Globalization of Culture and Identity Issue

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Globalization of Culture and Identity Issue

• Prof. dr. sc. Andelko Milardovic

PSRC Forum International Scientific Conference
Globalization of Culture Dubrovnik, October
17-18 2008
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Globalization of Culture as a Complex Process and
the Issue of Identity

• The first globalisation of culture has been
  taking place from the discovery of the new world,
  humanism and the renaissance until the 20th
  century or the era of the first modernization.
• In this period, Mediterranean, North and
  Northwest of Europe as well as the United States
  of America were changing their places as the
  centers from which the globalization of culture
  was emanating.
• European culture is not limited to, but
  transgress its own borders, while its identity
  composes Christian, Greek and Roman culture,
  humanism and renaissance, science and technology
  and secularization.
• Also, we have to bear in mind the importance of
  Arab culture in the maintenance of the Western,
  Greek philosophical heritage as well as the
  influence of Jewish culture. These are the cases
  of cultural hybridization.

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• Here we must distinguish between two important
  features
• violent changes of local cultures and identities
  under the influence of colonialism and cultural
  imperialism, as the negative products of first
  modernization and colonial division between
  high and low cultures (E. Gellner). Cultural
  centers were perceived as places of high
  cultures or the centers of power from which the
  globalization of culture was emanating.
• the emergence of globalism and globalization as
  products of postmodernity. Here, we can
  distinguish among different types of
  globalization, with globalization of culture
  being one of the types.

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• Globalization of culture is not one-dimensional,
  but multifaceted phenomena because it
  interactively produces different socio-cultural
  effects.
• Homogenization of culture takes the form of
  counter-modernization as a defense against
  advancement of globalising and modernizing
  forces.
• There has also been recognition of
  diversification as a disruption of monolithic and
  homogenic cultures.
• Furthermore, there is hybridization as the
  process of mixing of different cultures,
  multiculturalism and formation of cultures from
  different sources and origins.
• Fragmentation of cultures has been used to
  describe antiglobalising substances and processes
  that are opposite to globalization as
  integration.

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• In this case fragmentation is understood as the
  fragmentation of the states composed of variety
  of cultures that are gaining emancipation and
  creating new political and cultural
  identifications
• There is an issue of transformation of cultures
  and deterritorialisation. Under the influence of
  globalization cultures are simply being
  transformed.
• Deterritorialisation implies relativisation of
  the topos of a particular culture under the
  influence of new information technologies and
  compression of time and space.
• Globalization of culture has also been evoked in
  the context of new cosmopolitanism or the
  conception of world culture as inherent to the
  human beings, and not dependent on
  particularities of collective, social belongings.

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• This all leads us to the conclusion that it is
  very hard to come up with some general concept of
  globalization of culture.
• It is a process that is pulling in different
  directions and producing different outcomes. Just
  as there is no single definition of culture, it
  is equally impossible to determine single
  definition of globalization of culture.
• If globalization can be defined as the
  compression of the world and strengthening the
  cognizance of the world as a whole (Ronald
  Robertson), then the globalization of the culture
  can be understood as the compression of the world
  and its cognizance as the cultural whole in
  cultural differences.
• Globalization of culture is stretched between
  homogenization and heterogenisation.

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• Globalization of culture produces conflicts and
  antiglobalisation movements for the protection of
  the topos of nation, culture, language and
  identity as well as fundamentalist, religious
  movements with pronounced identities of
  resistance. A pessimistic view on the
  globalization of culture is stemming from the
  notion of destruction of national cultures and
  identities.
• Globalization of cultures is influencing the
  transformation of cultural identity.
• Under the influence of the globalization of
  culture, national identities are being
  transformed, adjusted and complemented and are
  losing some of its former attributes while
  gaining the new ones.

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Identities

• Shaping of identities is nothing but the
  creation of meaning based on the cultural
  attribute or the related set of cultural
  attributes which are enjoying priority over all
  other sources of meaning. (Castels, M.)
• Both individuals and social groups posses
  inherent need for identification based on some
  specific attributes.
• Identities are both the content of such
  identifications as well as dynamic categories
  susceptible to change.
• Debate on identity in some cultures and societies
  has been conceived as the protection of
  nationalism or the expression of
  counter-modernization.
• Also, debate on identity is taking place in the
  context of European integration

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Debate on European identity

• In this context, identity is understood in the
  sense of particular cultural identities that need
  to be respected and preserved, but also in the
  sense of the project of creating the
  transnational identity of EU.
• Particularly lively was the debate on European
  identity at the time of the attempt to adopt the
  EU Constitution.
• Is the conception of the existence of a single
  European identity grounded in the knowledge and
  experience of European history or is it
  established on mythical grounds?
• There have been suggestions that creating the new
  European identity will necessitate the creation
  of the new myth of common origin, as argued by
  Monserrat Guibernau.

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• In the era of the first modernization
  determinants such as cultures, languages and
  identities - are compounded within the topos of
  the nation-state.
• Following the change of paradigm, that is with
  the emergence of globalism and globalization, the
  space for interplay of identities is trying to
  expand under the influence of integration
  processes.
• However, this also leads to disappearance of some
  languages, considering the strength of
  anglicization as the mode of globalization of
  culture.

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• Debate around EU identity is revolving around two
  opposing conception of identity.
• The first conception is calling for a defense of
  the achievements of the first modernization that
  is for a defense of national identities, cultures
  or languages.
• The second conception argues for the construction
  of transnational identities that are compatible
  with the processes of globalization or
  integration.
• Strong roots of the autochthon identities and
  their reactive inputs, as well as related revival
  of the particularities of the regions of the
  world, are all making the pursuit of
  transnational identities (in this case the
  European one, as was imagined by E. Husserl)
  impalpable project of postmodernity/ the second
  modernity.

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• How can new transnational European identity be
  formed?
• Anthony D. Smith in his book Nationalism and
  Modernism (Nacionalizam i Modernizam, Zagreb,
  2003), is differentiating between German model of
  Zolverein and American model. American model
  so-called melting - pot or assimilation model
  does not seem to be well suited for the creation
  of European identity.
• If imposed from the top, it could be expected to
  provoke national reactions from below, which is
  the reason why it is being dismissed in Europe.
• Smith argues for a competition between national
  and global identities without suppression,
  perhaps in line with the pluralism of
  ethno-cultural identities.

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Conclusion

• Globalization of culture represents different
  processes.
• It influences the transformation of national
  cultures and identities and represents the
  cultural integration of the world.
• It also contributes to disappearance of smaller
  languages and cultures under the influence of
  anglicization as a mode of cultural globalization
  and in this way brings the danger of elimination
  of cultural and language pluralism.
• Globalization of culture has both its proponents
  and opponents. Opponents are antiglobalisation
  movements as collective actors of resistance.

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• Leftist antiglobalisation movements recognize in
  globalization of culture new cultural imperialism
  which is manifested in the Americanization of the
  way of life, McDonaldisation and
  Coca-Colisation of the world, that is, in
  domination of the corporation's brands.
• Globalization of culture brings exploitation of
  the working class through the global cultural
  industry and with the help of global media
  reproduces the society of spectacle, consumerism,
  entertainment and intellectual shallowness.
• Rightist antiglobalisation movements are
  defending the topos of nation-state, national
  cultures and languages. In globalization of
  culture they recognize the danger for national
  cultures and languages and the possibilities for
  cultural disintegration. Their attitudes can be
  radical, populist and xenophobic.

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• Considering the identity in the age of
  globalization, we need to say that it is a
  subject of transformation as well as of radical
  resistance.
• Where the pressure on identities is stronger, we
  can expect the formation of the identities of
  resistance.
• In the period after the September 11th 2001, we
  can speak of strengthening of Islamic
  fundamentalism as a type of identity of
  resistance - the radical answer to the
  Anglo-Saxon model of globalization or
  westernization.

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• Considering the issue of European identity, we
  can juxtapose the modernity and postmodernity in
  two different concepts of identities defense of
  national cultures and identities and the creation
  of transnational, cosmopolitan identity.
• The interplay between the two concepts is a
  continuous one, while the conditions after the
  rejection of the EU Constitution as well as
  enlargement problems, reflect uncertainty over
  the constitution of the cosmopolitan conception
  of Europe.
• The defenders of national interests still seem to
  be much stronger then the proponents of the
  cosmopolitan concept.