Brian Edwards
Comp Lit 383
Anubhav Gupta
02/06/06
Globalization & Culture
Both proponents and detractors of globalization speak of the phenomenon as a production
of the West that is gradually spreading to and encompassing the rest of the world. Immanuel
Wallerstein, in his rationalization of globalization, shares this conception of an asymmetrical
movement from one region to another. He explains globalization largely through the rise of
capitalism and the formation of a single world economy that structures the world into core,
periphery, and semi-periphery areas. Ulf Hannerz utilizes a similar center-periphery model to
explain how culture functions in a world of globalization - thereby expanding the definition of
globalization beyond the economic realm. Similarly, Arjun Appadurai complicates the scope of
globalization by highlighting the multiple non-economic flows between individuals, groups and
states. He provides a framework of five scapes through which to rationalize and appreciate the
disjunctured interaction and impact of these diverse exchanges. Finally, in his analysis of this
multitude of exchanges and agents in the economic, political and cultural realms Appadurai
rejects the center-periphery relationship that Wallerstein and Hannerz see as an integral
characteristic of globalization.
Immanuel Wallerstein’s theory of globalization is primarily economic, focusing on a
world system consisting of myriad cultural systems, but defined by a single division of labor.
Capitalism, the defining fact of globalization, designates each region of the world a specific
function or position in the world economy. Wallerstein traces the beginning of market trade and
capitalism to the emergence of the modern world economy in 16th century Europe, where local
capitalists began manipulating political power to accumulate wealth. Just as an owner
appropriates surplus value from a laborer, colonial powers in Europe began to exploit and extract
capital and profits from other parts of the world. By 1640, different regions fit into one of three
different defined roles in the global economy: the core, semi-periphery and periphery. Core
regions continually exploit peripheral ones by utilizing strong state machineries, and the semiperipheral areas sustain the system by providing a buffer zone between the two polarities.
Globalization can thus be imagined as the world economy that has recently become radically
more integrated due to strides in technology and telecommunications, enriching the core regions
of the first world at the expense of much of the developing world. Wallerstein provides a clear
model of how a globalized world is structured; however, due to the model’s narrow focus on
economics at a macro level, Wallerstein fails to address what it means to live in such a world and
how to analyze the processes of globalization with respect to the impact it has on the individual
and other micro agents.
Ulf Hannerz uses much of Wallerstein’s framework of core/central and peripheral areas,
but expands the definition of globalization beyond just economic processes. He is concerned
with how the new world of globalization organizes and structures cultural interactions.
According to Hannerz, culture flows from cultural centers to peripheral areas. This exertion of
cultural influence by the center on the periphery may seem to hint at a system of
homogenization, but Hannerz is careful to moderate this idea. First, he claims that there are
multiple cultural centers exporting culture, resulting in a complex set of cultural influences.
Secondly, center-periphery roles “are asymmetrical, but not free from contradictions, and they do
not relegate the periphery to [an] entirely passive role in cultural construction” (Hannerz 115).
By acknowledging that peripheral areas in interaction with exported cultural symbols and
practices are able to transform, hone, adapt and even reject, Hannerz is ascribing agency to the
periphery. The process of globalization provides peripheral areas the technology and knowledge
that may allow for the re-dreaming and maturation of local art, traditions and practices. Thus,
there are locally evolving alternatives to cultural imports as well as a process of indigenization of
foreign ideas and practices.
This center to periphery flow of culture also exists within states or regions. Hannerz
points to cities as perfect examples of cultural centers that continually disseminate information,
images, technology to villages and other peripheral areas. This level of cultural flows brings the
concept of globalization closer to the ground and reveals that any individual experiences culture
based on where he or she resides. A person living in a village in Iran is open to cultural flows
form Tehran, which endures cultural influence from the West. The agency and boundedness of
cultures have to be analyzed in degrees because each center or periphery is related to other
centers and peripheries. More over, due to the agency of different actors within central or
peripheral areas, cultural flows can be extremely diverse. Hannerz sees globalization as a process
of creolization or the organization of cultural diversity, which results from internal machineries
of peripheral areas ingesting cultural exports and metabolizing them in unique ways. There is no
conclusion as to whether homogenization will occur, whether the world will become creolized,
or whether the process of creolization will continue endlessly. Hannerz does however declare
that culture will continue to flow from centers to the peripheries.
In contrast to Ulf Hannerz, Arjun Appadurai challenges both of the important premises
that Wallerstein establishes in his model of globalization. First, similarly to Hannerz, Appadurai
wholly rejects the conception of globalization as singularly an economic phenomenon and,
instead, deems it an intricate web of political, economic and cultural processes. While, Hannerz
describes the complexity of cultural interactions, Appadurai provides specific vocabulary of
scapes to classify and rationalize the multiple avenues of transnational exchanges and flows that
signify globalization. These five scapes are ethnoscapes: the movement of people, technoscapes:
the spread of technology, financescapes: the flow of global capital, mediascapes: distribution of
the capability to disseminate information and the subsequent images presented and created, and
ideoscapes: the diffusion of ideas. These five scapes highlight the numerous ways in which
globalization is taking place and influencing the world. Appadurai stresses that the scapes are not
parallel or opposing; each scape functions independently, but is also constrained by the others,
resulting in a very disjunctured, complex phenomenon.
Appadurai also argues that a center-periphery model of cultural flows is no longer
relevant. “The global relationship among ethnoscapes, technoscapes, and financescapes is deeply
disjunctive and profoundly unpredictable because each of these landscapes is subject to its own
constraints and incentives…at the same time as each acts as a constraint and a parameter for
movement in the others” (Appadurai, 104). Technological and knowledge flows have made it
possible for peripheral regions to generate and spread culture. For this reason, globalization itself
ensures that cultural flows do not give in to traditional center-periphery relationships. The
increased agency of a periphery in just one scape affects the direction of cultural flows in the
other scapes. Ethnoscapes more than anything else have changed the center-peripheral
relationship. Deterritorialization, a slowly spreading phenomenon is transporting populations
from the periphery to cultural centers. Being in a new place creates a desire to hold onto all
remnants of the home culture. This demand for cultural ties with a peripheral home catalyzes a
process in which culture begins to flow from the periphery to the center. This can be seen in the
presence of Bollywood Cinema halls in most American cities. The central-periphery flow does
not stand up to even Hannerz’s example of colonial empires like England and France. No doubt,
these colonial empires had immense cultural impact on many of their colonies, but the flows
were reciprocal. The abundance of curry restaurants in Great Britain today clearly shows that
India also had a lasting impact on the cultural center.
Appadurai also attempts to explain what space agency and subjectivity have in the world
of globalization. As discussed above, he disagrees with the traditional concept of agency lying in
the cultural center. Peripheries, even when they are importing culture, are actively shaping
culture through the process of indigenization. As a new cultural idea is absorbed, it is quickly
transformed and adapted to local taste and practices. Thus, even if one can argue that culture
generally flows in one direction, Appadurai establishes that agency lies in all agents, because a
peripheral group always has the ability to reject, adapt, embrace or transform an external cultural
idea or practice. Secondly, Appadurai challenges the construction of the periphery and the center
as a unit. Agents within the same region may interact completely differently with a cultural flow.
Thus, while a populace might embrace an outside cultural influence, the state might repel it.
Appadurai here is building on the idea that globalization weakens the nation-state by eroding
sovereignty. Because the nation and the state may have competing interests, cultural flows can
often work to create rifts between the people that constitute the nation and the bureaucratic
government body in power. The agency and subjectivity of actors in a peripheral region conflict
with actors in the cultural center, as well as, with each other.
Appadurai argues that the central characteristic of globalization today is the struggle
between homogenizing and differentiating forces. He rejects the idea that globalization is
standardization, arguing that homogenizing factors are often repatriated by local mechanisms.
Homogenization thus leads to repatriation, which often relies on homogenization of internal local
politics. “The central feature of global culture today is the politics of the mutual effort of
sameness and difference to cannibalize one another and thereby proclaim their successful
hijacking of the twin Enlightenment ideas of the triumphantly universal and the resiliently
particular.” Appadurai explains that in a globalized world where one’s identity is no longer easy
to grasp, external homogenizing cultural influences are often violently rejected, and societies or
localities strive to homogenize and create an identity to confront external forces. This has two
repercussions. First, globalization does not cause a global homogenization of cultures. Secondly,
agency and subjectivity are lost on the level of the individual. In order to counteract outside
influences, there is a production of local identity that is often just as artificial. Hence, societies
unwilling to fall prey to cultural imposition do everything they can to homogenize at the local
level. The phenomenon of globalization is thus deteriorating individual subjectivity in two ways
- as the global world distances the individual from the processes of change, and as local worlds
seeks to homogenize as much as possible in response to the external threat. “Indeed, the
individual actor is the last locus of this perspectival set of landscapes” (Appadurai 103).
Arjun Appadurai challenges Immanuel Wallerstein and Ulf Hannerz’s assertion that
culture flows in a center-periphery relationship. He is also the only one to provide a framework
of how to talk about and rationalize the world of globalization by providing a distinct way of
classifying movements and exchanges under globalization. Furthermore, he points to the five
scapes and their unique behavior to argue that culture does not flow in one way or another
because of the disjuncture between the five scapes and the varied interests of nations, states,
regions, localities or corporations. Finally, Appadurai is the only one who even begins to
question and answer what it means to be an individual in a globalized world by engaging
questions of subjectivity and agency. For him, agency lies in several different places, but in the
end, the individual is left out because larger groups and bodies play a more significant role in
cultural formations.