Syriana Indiana

Growing up you meet people from different natures, cultures and ethnicities, people who make you wonder, “What if I grew up with a different background?” Shannon Farhoud is someone I met who definitely strikes many questions. When you first meet Shannon and ask her where she’s from, she can’t provide a one word answer. After it takes her some time to formulate her sentence she usually says, “My dad is Syrian, my mom is Indian Portuguese, and I was born in Canada and grew up in Kuwait.”

Shannon’s parents grew up in very mixed cultures. Her father, who left Syria at the age of 18, to Germany and Austria, eventually moved to Kuwait for work and spoke three different languages, English, Arabic and German. Her mother grew up in India and studied in a British school and later studied in a college in London and finally moved to Kuwait. She spoke English, Hindi and Konkani. Shannon was brought up in a diverse household. This is an obvious form of socialization, which is the process by which people learn the ways of the society in which they live in. As a result of her education, which was mostly in an American school, Shannon can only speak English and Arabic.

Typically, one would identify a Syrian as very pale in complexion, colored eyes with a thick Syrian accent. Shannon has nothing of those attributes. However, Shannon’s natural features indicate that she is more likely to be Indian than Syrian.




Sociologists would definitely look at the religion aspect and see how it affected Shannon’s socialization as she grew up and matured into who she is today. As a baby, Shannon was baptized and lived with a Muslim father and a Christian mother. Growing up, she took Islamic classes in school, but also attended both religious houses. She was taught about both religions and celebrated both. As a child, Shannon was given the choice as to which religion she wanted to affiliate with when she got older. Now, Shannon sees so many similarities between both religions that she doesn’t identify herself as either Muslim or Christian, but practices both religions.

Ten years after Shannon was born her father passed away, which left her living and growing up with the primary agent in Shannon’s nurturing, her mother. Some other primary groups and most important agents that definitely influenced Shannon’s emotions, attitude and behaviors are friends and her school.

Born in 1989, Shannon will be 22 tomorrow and is now a journalism student in Northwestern University in Qatar, who travels the world and is constantly learning about new cultures, religions and backgrounds. Shannon, who could be considered a melting pot of ideas, has a constant shift in culture. We’re living in an increasingly global society; affecting agents are different than the past. Another important agent that plays a big part in Shannon’s life is media. Growing up she watched TV shows in Arabic and English and now, Shannon and her mom share quality time watching Turkish TV shows that are dubbed in Arabic. One of the main reasons why Turkish shows are aired on Arabic TV is because the Turkish and Arabic cultures are very similar and related. From that, one can see how Shannon and her mom not only take in the language, which plays a huge role, but have constant exposure to the Middle Eastern culture.

Socializing in the Wild

According to sociology, socialization is the process by which people develop a sense of self and or social identity, learn about the social groups to which they belong and do not belong. The two main factors that revolve around socialization are nature and nurture, nature referring to ones biological inheritance and nurture referring to ones social environment.

The text talks about the lives of two infant girls, Anna and Isabelle- who were kept in isolation during the first six years of life. Anna was kept in complete isolation and Isabelle was secluded with her deaf- mute mother. Anna died four years after she was found, where as Isabelle survived because of the bond she had with her deaf-mute mother.

This importance of bonding is not just seen in human beings, but is also common among animals as well. This was clearly evident in Harry Harlow’s clinical experiment “Pit of despair” conducted on rhesus macaque monkeys at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the 1970s. His experiment was conducted on newly born monkeys who were raised in isolation chambers for up to one year. Most of Harlow’s experiment was based on maternal love, in other words the ‘nature of love’. However, being raised in isolation, these monkeys were unable to show appropriate affection to their offspring, they did not know the appropriate ways of interacting socially. They ignored their offspring and some even killed their baby by crushing their head on the floor. His experiment also looks into the forms of affection these monkeys tend to look for in different circumstances, showing how socializing is not only an important factor for human, but works the same way even in the wild.