Dynamics of Local and Global Culture

Dynamics of Local and Global Culture

• Global flows of culture tend to move more asily around

the globe than ever before, especially through non-
material digital forms.
Three perspectives on global culture flows
• Differentialism
• Hybridization
• Convergence
 Cultural Differentialism
• Emphasizes that cultures are essentially different
and are only superficially affected by global flows.
• The interaction of cultures is deemed to contain the
potential of “catastrophic collisions”.
• Samuel Huntington’s theory on the clash of the
civilizations proposed in 1996 best exemplifies this
approach.
 Cultural Hybridization
• Emphasizes the integration of local and global
culture.
• Globalization is considered to be a creative process
which gives rise to hybridentities that are not
reducible to either the global or the local.
• A key concept of “globalization” or the
interpenetration of the global or local resulting in
unique outcomes in different geographic areas.
 Cultural Hybridization
• Another key concept is Arjun Appadurai’s
“scapes” in 1996, where global flows involve
people, technology, finance, political images,
and media and the disjunctures between
them, lead to the creation of cultural hybrids.
 Cultural Convergence
• Stresses homogeneity introduced by globalization.
• Culture are deemed to be radically altered by strong
flows, while cultural imperialism happens when one
culture imposes itself on and tends to destroy at least
parts of another culture.
• One important critique of cultural imperialism is John
Tomlinson’s idea of “deterritorialization” of culture.
• Deterritorialization means that it is much more difficult to
tie culture to a specific geographic point of origin.
The Globalization of Religion
 The Globalization of Religion
• Globalization has played a tremendous role in providing a
context for the current revival and the resurgence of
religion.
• Most religions are not relegated to the countries where
they began, in fact spread and scattered on a global
scale.
• Globalization provided religions a fertile millieu to spread
and thrieve.
According to Scholte(2005).....
“Accelerated globalization of recent times has enabled co-
religionists across the planet to have greater direct contact
with one another.Global communications, global
organizations, global finance, and like allowed ideas of the
Muslims and the Universal Christian Church to be given
concrete shape as never before”
According to Turner(2007).....
“Globalization transforms the generic “religion” into a world
system of competing and conflicting religions. This process
of institutional specialization has transformed local, diverse
and fragmented cultural practices into recognizable
systems of religion. Globalization has, therefore, had the
prodixical effect of making religions more self-concious of
themselves as being “world religions.””