Different Societies appropriate the materials of modernity differently

(Atkinson et.al 2015) p.166

Indian social anthropologist and sociologist Arjun Appadurai has taken this debate in a different
direction. He argues that the conventional view of globalization as a form of cultural imperialism
fails to reflect the reality of the changes globalization has set in motion. Instead, Appadurai
suggests that different societies appropriate the materials of modernity differently.

What this means is that one society, such as China, may take up one aspect of global change
(such as economic change) very rapidly, and another aspect (such as ideological change) very
slowly, while another society will be different altogether. The results that globalization does not
necessarily denote a uniform and all-encompassing process; rather, nations are more positively
disposed toward certain facets of globalization than others, depending on a range of factors,
such as the state of the economy, political stability, and strength of cultural identity. Appadurai’s
work addresses how globalization diminishes the role of the nation-state in shaping cultural
identity and argues that identity is increasingly becoming deterritorialized by mobility, migration,
and rapid communications.

The key to understanding globalization, says Appadurai, is the human imagination. He argues
that rather than living in face-to-face communities, we live within imagined ones that are global
in extent. The building blocks are five interrelated dimensions that shape the global flow of ideas
and information. He calls these dimensions ``scapes”—ethnoscapes, mediascapes,
technoscapes, finanscapes, and ideoscapes. Unlike landscapes, which are characteristically
fixed, Appadurai’s “scapes” are constantly changing, and the manner in which they are
experienced depends largely on the perspective of the social actors involved. In this context,
social actors may be any one of a number of groupings, such as nation- states, multinational
corporations, diasporic communities, families, or individuals. The different ways in which these
five scapes can combine means that the imagined world that one person or group perceives can
be radically different, and no more real, than that seen by another observer.

Appadurai first used the term “ethnoscape” in a 1990 essay, “Disjuncture and Difference in the
Global Cultural Economy,” to describe the flow of people—immigrant communities, political
exiles, tourists, guest workers,economic migrants, and other groups—around the globe, as well
as the “fantasies of wanting to move” in pursuit of a better life.The increasing mobility of people
between nations constitutes an essential feature of the global world, in particular by affecting the
politics of nation-states.Mediascapes refer to the production and distribution of information and
images through newspapers, magazines, TV, and film, as well as digital technologies.The
multiplying ways in which information is made accessible to private and public interests
throughout the world is a major driver of globalization. Mediascapes provide large and complex
repertoires of images and narratives to viewers, and these shape how people make sense of
events taking place across the world.Technoscapes represent the rapid dissemination of
technology and knowledge about it—either mechanical or informational—across borders. For
example, many service industries in WesternEurope base their customer-care call centers in
India, and Indiansoftware engineers are often recruited by US companies.Finanscapes reflect
the almost instantaneous transfer of financial investment capital around the globe in the fast-
moving world of currency markets, stock exchanges,and commodity speculations. Ideoscapes
are made up of images that are “often directly political,” either state-produced and intended to
bolster the dominant ideology, or created by counter ideological movements “oriented to
capturing state power or a piece of it.” Examples include ideas about a state built through
concepts such as “national heritage,” countered by social and political movements that promote
the rights of minority groups and freedom of speech.

By conceptualizing globalization in terms of the five scapes, Appadurai is able to undermine the
view of globalization as a uniform and internally coherent process; instead, globalization is
understood as a multilayered, fluid, an irregular process—and one that is characterized by
ongoing change.