Theories Of Proxemics

Theory of Proxemics: The Anthropology of Space Hall (1966) defined proxemics as the “interrelated observations and theories of man’s use of space” (101); from the observations he made from animal studies regarding territoriality, spacing, and population, he proposes an organizational model of the underlying culture. This model is organized by Hall (1966) as a set of patterns divided into three different cultural levels: the intracultural, the precultural, and the microcultural. Infracultural “is behavioral and is rooted in man’s biological past” and precultural “is physiological and very much is the present” (101). Microcultural, used by Hall (1966) to make most of his observation, has three aspects: fixed-feature, semifixed-feature, and informal (101. Fixed-feature space is described by Hall (1966) as a way of organizing individual activities that feature behaviors that are fixed and rigid; examples of this include territorial behaviors for courting, nesting, as well as physical manifestations of behaviors such a building walls or the way they are grouped together (103). Semifixed-feature space is described by Hall (1966) as space that is both movable and

He goes on to elaborate that each ethnic group has its own way of setting distances unique to them, which seems limited. It is true that in a broad generalized way these concepts appear to be at work but it also assumes that these cultures are working in a vacuum and do not influence each other. In the United States an individual may exist in multiple layers of these “ethnic” groupings. For instance a young Jewish girl would be influence by her ethnic proxemic patterns at home but may enter an academic institution that conforms to Anglo-American Christian proxemic patterns, then after graduating may enter a business culture that is employed with majorly Haitian