What is the Meaning of "Cultural Identity"?

"Cultural Identity" is an interesting idea because it is the joining together of the idea of culture and that of identity. While sounding simple enough, it is probably a good idea to see how the ideas of culture and of identity interact.

Culture can be described as a collection of ideas or values or "norms" that reaches over many single individuals, that endures over time and informs a collective space. Culture is something greater and more powerful than any individual. It is a world of beliefs about the world to which individuals subscribe and feel a part of. However, it must be asked whether, in the way that "if a tree fell and no one was around to hear it, did it made a noise?", if a culture existed but no one was around to propagate it, does it actually exist?

This is where the question of identity comes in. A culture must be subscribed to by individuals that "identify" with it. Identification is a process by which something is seen as being identical to another. In "identification" as it is applied to individuality, the individual actually sees their self as identical, or at least a part of their "selves" (an idea that opens up a whole other issue about split/multiple identities within a coherent self) is identical, with the ideal of an individual delineated in the perspective of a particular set of norms. So "cultural identity" is the linking together of a collective body of "culture" with an individual act of "identification." What is interesting to ask ourselves is whether we are really in a position to "identify" with cultures. If people argue that culture is something that you are born into and grow up with simply by being in the presence of others in a society, then "cultural identity" would imply a being "without culture" enough to actively identify with it. In this way, identification involves a form of adoption.

What then happens to "culture"? Is culture something we choose? Identification involves some sort of choice, some sort of stepping back and evaluating the singlular "identity" of two separate things. Thus when we talk about what it means when we identify with one culture, more than one cultures, one big "multiculture," we are talking about the way the individual relates to culture, and how culture is changed by who relates to it. The two are brought together in the form of "identification," even though the one doing the identifying is inherently already part of something--a particular position in time and space that is part of a global and all-inclusive history--that can sometimes be left out of the equation. Once we distinguish one culture from another we overlook the inherent paradox of choosing an identity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMnk7lh9M3o

This is a great example of how culture is something that anyone can identify with.
And in identification, the culture itself is renewed.