Meaning of Accommodation
The suspension of rivalry between the parties for temporary or permanent period is accommodation. In this process of accommodation, the issue may not be settled, but for the time being they terminate their rivalries activities and come to an agreement toward some joint effort without open hostility. The process may occur under compulsory conditions which may be facing commonly to both the parties and they setting their antagonistic behavior aside come together to face the situation.
Categories
Park and Burgess classified accommodation in the following two categories:
Adjustment with New Natural Conditions: Man adjusts himself in new climatic, geographical and geo-physical conditions where he migrates. People change their residence, cities and countries. They face new geographical conditions and they change their mode of living according to those conditions. This adjustment with natural conditions is a type of accommodation.
Adjustment with New Social Conditions: In this case an individual who migrates to another cultural area he adopts the cultural conditions of that society. He learns the language, techniques of everyday social life, customs of marrying, patterns of interaction various norms and values of the new society. An individual faces a large number of problems in adjusting himself in the new culture. He has to learn the new roles and norms of the new society. This process of learning at this later stage is always slow. That is why the individual faces serious problems in adjustment with the new culture.
Definition of Accommodation
Baldwin: “Acquired Changes in the behaviour of individuals which help them to adjust to their environment.”
Maciver: “Accommodation refers to the process in which man attains a sense of harmony with his environment.”
Lundberg: “The word accommodation has been used to designate the adjustments which people in groups make to relieve the fatigue and tensions of competition and conflict.”
According to Smith, It is “social adjustment, e.g. adjustment of man to both natural and man-made environment.”
Man fulfils his needs in different environments. In natural environment, he adjusts himself according to it. In man-made environment, he brings about changes into it and then adjusts himself with it. Both these conditions of adjustment are called accommodation.
In general, it can be concluded that the process of accommodation removes the social and cultural differences between two individuals, groups and societies.
