Insights behind resurrection of dead traditions

With Covid-19, we are observing a variety of cultural codes and traditions, which were long gone, reviving all around the world. By making sense of their re-emergence, we may contemplate on how we might benefit from revival of old traditions in shaping the future. What are the opportunities behind resurrection of dead traditions?

Culture is invisible, yet everywhere. We live and flourish within culture once we begin to master the rules and codes of civilised living. Culture is the holistic unity of our existence — past and future. When the world around us changes, we need to observe how culture responds and see how we can perceive that response with new eyes.

Karl E. Weick states in his book Sensemaking in Organizations,

people try to construct some link between the present situation and “relevant” situations to make sense of the [interruption] (…) Interruption is a signal that important changes have occurred in the environment. (…) It makes good evolutionary sense to construct an organism that reacts significantly when the world is no longer the way it was.

The interruption is Covid-19 in our case. Since people are cultural beings, we can say that sensemaking should be essentially focused on how that interruption changed the cultural system in order to find patterns. Then we can converge towards a deep dive towards the complex problem behind it.

Inspiration for innovation: Look for what’s re-emerging

When we look around the world and observe how culture is responding to Covid-19, how it’s transforming everything with a new perspective, we need to ask ourselves: what are the re-emerging cultural codes and traditions are reviving from the depths of history? Some cultural traditions and norms have died out with progress, urbanisation and technology, but with the Covid-19 pandemic, people have revived them to be able to cope with drastic changes in life.

Those revived traditions and cultural codes can help us make sense of the motivation and meaning behind them, and thus, we can create new value propositions based on those insights. And that would be an untapped field of opportunity for organisations who’d want to pivot and/or innovate for the future.

Sensemaking is a tool to adapt, make meaning and enable action.

There’s a very recent article that is accepted to be published in the Journal of Management Studies, by Marlys K. Christianson and Michelle A. Barton that is titled “Sensemaking in the Time of COVID-19”, which begins by saying that

When people encounter surprising or confusing events, they engage in sensemaking to answer the questions, “what’s the story?” and “now what?” (Weick et al., 2005). Sensemaking is a socially constructed process in which individuals interact with their environment and with others to create meaning and enable action. The COVID-19 pandemic has created an environment that is dynamically uncertain — routines are upended, normal interactions are disrupted, and risk must be reassessed on an ongoing basis.

As the article states, our routines are upended, normal interactions are disrupted and risk must be reassessed on an ongoing basis. This kind of environment calls for our collective memory to go into the archives of human existence and come up with things that existed in similar situations, but died out eventually as the causes faded away.

Why is this important? You can offer solutions and design value proposition around re-emerging traditions.

Since sensemaking is a socially constructed process in which individuals interact with their environment and with others to create meaning and enable action, we need to observe and make sense of those interactions and meanings created.

A number of those traditions are reviving in the face of the pandemic. Let’s try to walk through revival of traditions and try to look for similar traditions that existed in other cultures that we can benefit today once again. Previous generations have already went through similar problems and came up with solutions or precautions to deal with those problems. We can get inspiration from them by making sense of what’s behind their re-emergence and designing value and/or solutions that embrace them.

1. Kolonya tradition in Turkey

For instance, in Turkey, with the influence of the pandemic, a dying out culture of refreshing your hands with kolonya (eau de cologne) revived. Kolonya sales in Turkey skyrocketed and brands, which were looking for ways to innovate the product to make it culturally relevant to new generations before the pandemic, suddenly found themselves in the center of attention again.

Kolonya entered the Ottoman urban culture together with the French influence during 19th century. Cologne was first imported from Germany, hence the name cologne (kolonya), and later on people found ways to create a local version of it with citrus, fig, jasmine, tobacco, lavender and other locally appreciated fragrances. After transforming it into a local product, it basically replaced rose water that was the main refreshment up to that point in history.

In the Ottoman urban culture, people have offered their guests kolonya to freshen up when they arrived in their homes and this tradition continued almost two centuries continuing through Turkish Republic until last few decades. Kolonya and sweets were two major cultural artifacts of religious holidays and family visits in modern times that kept the tradition alive.

With the effect of globalisation and capitalist economy, those traditions began to die out and the newer generations preferred to go on a vacation, rather than to visit their families during religious and national holidays. Also, in modern urban society family visits declined visibly and people preferred to meet out-of-home at restaurants, bars and cafes. And bit by bit, kolonya (and sweets) turned into residual cultural codes that were almost only visible in commercials as nostalgic cultural codes.

What does it mean for us? A sense of welcoming rather than entering dangerous territories.

The tradition of kolonya was about welcoming people, so it not only existed in family visits, but also at restaurants, barber shops, offices and even public toilettes. Kolonya symbolises being welcomed into a friendly environment. Therefore, it revived more significantly, instead of adopting the new norm of hand sanitizer gels. So, I think, that kolonya gave people a sense of protection with a warm nostalgic feeling of holidays, family visits and good times, rather than the cold, sterilized and medical feeling of hand sanitizers, where it’s directly associated with virus, sickness and a paranoia against other people.

This argument is not covering everyone, of course, since many Millenials and Gen Z grew up in urban families that left the kolonya tradition behind, kolonya is not very culturally relevant for their generations.

Take-away insight:

People are scared, they are afraid to go out of their homes, but also they are afraid to go into places. When they do go in somewhere, they can feel the cold fear on hand sanitizers — as a sensory stimulator — or they can feel the warmth of good times from their family visits in the past. If you were in retail or hospitality, where you need people to come into your space, which feeling would you rather trigger in your visitors psyche? Insight: Think about how you can make people welcomed and protected, rather than trigger their fear even more.

2. Wine windows in Italy

Photo from Insider.com, by Associazione Buchette del Vino / Wine Window Association

Another example is from Italy: the buchette del vino (wine window) in the Tuscany region of Italy. Wine windows, as reported by the Insider, had first emerged during the Italian Plague in 17th century. First records about the wine windows go back to 1699 and apparently they were converted into walls (like windows in the UK) because of the floods in 1966. People used to bring their own flasks and get them filled here without touching and they received the payment in a metal plate, which was later disinfected with vinegar before taking it.

The wine windows existed in the time of another pandemic and it provided people to have access to wine and at the same time protected the people who were serving them.

What does it mean for us? A sense of transience and hopefulness for the future.

This tradition has continued a long time and it seems that it disappeared due to another cause (i.e. the floods). I think this tradition’s revival show that people are not only looking for ways to serve their visitors in a socially distanced way, but also (through a semiotic gaze) provide them a sense of optimism by utilising a tradition that existed for a similar reason before. So, the revival of the wine window symbolises a sense of transience, saying that we have been there, done that before and this, too, will pass. A wine window comes out as a symbol for pointing out that this type of problems existed before and that humanity has managed to overcome it.

Take-away insight:

Similar to the situation in the Turkish kolonya example, this cultural tradition instigates a sense of security and optimism. But this sense is about providing not only an immediate security and protection to its visitors, but also a sense of temporality of this situation. Therefore, it creates an environment that people, who went through a similar catastrophe centuries ago, still found ways to remain hopeful and still tried to enjoy life.

Insight: As organisations, brands and businesses, we can think about how might we provide a sense of security and optimism in our customer experience (CX), in our value proposition, in our brand positioning? Because, more than a sense of protection, we need to be affirmed that things are going to be okay with time.

3. Tabu tradition in Papua New Guinea

Photo credit: The Guardian

It is stated in The Guardian article that, tabu, which is made from the shell of a marine snail known locally as palakanoara, has returned as an economic instrument after Covid-19 restrictions. Traditionally, tabu (shell money) was used “in mortuary ceremonies or bride price exchange, but can also be used to pay school fees, local fines and even local government taxes.”

Many people in PNG were unprepared for the lockdown and since the country is not as connected as Western countries, the people could not benefit from benefits of a globalised economy such as home delivery, online food shopping, and working from home for a big company. Therefore, they were cut off from their supplies as well as their source of income.

This situation forced them to go fully local and revive traditions that existed in that local community, such as barter system, use of tabu for economic exchange, food preservation techniques that weren’t used anymore and so on. As people started to have economic difficulties, the tradition of tabu re-emerged in daily trade and people started to use their tabu for buying food and other needs.

What does it mean for us? A sense of value beyond monetary economy.

We live in a globalised world, but after Covid-19, even in big cities we are going back to our local environments and remembering our physical limits. This is creating a change of perception in what’s accessible and valuable. There may emerge local economic models, where global brands and organisations might become outsiders, and more importantly, undesired.

When people are cut off from the world, they go back to essentials and re-establish (or innovate) traditional value systems with a new perception. Once the old value system is revived, it will not go away immediately. Therefore, we need to imagine how we can integrate into local value systems and create a sense of belonging.

Take-away insight:

We need to understand and accept that the future will not be based on the same economic framework as pre-Covid-19. It will not be based on endless growth. It will not be solely based on shareholder benefit. It will not only have to think locally, but also act locally to be a part of local value-chain — with it’s brand purpose, dedication to social good, inclusivity and diversity at its core. Insight: Organisations will have to think value with a new perspective, beyond tangible traditional economic value, but intangible social and cultural value.

4. Basket through the window tradition in Turkey

Photo credit: Daily Sabah Online

Another example from Turkey and this tradition has been very common with previous generations and was used in a similar way to online shopping: the person shouts to the corner shop and drops down the basket with some money and shopping list. The shop owner brings the items on the list and places them with the money change in the basket. Then the person pulls the basket back.

With the influence of modernisation, this tradition disappeared as people started go to big supermarkets instead of local shops, started to have brand preference of certain items, etc. With time, the image of a basket hanging from the window has become a nostalgic figure of the past, where people were more friendly to each other, where a neigbourhood was a social community, where the corner shop was the main provider of that community.

There’s another reason behind the disappearance of this tradition, people do not trust each other and organisations, especially delivery services. They would not let people just put things into their basket without any inspection. Since there’s a common mistrust in products and services in Turkey, people would like to make sure that the product that they are buying is not damaged or broken.

What does it mean for us? Reinstate a sense of trust through vulnerability.

After the pandemic, this tradition revived as a tool for socially distant way of delivering shopping items to people, especially the elderly. But this revival tells us revival of a deeper meaning of the basket tradition: trust. Because hanging a basket through the windows creates a vulnerable situation for the receiving person. By trusting the person who’s delivering the items, the receiving person takes a risk of not getting their money back or receiving damaged or missing items. This type of cultural codes continue to exist as long as that trust remains intact and in times like these that trust is reinstated. It’s on organisations to sustain it.

Take-away insight:

The pandemic environment reinstated trust not only between individuals but also between people and organisations. To be able to strengthen this trust, organisations could consider how to ensure that they will not take advantage of their their customers’ vulnerability. In addition, we can work on how might we make recommendations to people what would improve their lives and what would be more suitable for them, rather than what they are likely to buy. Insight: organisations may think of how to enhance and sustain that trust between their audience and their organisations.

There’s something to learn from cultural codes’ resurrection.

There are many more examples of died out cultural codes and traditions reviving in different parts of the world. Even though, they may seem like only local cultural codes reviving, the meaning behind them are universal. Therefore, one should not dismiss the insights gained from them. We need to think about the future as part of a holistic process.

The future influences the present just as much as the past. Frederich Nietzsche

By looking at what’s reviving while imagining the future, makes our present actions crucial in shaping the future. Therefore, sensemaking can be considered a tool in understanding complex cultural systems and create a meaning to turn into a future facing action. In this article, I wanted to give a few examples, which we can make a meaning out of them and turn into action.

Now, I’d like to invite you to do a collective future thinking moment with the inspiration we get from these examples: How might we look at cultural traditions with with new perspectives and innovate them for the future that we’d like to live in?

Do you have similar examples from your culture or from a culture that you have observed? Please share with us in the comments and let’s discuss them collectively. Sensemaking is a socially constructed collective process after all.

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