Globalization and Indigenous Culture free essay sample

The popular terms such as â€Å"global city†, â€Å"global economy†, â€Å"cultural diversity† have made their way into the centerpiece of topics of today’s media shows. People from different part of the world begin to answers the same questions, does â€Å"globalization† bring the world closer together, or is this a homogenizing cultural imperialism, eliminating the indigenous cultures into thin air? Main: In the first part of this essay, I will focus on defining the accelerating process of Globalsation, in order to assess the problem deeper in the second part. Globalization is a complex process because it involves rapid social change that is occurring simultaneously across a number of dimensions, in the world economy, in politics, in communications, in the physical environment and in culture – and each of these transformations interacts with the others. Globalization is nothing new, it happened in our human history before. The world before 16th century is largely a separated one, in terms of the lack of interdependence of each of the nation. We will write a custom essay sample on Globalization and Indigenous Culture or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page However with the Dual Revolution, human beings begin to harness the power of science and the transportation technology had greatly advanced. The consequent colonization is the first massive form of globalization in our human history. Now, almost 400 years later, the connectivity is increasing at an incredible pace. Mobile phones, emails, internet, satellite, they all have penetrated into our everyday lives. Imagine 200 years ago, when people need more than a month to send their massage across the sea, now all you have to do is to have connection to the internet and send out one email, within seconds and almost no cost, you achieve what is impossible 200 year ago. With such connectivity, globalization takes its shape as various â€Å"flows†- of â€Å"capital, commodities, people, knowledge, information and ideas, crime, pollution, diseases, fashions, beliefs, images and so on- across international boundaries. † (John Tomlinson, 2006). In this second part, I am going to scrutinize the effects of globalization on the world culture. With such flows, cultural interconnections increasingly reach across the world. The world culture is no longer a cultural mosaic, of separate pieces with hard, well-defined edges. And more than ever, there is a global ecumene. The entities we used to call cultures are becoming more like subcultures within this wider entity. (Ulf Hannerz, 1992). In order to evaluate the impact of globalization, let us better analyze what actually do we define the word â€Å"culture†. Websters Third New International Dictionary defines culture as the total pattern of human behavior and its products embodied in speech, action, and artifacts and dependent upon mans capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations. By this definition, culture should not be something that is static; it grows with the civilization of human-beings themselves. The interconnectivities of the world create a new platform of culture- the world culture. Each nation’s culture is no longer isolated from each other. Each culture is more or less affected of other cultures as the result of the inflows brought by globalization. New patterns of human behaviors are accepted f rom other cultures and incorporated or at least acknowledged in to the indigenous cultures. People began to select the set of beliefs they respect and incorporate it into his mindset of culture. However, people still adhere to their core belief which they are taught to when they are young. Although the boundary between different cultures still exists, but no longer like mosaic’s separated hard, well-defined edges, some of the parts of different cultures are overlapping now; people begin to find some common grounds from different cultures. Another important point to consider is that, during the globalization process, people begin to learn to compromise on some culture conflicts. People now more and more realize the importance of the role that culture play on human themselves and respect each individual’s right to believe certain culture and act according to it. And in this way, globalization actually helps people from different cultural background to build mutual understanding. Now let’s come to answer the question, does â€Å"globalization† bring the world closer together, or is this a homogenizing cultural imperialism, eliminating the indigenous cultures into thin air? From the previous analysis about globalization, we know that the greater degree of interconnectivity, both in terms of economic, information, political, help people from different culture backgrounds to understand each other better. This certainly helps to bring the world closer together and achieve the greater world equity. The second part of the question is more contentious. The contemporary assumption that the globalization process is a kind of cultural imperialism, weaker ones dominated by strong ones, the spread of western, particularly American, culture to every corner of the world. What is feared is that the total domination of global culture through the massive distribution of Hollywood movies, McDonalds, Microsoft, Nike sportswear and etc. These fears are not without ground. When one culture encounters another one, they may not equally influential to each other. There will be centers and peripheries in culture flow. Usually â€Å"when the center speaks the periphery listens, and mostly does not talk back. †(Ulf Hannerz, 1992) For example, an American culture is backed up by the United States dominant economic and technological position. They have much greater soft power that when they distribute their products around the world, their products are actually influencing the world culture. This kind of asymmetry leads to the fact that the culture of some weak countries in terms of economic power does not look so attractive compared with American culture. Then the fact that people all begin to enjoy the popular culture will lead to culture homogenization. Although there is no denying the fact that certain styles, brands, tastes and practices can be found anywhere in the world. But what does this massive distribution of uniform cultural products actually tell us, other than the power of some MNC firms to command wide markets for their products around the world? Well, I think it’s too superficial to conclude that these products will homogenize the indigenous culture. For example, the young generation in China is enjoying the cute fashion that brought by i-pod, but they may not necessarily enjoy American music. Take another example, in recent years, china popular music industry has been greatly influence by the American music styles, i. . hip-pop, RB. Such American music style has been popular in the Chinese popular music for a while. However, the trend is that, pop singer are now more inclined to add in the original Chinese music element into their music to make it distinctly Chinese. It seems that the collision of such cultural products really provide a chance for people to think about their indigenous culture heritage, and digest deeply the value of it. So simply argue from the influences of such cultural products can not show the world culture would become homogenizing culture imperialism. From another point of view, because of the â€Å"Creolization† effect, â€Å"The spread of world culture therefore produces not homogeneity but new cultural melanges, each `creolized in its own way. †(J. Boli and F. J. Lechner, 2002). Some of the popular styles are themselves blends of various traditions. For example, the Brazilian culture is a culture of a very diverse nature. An ethnic and cultural mixing occurred in the colonial period between Native Americans, Portuguese and Africans formed the bulk of Brazilian culture. And now it becomes an ingredient of new and distinctive styles â€Å"Thus, as new musical or other fads make their way across the globe, they produce new forms of localized diversity and unforeseen local reactions and interpretations. In the expressive realm, the varied forms of local-global interaction are not inexorably yielding to a standardized, stifling, hegemonic world culture†. (J. Boli and F. J. Lechner, 2002). Hong Kong would be a good example to illustrate this. â€Å"Hong Kong is not just sink-hole for its consumption; it is also a major center for production of transnational culture. Its fashion industry influences clothing styles in Los Angeles, its popular music and films industry play an important role in mainland china entertainment industry. (James L. A Waston, 1997) Conclusion: To conclude, to answer the question â€Å"does globalization bring the world closer together, or is this a homogenizing cultural imperialism, eliminating the indigenous cultures into thin air? † we should understand that, the role of globalization played in our world today helps us human-beings understand more about each other. Such understanding would help us to gain greater world equity, and achieve greater human civilization as a whole.