Culture and Diversity
st
in the 21 st Century
How Globalization is Changing Local Life
Prof. Eriberto P. Lozada Jr.
Dept. of Anthropology, Davidson College (USA)
复旦大学社会发展公共政策学院
My Research Interests
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China specialist, who has lived and worked in Japan, Korea – as a
sociocultural anthropologist, I look at the impact of globalization on a
variety of social, political, and cultural levels
Religion and Politics
Did fieldwork in a Hakka Catholic (客家天主教) village in Guangdong, Meizhou
(广东省梅州市) between 1993-2001
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Food, Popular Culture, and Globalization
Did fieldwork in Beijing (1993-1995) and rural Guangdong on fast food
consumption and other elements of popular culture
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Social and Cultural Impact of Science
Did fieldwork in Shanghai (1999-2007) on popular uses of technology
(computers and the internet, photography) and other issues in science and
technology studies; science fiction (科幻) studies
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Sports and Civil Society
Recent research project, started in 2001; fieldwork in Beijing and Shanghai
(soccer, baseball).
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Diaspora Ethnicity
Research on Hakka ethnicity, Chinese diaspora; Asian-Americans
•
Chinese Economic Development in Africa
New project, based in Ghana, looking at the activities of Chinese governmentfunded projects and Chinese companies
Anthropology and the
Study of Cultural Diversity
• anthropology – the holistic study of human
beings, focusing on social structures and cultural
practices and symbols;
• sister discipline to sociology, but with focus on
participation-observation fieldwork
• cultural relativity: no one culture is “better” than
another; not moral relativity, but “critical cultural
relativism”
• anthropology as “the comparative study of
common sense, both in its cultural forms and in
its social effects”; the difficulty is in determining
what is “common” and what makes something
make sense
Definitions of Culture
• The Classic Definition: Culture...taken in its
wide ethnographic sense is that complex whole
which includes knowledge, belief art, morals,
law, custom, and any other capabilities acquired
by man as a member of society. (E.B. Tylor)
• Culture is best seen not as complexes of
concrete behavior patterns - customs, usages,
traditions, habit clusters -as has, by and large,
been the case up to now, but as a set of control
mechanisms - plans, recipes, rules, instructions for the governing of behavior. (C. Geertz)
What is globalization?
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not globalism: “an essentially
impossible condition that is
said to prevail when people the
world over share a
homogenous, mutually
intelligible culture” (Watson
1997:7) -- the global village
not just transnationalism: “a
condition by which people,
commodities, and ideas
literally cross national
boundaries and are not
identified with a single place of
origin” (Watson 1997:11)
not just internationalism
(between nations) or
multinationalism (located in
more than one nation)
Why is it important for our students to
understand globalization
• importance of globalization
in our everyday life
• post-9/11 political security:
Jihad vs. McWorld
• economic impact at the
local level, on both
production and
consumption
• migration – both
immigration and
emigration
• popular culture
• multiculturalism and
American society – melting
pot, salad, or stew?
Changing American Demographics
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“melting pot” – assimilation
of immigrant population into
the culture of the dominant
society
“tossed salad” – recognition
of multicultural composition
of a society;
“stew” - where the different
ingredients help make the
other ingredients what they
have become; ethnicity as
co-constitutive, in dialogue
White Americans – the
descendants of the older
European migrations – are
now a declining proportion of
the American population.
Majority Minorities
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In 1900, 90% of Americans
were non-Hispanic whites,
with just over half of that of
English ancestry
By 2042, non-Hispanic
whites will become a
minority of the US population
Major reason for
demographic shift is not due
to immigration, but
differential birthrates
demographers have also
estimated that foreign-born
Americans (in 2008, 12%)
sill surpass the historic high
of 15% in 1910, to as much
as 20% in 2050
Reality of American Ethnic Diversity
• “Their zip code area, like the entire state, was 30
percent nonwhite, mostly Filipino, Japanese,
Chinese, and African American, and 20 percent
foreign-born. … A neighbor on one side of Eseta
and Manu’s house was Euro-American,
replacing an Iranian immigrant family which had
left. El Salvadorans lived on the other side, and
their boy was a close friend of Lio Jr’s. Eseta
bought fruit from the “Chinese ladies”; Malia
worked for an eastern European immigrant;
Mexican vendors sold migrants their Tongan
food; “friend” mentioned at work included
Americans of Europe, Filipino, Central American,
and Japanese descent”. (Cathy Small 1997:69)
Multiculturalism
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a form of identity politics that
asserts that cultural diversity is
important; movement for change
that challenges the cultural
hegemony of the dominant ethnic
group
linked closely to “structural
assimilation” – minority groups
gaining access to various
opportunities (such as college
admission)
problem of reifying culture –
assumes homogeneity within an
ethnic group
problem of objectifying culture –
marks certain practices, clothing,
etc. as markers of ethnicity,
reinforcing stereotypes
problem of emphasizing
boundaries between ethnic groups
and can prevent bridging efforts
“Journey to China 2006” group that
I took to Shanghai and Xinyu,
Jiangxi in February
So what’s happening in America?
• Robert Putnam concludes that Americans are
increasingly isolating themselves from each other; we
are still bowling alone, even as our communities become
more diverse
• contact hypothesis; as we meet different people and get
to know them, we begin to trust them (aka, the Kumbaya
approach)
• conflict hypothesis; as we meet different people, we
begin to fragment and trust people who look like us (aka,
the Crash approach)
• Putnam concludes instead that as diversity increases,
then people are trusting no-one – either people who are
like us or are different from us
• The problem is in defining not us-them, but “we” (who we
are as Americans)
Kumbaya and Crash are not Putnam, but Gregory Rodriguez (LA Times)
Slides from Putnam
From Putnam 2007:147
Slides from Putnam
From Putnam 2007:150
Different theoretical
models of globalization
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cultural imperialism: a new form of exploitation that results from the
export of popular culture from the West to other parts of the world;
more current way of talking about this is in the idea of “soft power”
(see political scientist Joseph Nye)
Jihad vs. McWorld – Benjamin Barber: “the future is a busy portrait
of onrushing economic, technological, and economic forces that
demand integration and uniformity and that mesmerize peoples
everywhere with fast music, fast computers, and fast food – MTV,
Macintosh, McDonald’s – pressing nations into one homogeneous
global theme park, one McWorld tied together by communications,
information, entertainment, and commerce
Clash of civilizations – Sam Huntington: “The great divisions among
humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural.
Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs,
but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations
and groups of different civilizations. The class of civilizations will
dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be
the battle lines of the future.”
Jihad vs. McWorld
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Jihad: “The phenomena to which I
apply the phrase have innocent
enough beginnings: identity politics and
multicultural diversity can represent
strategies of a free society trying to
give expression to its diversity. What
ends as Jihad may begin as a simple
search for a local identity, some set of
common personal attributes to hold out
against the numbing and neutering
uniformities of industrial modernization
and the colonizing culture of McWorld.”
McWorld: “Music, video, theater,
books, and theme parks - the new
churches of a commercial civilization in
which malls are the public squares and
suburbs the neighborless
neighborhoods - are all constructed as
image exports creating a common
world taste around common logos,
advertising slogans, stars, songs,
brand names, jingles, and trademarks.
Hard power yields to soft, while
ideology is transmuted into a kind of
videology that works through sound
bites and film clips.”
What’s creating the social and cultural
conditions of globalization?
• postmodernity: the fragmentation of
culture and the loss of the metanarrative
• the Cold War: “the end of history” and the
neoliberal victory
• technology: rapid advances in
communication, changes in lifestyle,
mobility of people
• interdependence: all problems are global,
redefinitions of the local
Postmodernity
Modernity
Postmodernity
production
consumption
(engineers are central)
(marketers are central)
Fordism
flexible accumulation
unified culture
(metanarrative)
fragmented culture
(multiple narratives)
substance
symbol
End of History?
• political scientist Francis Fukuyama
• “What we may be witnessing is not just the end
of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular
postwar history, but the end of history as such:
that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological
evolution and the universalization of Western
liberal democracy” (1989:4).
• evolutionary perspective on history and
societies; this has been made more problematic
by 9/11 and the issue of Islamic civil society
Soft Power or Cultural Imperialism?
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soft power is power based on
culture, values, and ideology –
intangible or indirect influences
hard power is military and
economic force
“In short, we must win friends
through the use of our "soft
power" instead of relying solely
on "hard power.“ Hard power
works through coercion, using
military sticks and economic
carrots to get others to do our
will. Soft power works through
attraction. If we can persuade
others to want what we want,
we save having to spend on
expensive carrots and sticks.”
(Nye article in LA Times, Feb
17 2003)
Technology and Globalization
• different cultural attitudes
towards bioethics, global
warming
• alienation caused by new
forms of communication
(i.e., Putnam’s civic
disengagement)
• rapidity of dissemination
and diversity of news and
information
• dangers of new
technologies and new
diseases (i.e., Avian flu,
GMO’s)
Questions for students on globalization
• Is globalization resulting
in the development of a
homogeneous world
culture?
• If culture lies at the heart
of current and future
political conflict, is cultural
homogeneity the source
of peace?
• Are inequalities being
eased or exacerbated by
globalization?
Case Studies for Students
• Anti-globalization (i.e.,
France’s Jose Bové, the
Battle of Seattle)
• Food: McDonald’s in East
Asia, sushi at the
American baseball
stadium
• Popular Culture: sports
(World Cup Soccer, NBA),
media (movies, the
internet, television),
leisure: Pokemon, Yu-giyoh, PlayStation
• What’s global in my …
(retail store, computer,
supermarket, etc.)
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2102889,00.asp
References
Barber, Benjamin 1992. Jihad vs. McWorld. The Atlantic Monthly
269(3):53-65.
Fukuyama, Francis 1989. The End of History? The National Interest.
16(Summer 1989):3-18.
Huntington, Samuel 1993. The Clash of Civilizations? Foreign Affairs.
72(3):22-48.
Nye, Joseph 1990. Soft Power. Foreign Policy 80(Fall 1990):153-172.
Putnam, Robert 2007. E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the
Twenty-First Century. Scandinavian Political Studies. 30(2):137-174.
_____ 1995. Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital. Journal
of Democracy. 6(1):65-78.
Watson, James L. 2000. China’s Big Mac Attack. Foreign Affairs.
79(3):120-134.
_____ ed. 1997. Golden Arches East: McDonald’s in East Asia.
Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Questions/Comments?
• email: [email protected]
• web: http://www.davidson.edu/personal/erlozada