goes native
Embraces local customs
Goes native describes adopting the customs, dress, or lifestyle of a local population—originally said of colonizers or expatriates who assimilated into indigenous cultures rather than maintaining their home country's ways.
The phrase now applies more broadly to anyone who abandons their original identity or allegiances after immersion in a new environment: After six months in Austin, the New Yorker went native and bought cowboy boots.
The expression carries a faint colonial residue, sometimes used ironically.
- mudWet soil mixture
- hutSmall crude dwelling
- grass skirtWoven fiber costume
- acculturationAdopting another group's customs
- sweatMoisture from skin pores
immersion · field work · indigenization · assimilation · barefoot · adoption · jungle · belongingness · cultural relativism · integration · localization · ethnography · culture shock · local customs · when in Rome · cultural exchange · syncretism · decolonization