Globalizing Cultures

Studies in
Critical Social Sciences
Series Editor
David Fasenfest
(Wayne State University)

Volume 82

Critical Global Studies

Series Editor
Ricardo A. Dello Buono
(Manhattan College, New York)
Editorial Board
Jos Bell Lara (University of Havana, Cuba)
Walden Bello (State University of New York at Binghamton, usa and
University of the Philippines, Philippines)
Samuel Cohn (Texas A & M University, usa)
Ximena de la Barra (South American Dialogue, Chile/Spain)
Vctor M. Figueroa (Universidad Autnoma de Zacatecas, Mexico)
Marco A. Gandsegui, Jr., (Universidad de Panam, Panama)
Ligaya Lindio-McGovern (Indiana University-Kokomo, usa)
Daphne Phillips (University of West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago)
Jon Shefner (University of Tennessee-Knoxville, USA)
Teivo Teivainen (Universidad de Helsinki, Finland and Universidad Nacional
Mayor de San Marcos, Peru)
Henry Veltmeyer (Saint Marys University, Nova Scotia, Canada and Universidad
Autnoma de Zacatecas, Mexico)
Peter Waterman (Institute of Social Studies (Retired), The Hague, Netherlands)

Volume 5
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/cgs

Globalizing Cultures
Theories, Paradigms, Actions
Edited by

Vincenzo Mele
Marina Vujnovic

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: Untitled Drawing by Michael Richison.

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Contents
Acknowledgmentsix
Notes on Contributorsx
Introduction: Globalizing Cultures: Theories, Paradigms, Actions1
Vincenzo Mele and Marina Vujnovic

PART 1
Theoretical Examinations and Concepts: Global Culture, Global
Identity, and Global Civil Sphere
1 Investigating Global Culture: Its Creation, Structure, and Meanings23
Victoria Reyes
2 Global Interaction and Identity in Structuralist and Dialectic
Perspectives: Toward a Typology of Psycho-cultural Identities39
Ino Rossi
3 The Civil Sphere beyond the Western Nation-State: Theoretical and
Empirical Reflections on Alexanders Cultural Sociology and Its
Contribution to Civil Society Discourse66
Peter Kivisto

PART 2
Neoliberalism between State and Market: Nationalism,
International Free Trade and Persistence of the State
4 The Role of the Nation-State in the Global Age89
Andrea Borghini
5 Faustian States: Nationalist Politics and the Problem of Legitimacy in
the Neoliberal Era111
Cory Blad

vi
6

Contents

Deification of Market; Homogenization of Cultures: Free Trade and

Other Euphemisms for Global Capitalism124
Gwendolyn Yvonne Alexis

Part 3
Transnational Practices and Resistance: Gender, Media, and
Social Movements
7

Transnational Activism, Feminist Praxis, and Cultures

of Resistance143
Nancy A. Naples

Transnational Flashpublics: Social Media and Affective

Contagions from Egypt to Occupy Wall Street174
Jack Bratich

Transnational Feminist Media Practices: Seeking Alliance against

Global Capitalism196
Marina Vujnovic

10

Shifting Contours in Latin American Cultures of Resistance211

Ricardo A. Dello Buono

PART 4
Global Consumer Culture: Tourism, Taste, Consumption and
Imaginary
11

Distinction and Social Class in America and Europe: Pierre Bourdieus

Theory of Taste in Cross-Cultural Comparison233
Vincenzo Mele

12

Consumption, Identity, Space: Shopping Malls in Bogot258

Enrico Campo

13

Trafficking Gypsiness in the 21st Century288

Mihaela Moscaliuc

14

Tourism, Expatriates, and Power Relations in Vieques, Puerto Rico311

Karen Schmelzkopf

Contents

vii

PART 5
Human Rights, Equality and Culture of Empowerment
15

Overcoming the Divide: Arab Women between Traditional Life and a

Globalizing Culture331
Saliba Sarsar and Manal Stephan

16

The Millennium Development Goals, Gender Equality, and

Empowerment in India353
Rekha Datta
Author Index371
Subject Index374

Acknowledgments
We would like to gratefully recognize Institute for Global Understanding at
Monmouth University for institutional support. Most of the chapters in this
volume are a result of the fruitful discussion during Global Culture Symposium
held at Monmouth University in the summer of 2012. We would like to acknowledge our family members, friends and colleagues for intellectual and personal
support theyve graciously given us over the course of many months during
which we produced this book. We would like to thank our students Sandra
Meola, Maria Kukhareva and particularly Enrico Campo for helping us deliver
this book to our audiences.
Vincenzo Mele, Marina Vujnovic

Notes on Contributors
Gwendolyn Yvonne Alexis
is the Lead Instructor for Business Ethics at the Leon Hess Business School,
Monmouth University. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Dr. Alexis is a member of the New Jersey, New York, and Florida Bars. Her Ph.D. in Sociology was
earned from the New School for Social Research; and she has a Master Degree
in Ethics from the Yale University Divinity School. Her undergraduate degree
in Business was earned from the University of Southern California where she
was inducted into Beta Gamma Sigma, the international honorary society in
Business.
Cory Blad
is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Urban Studies at
Manhattan College. He is author of Neoliberalism and National Culture: StateBuilding and Legitimacy in Canada and Qubec. Leiden: Brill Publishers. 2011.
His research interests are Global Political Economy, State Theory, Nationalism
and Culture, Social Movements.
Andrea Borghini
is an Associate Professor in Sociology at the Department of Political Sciences,
University of Pisa (Italy). He mainly investigates topics related to political and
social transformations (the role of the Nation-State, the processes of Global
Governance) from a critical, historiographical and empirical approach. Among
his works are Metamorfosi del potere (2003), Governance and Nation State
(2004), Potere simbolico e immaginario sociale (2009). He has also published
some books on Karl Poppers political and social theory (Karl Popper. Politica e
Societ, 2000; Sociologia di Karl Popper, 2008).
Jack Z. Bratich
is an Associate Professor and Department Chair of Journalism and Media
Studies at Rutgers University. He is author of Conspiracy Panics: Political
Rationality and Popular Culture (2008) and coeditor, along with Jeremy Packer
and Cameron McCarthy, Foucault, Cultural Studies, and Governmentality
(2003). His work applies autonomist social theory to such topics as audience
studies, social media, and the cultural politics of secrecy. He is a zine librarian
at abc No Rio in New York City.

Notes on Contributors

xi

Enrico Campo
is Phd Student in Sociology at the University of Pisa. His doctoral thesis is on
the social construction of attention in its historical dimension. He wrote his
masters thesis on the relationship between Benjamins analysis of the Parisian
arcades and shopping malls in contemporary metropolis. He is co-editor, with
Andrea Borghini, of a book on the Crisis in usa and eu and invited author for
Encyclopedia of Social Theory, Wiley-Blackwell. Currently he is writing an
essay on Attention and Relevance in Alfred Schutz.
Rekha Datta
Professor of Political Science at Monmouth University in West Long Branch,
New Jersey. Served as Founding Director of the Institute for Global Understanding
(igu). Author of Why Alliances Endure: The United States-Pakistan Military
Alliance, 19541971 (1994) and co-editor, with Judith Kornberg, Women in
Developing Countries: Assessing Strategies for Empowerment (2002), and Beyond
Realism: Human Security in India and Pakistan in the 21st Century, (2008, 2010).
Ricardo A. Dello Buono
is Professor of Sociology and Department Chair at Manhattan College in New
York City. He specializes in the sociology of development and is the Latin
American and Caribbean editor for the journal Critical Sociology. Co-author of
Latin America after the Neoliberal Debacle: Another Region is Possible (2009,
with Ximena de la Barra), Dello Buono served as President of the Society for
the Study of Social Problems (sssp) for 20122013.
Peter Kivisto
is Richard A. Swanson Professor of Social Thought and Chair of Sociology,
Anthropology and Social Welfare at Augustana College and Finland Distinguished Professor at the University of Turku. His current research involves a
collaborative project on multiculturalism with colleagues in Finland. His interests include immigration, social integration, citizenship, and religion. Among
his recent books are Key Ideas in Sociology (2011), Illuminating Social Life
(2011); Beyond a Border: The Causes and Consequences of Contemporary Immigration (2010, with Thomas Faist); Citizenship: Discourse, Theory and Transnational Prospects (2007, with Thomas Faist); and Intersecting Inequalities (2007,
with Elizabeth Hartung). He serves on the editorial boards of Contexts, Ethnic
and Racial Studies, Journal of Intercultural Studies, and on the Publication
Committee for Sociology of Religion.

xii

Notes on Contributors

Vincenzo Mele
is currently Researcher in sociology of culture at the Department of Political
Sciences, University of Pisa and igu fellow at igu, Monmouth University, usa.
Before coming to Pisa, he was lecturer of sociology at Monmouth University, usa
(20082012) and visiting professor at William Paterson University, usa (spring
2008). He is invited author the Encyclopedia of Social Theory, Wiley-Blackwell
and cooperates with several sociological journals, like Simmel Studies, La
Societ degli Individui. Sociologica, Quaderni di Teoria Sociale, Sociologia e
Ricerca Sociale, Theory, Culture & Society, Journal of Classical Sociology.
Mihaela Moscaliuc
is an Assistant Professor at Monmout University. She was born and raised in
Romania and came to the United States in 1996 to complete graduate work literature. Her articles on Roma, translation theory, and Asian-American poetry
have appeared in Interculturality and Translation, Soundings, Orient and
Orientalisms in American Poetry and Poetics, and History of the Literary
Cultures in East-Central Europe. She has published a poetry collection, Father
Dirt (Alice James Books, 2010) as well as translations, essays, and reviews in
Arts & Letters, Mississippi Review, Connecticut Review, Mid-American Review,
The Georgia Review, Poetry International, and World Literature Today. She
teaches at Monmouth University and in the mfa low-residency Program in
Poetry and Poetry in Translation at Drew University.
Nancy A. Naples
holds a joint appointment in Sociology and Womens, Gender, and Sexuality
Studies (wgss) at the University of Connecticut where she is also Director of
wgss. Her research on citizenship, social policy, immigration, and community
activism has been published in several books and numerous journals including
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, wsq: Womens Studies
Quarterly, Gender & Society, Feminist Economics, and Women & Politics. Her
sole authored books are Grassroots Warriors: Activist Mothering, Community
Work and the War on Poverty and Feminism and Method: Ethnography,
Discourse Analysis, and Activist Research; and her edited books include
Community Activism and Feminist Politics: Organizing Across Race, Class, and
Gender; The Sexuality of Migration: Border Crossing and Mexican Immigrant
Men by Lionel Cant, co-edited with Salvador Vidal-Ortiz; Womens Activism
and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics, coedited with Manisha Desai; and Teaching Feminist Activism: Strategies from
the Field, co-edited with Karen Bojar.

Notes on Contributors

xiii

Victoria Reyes
is an Assistant Professor in the Growth and Structure of Cities department at
Bryn Mawr College. Her interests include globalization, intersections of
inequality, economic sociology, cultural sociology, urban sociology, space and
place, borders and boundaries, and law and society. Prior to her PhD, she conducted research in the Philippines as a 20062007 Fulbright Scholar, and
worked as an education associate at a reproductive health non-profit in
Washington d.c. She has received funding from the National Science Foundation, Law and Society Association, Princeton Institute for International
and Regional Studies as well as Princeton Universitys Department of
Sociology, Center for Migration and Development, and East Asian Studies
Program.
Saliba Sarsar
is a Professor of Political Science and Associate Vice President for Global
Initiatives at Monmouth Univeristy. He earned a ba in political science and
history interdisciplinary, with summa cum laude, from Monmouth in 1978, and
a doctoral degree in political science, with specialization in Middle East affairs,
from Rutgers University. Dr. Sarsar is active in Arab-Jewish dialogue and peace
building, for which he received the Humanitarian Award from the National
Conference for Community and Justice in 2001. His other awards include the
Stafford Presidential Award of Excellence and the Global Visionary Award,
which he received from Monmouth University in 2006 and 2007, respectively.
In April 2003, Sarsar was featured in the New York Times article, His Mission:
Finding Why People Fight A Witness to Mideast Conflict Turns to Dialogue
and Peace.
Karen Schmelzkopf
is an Associate Professor of Geography in the History and Anthropology
Department at Monmouth University. She graduated from Pennsylvania State
University, where she earned a Ph.D. in Geography. Her dissertation was on
patriarchal thinking and geographic epistemology. She taught at University of
California, Riverside before moving east to the position at Monmouth
University. Dr. Schmelzkopf was director of the Womens Studies Program
(later the Gender Studies Program) for several years, and was the director of
the Policy Program and the gis Program. Dr. Schmelzkopfs publications and
research areas include social activism in community gardens, grassroots movements and tourism development in the former naval bombing sites in Vieques,
Puerto Rico, and tourism in New Jersey.

xiv

Notes on Contributors

Manal A. Stephan
is an International Gender and Community Development Consultant with
over 15 years of hands-on experience in the Middle East in the areas of planning, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating development programs and
projects funded by various international donors, including the European
Commission, usaid, caritas, and the World Bank. She holds a Masters
degree in Public Health from Birzeit University and another in Public
Administration from Seton Hall University. She has taught at Birzeit University
and Bethlehem University in Palestine and was an Advisor on Humanitarian
and Social Affairs at the Permanent Mission of the State of Qatar at the United
Nations in New York.
Marina Vujnovic
is an Associate Professor of Journalism in the Department of Communication
at Monmouth University. She was born and raised in Croatia (Former
Yugoslavia) and she came to United States in 2003 to complete her graduate
work in journalism and mass communication. Her research interests focus on:
international communication and global flow of information; journalism studies, explorations of the historical, political-economic and cultural impact of
media on class, race, gender, and ethnicity. She is an author of the Forging the
Bubikopf Nation: Journalism, Gender and Modernity in Interwar Yugoslavia, and
co-author of Participatory Journalism: Guarding Open Gates at Online
Newspapers.

Introduction

Globalizing Cultures: Theories, Paradigms, Actions

Vincenzo Mele and Marina Vujnovic
Global Culture has become a widely used concept in the field of cultural studies and as Radha S. Hegde argues, cultural studies have seen emerging interest
in interdisciplinary approaches to study of globalization, along with increasing
internationalization.1
This volume attempts to expand on the contemporary discussion about the
complexity of the concept of global culture through a collection of interdisciplinary and international scholarly contributions, including conceptual reexaminations and practical international case studies that deal with actual
lives of people in the context of neoliberal global society. In other words, how
people experience, understand, accommodate and resist conditions imposed
by globalization. Our collection of essays provides a critical examination of
the parameters, practices, and discourses surrounding the complex concept of
global culture. With the works of Mike Featherstone, Arjun Appadurai, Roland
Robertson, Benjamin R. Barber, Ulf Hannerz, George Ritzer and others, global
cultural studies has become a sub-discipline in the field of globalization studies. Peter Kivisto, in his book, Key Ideas In Sociology observed that with the
emerging of global economy and the democratic developments throughout
the world, the topic of global culture will increasingly occupy the attention of
tomorrows social thinkers.2
However, the problems accompanying the proposition of a singular concept of global culture are multifold. This volume presents an attempt to reexamine the singularity of the concept of global culture. More importantly, it
questions the singularity of the concept by asking: Is global culture possible?
What exactly is global culture? Is it merely a theory, a condition, or a set of
processes through which Western modernity accomplishes itself? Which
kinds of social, economic, and political processes make local cultures become
global? And how do global values, laws, education, fashion, nutrition and other
habits become accepted locally? In other words, how can global culture be
understood as a process, a flow of specific globalizing cultures and how do

1 Radha Sarma Hegde, ed., Circuits of Visibility: Gender and Transnational Media Cultures
(NewYork University Press, 2011), 1.
2 Peter Kivisto, Key Ideas in Sociology (Thousand Oaks, ca: Pine Forge Press, 2011), 170.

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016|doi 10.1163/9789004272835_002

Mele AND Vujnovic

globalization and cultural diversity fit together?3 These are among the central
questions addressed in this volume.
Global culture as a singular term should be used cautiously, but it is useful
when we wish to discuss processes and consequences of global capitalism
worldwide. We do not wish to engage now in a detailed conceptual discussion
on the uses of the term global cultures that will be done in the first section
of the book (Theoretical Examination and Concepts), rather we want to draw
attention to the current tendencies of the process that is based on the greater
intensity and extensity of cultural flows and the greater velocity at which they
travel. This process includes counter-globalizing tendencies that are a result of
the complexity and unevenness of these flows.4 However, in order to properly
understand the concept of globalizing cultures and to define what we mean
by globalizing cultures we must turn first to history. Avciolu and Flood, in
Globalizing Cultures: Art and Mobility in the Eighteen Century draw attention to
the transregionality and mobility of cultural forms in the Eighteen century. In
fact, they show marginalization of cultural flows and cultural exchange and
argue that appropriation, consumption, and knowledge of others was not
unique to the West, nor did a European notion of East go uncontested.5 They
show multiple ways in which transregional cultural exchange stimulates local
practices, thought, and political agendas as well as new technologies.6 So if
the multi-directionality of cultural flows has been emblematic of the age of
Enlightenment, what do current multi-dimensional cultural flows tell us about
our late modern moment?
Any examination of the current stage of Modernity should be grounded
within the confines of the capitalist institutionalized global social order, or
capitalist society.7 Robinson has written extensively on global capitalism,
3 See Gerhard Steingress, Globalizing Cultures a Challenge for Contemporary Cultural
Sociology. Euroasian Journal of Anthropology, 1(1, January 2010), 110. As Steingress puts it,
globalizing culture means the worldwide acceptance of international law and value standards, currencies, education, fashion, nutrition and other habits. But it also represents in a
symbolic way cultural diversity as part of the international market, as for example in language, literature, music and art. Therefore, sociology has to explain not only how globalization and cultural diversity fit together, but also what kind of social processes make them
work, Ibid., 4.
4 See Paul Hopper, Understanding Cultural Globalization (Cambridge uk: Polity Press, 2007).
5 Nebahat Avciolu and Finbarr Barry Flood, Globalizing Cultures: Art and Mobility in the
Eighteen Century, Ars Orientalis 89 (2010), 8.
6 Ibid, 9.
7 Nancy Fraser, Behind Marxs Hidden Abode: For an Expanded Conception of Capitalism,
New Left Review, 86 (2014).