s central purpose in Beyond Culture lies in dissecting the layers of human culture and unconscious differences that shape human perceptions and behaviors, urging his readers to move beyond their own cultural comfort zone—aptly inspiring the title of this work—for personal and global betterment.

Motivated by a desire to break down cultural barriers in his professional and academic posts, Hall experienced different cultural settings to inform his exploration of cultural identification and the need for cultural awareness. Hall’s expertise in anthropology thanks to fieldwork for his PhD in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, coupled with experiences living among the Navajo and Hopi on reservations in Arizona during the 1930s, enriches Beyond Culture. Through numerous anecdotes and examples of instances in which he stepped outside of his own cultural norms and behaviors to challenge inherent ethnocentrism, Hall demonstrates the achievable quality of his message. Having worked at the Foreign Service Institute for the US State Department in the 1950s, he gained practical insights into intercultural relations and taught communication skills to foreign officers. In his tenure as an instructor, he developed novel theories and terms in the field of anthropology, such as “low-context” and “high-context” cultures; “monochronic” and “polychronic” time; and “proxemics” in response to the needs of his students (i.e., foreign service officers). Hall explored the aforementioned triad of ideas in his first two books, The Silent Language (1959) and The Hidden Dimension (1966), before expanding his ideas to include extension transference, which features in Beyond Culture. His insights into extensional systems and the role of technology as an extension have shaped the discourse on cultural dynamics and how societies evolve.