Cultural Sensitivity – Why its Important to do Research

When you’re writing a story, most of the time, you are focussed on each scene at a time and the narrative of events but when editing, you might realise that some topics that you are writing about, you lack knowledge, especially when it comes to different cultures from your own.

A recent example of this I witnessed was a discussion about a writer using Gaelic incorrectly.

Why was this a problem?

Well first and foremost, there are multiple languages that come under the ‘English’ description of Gaelic and they are from three different countries and are called different names in their own culture.

People think Gaelic they think Irish and Scottish but there’s also Welsh, Manx, Cornish and Breton and each have variations on what they name their language. They may have all evolved from the same family tree but just like many other languages that split and diversify, Gaelic has evolved into different languages in different countries.

It’s worth noting therefore that if you mix up Irish, Scottish or Welsh in your book without good reason, someone will notice who is from that culture and may point it out and correct you.

So while you cannot as a writer be an expert on everything, try to check on editing that you have gotten the cultural information correct.

For example if you are saying that someone is Korean, don’t have them writing and speaking in Japanese or Chinese. It would be like mixing up American and Australian to the actual cultures involved. Be sensitive and be wary of writing too much about cultures that you don’t have a lot of knowledge of. Think about whether its actually important to your story or whether a person from that particular culture would be better writing it in a more authentic way.

Also when dealing with sensitivities its important to understand that within each culture there are minorities that might have their own terminologies. Each culture might have a different representation and understanding of race, gender, disability etc that you may not be aware of.

The best way to improve this in your writing is to actually listen to the people in the community you are writing about. Never assume that you know better than another culture about their own culture.

And as always, have fun and enjoy the process.