Global cultural flow is a result of
the process of globalization.
The five ‘Scapes’ of Globalization
Globalization
refers to the increasing pace and scope of interconnections crisscrossing the
globe. Anthropologist Arjun Appadurai has discussed this in terms of five
specific “scapes” or flows: ethnoscapes, technoscapes, ideoscapes,
financescapes, and mediascapes.
Thinking
of globalization in terms of the people, things, and ideas that flow across
national boundaries is a productive framework for understanding the shifting
social landscapes in which contemporary people are often embedded in their
daily lives.
Questions
about where people migrate, their reasons for migration, the pace at which they
travel, the ways their lives change as a result of their travels, and how their
original communities change can all be addressed within this framework.
Questions about goods and ideas that travel without the accompaniment of human
agents can also be answered using Appadurai’s notion of scapes.
Ethnoscape refers
to the flow of people across boundaries. While people such as labor migrants or
refugees travel out of necessity or in search of better opportunities for
themselves and their families, leisure travelers are also part of this scape.
According
to the World Tourism Organization, a specialized branch of the United Nations, tourism
is one of the fastest growing commercial sectors and that approximately one in
eleven jobs is related to tourism in some way. Tourism typically puts
people from developed parts of the world in contact with people in the
developing world, which creates both opportunities and challenges for all
involved.
Technoscape refers to flows of technology.
Example - Apple’s iPhone an example of how the movement of technologies across
boundaries can radically affect day-to-day life for people all along the
commodity chain. Sales records are surpassed with each release of a new iPhone,
with lines of customers spilling out of Apple stores and snaking around the
block. Demand for this new product drives a fast and furious pace of
production.
The
revenue associated with the production and export of technological goods is
drastically altering the international distribution of wealth. As the pace of
technological innovation increases, so does the flow of technology.
This is
an entirely new phenomenon; earlier technologies have also drastically and
irrevocably changed the human experience. For example, the large-scale
production and distribution of the printing press throughout Europe (and
beyond) dramatically changed the ways in which people thought of themselves—as
members not only of local communities, but of national communities as well.
Ideoscape refers
to the flow of ideas. This can be small-scale, such as an individual posting
her or his personal views on Facebook for public consumption, or it can be
larger and more systematic.
Missionaries
provide a key example. Christian missionaries to the Amazon region made it
their explicit goal to spread their religious doctrines. Local people do not
necessarily interpret the ideas they are brought in the way missionaries expect. In
addition to the fact that all people have agency to accept, reject, or adapt
the ideologies that are introduced to or imposed on them.
Financescape refers to the flow of money across political borders. Like
the other flows discussed by Appadurai, this phenomenon has been occurring for
centuries. The Spanish, for example, conscripted indigenous laborers to mine
the silver veins of the Potosí mines of Bolivia. The vast riches extracted from this
region were used to pay Spain’s debts in northern Europe. The pace of the
global transfer of money has only accelerated and today transactions in the New
York Stock Exchange, and other such finance hubs have nearly immediate effects
on economies around the world.
Mediascape refers to the flow of media across borders. In earlier
historic periods, it could take weeks or even months for entertainment and
education content to travel from one location to another. From the telegraph to
the telephone, and now the Internet (and myriad other digital communication
technologies), media are far more easily and rapidly shared regardless of
geographic borders.
For example, Bollywood films are shown in Canadian cinemas, and
people from around the world regularly watch mega-events such as the World Cup
and the Olympics from wherever they may live.
An example
of the working of all the scapes: Clothing industry – it is found that the
average American might be wearing clothes made in Honduras, Bangladesh,
Cambodia, and China. Something as seemingly simple as a T-shirt can actually
involve all five of Appadurai’s scapes. The transnational corporations
responsible for the production of these shirts themselves are part of
capitalism, an idea which has become part of the international ideoscape. The
financescape is altered by a company in the U.S. contracting a production
facility in another country where labor costs are cheaper. The equipment needed
to create these T-shirts is purchased and delivered to the production facility,
thus altering the technoscape. The ethnoscape is affected by individuals
migrating from their homes in rural villages to city centers, often disrupting
traditional residence patterns in the process. Finally, the mediascape is
involved in the marketing of these T-shirts.
Ref: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-culturalanthropology/chapter/globalization/
