Cultural turn in the discourse of globalization

One of the reactions against economic determinism leads the debate to the cultural
turn. Other factors than material one have come to the stage of globalization
debate and played a significant role. Culturally embedded global cogitation could go
back to McLuhans significant formulation of the global village (McLuhan 1964).
According to Waters (1995:12) McLuhan was possibly the first to notice that the
industrial media, transportation and money are being displaced by electronic
media that can restore the the collective culture of tribalism but on an expansive
global scale.
Roland Robertsons role of inserting the cultural aspect into the globalization talk is
regarded significant in a sense that he emphasizes the meaningful and
interpretative aspects of social life, including the world images in which
globalization is represented (Holton, 1998:15).
In relation to culture the focal problem of current global processes seems to be the
tension between cultural homogenization and cultural heterogenization (Appadurai,
1990). In the homogenization argument, instantaneous images brought by
communication technology such as TV and global media, and spread of symbolic
representations throughout the world are seen as major forces of homogenization.
These images and experiences shared by global population could formulate a
collective identity. However, people who hold the position of capitalist world system
or neoliberalism may argue that economic globalization causes its version of the
cultural globalization, regarding the cultural globalization as a by-product of the
economic globalization.
Homogenization of culture often means cultural dominance of a specific culture.
One of several popular arguments relating to cultural dominance is that
globalization is in fact Westernization. Westernization suggests that global
processes function to impose Western cultural imperialism on the non-Western
world. Such Western traits are taken to include capitalism and the profit-centred
market economy, democratic politics, secular thought embodied in scientific reason,
individualism, and human rights (Holton, 1998:163). The critics contend that the
dominance of Western culture significantly destroys the diversity of local culture.
The reaction to the cultural dominance often render local people look for the
alternative values and sometimes it could lead to religious fundamentalism.
Additionally in the discourse of the Westernization of non-Western world, the
diversity of non-Western world is reduced to just not being Western and the
differences between countries are often overlooked.
A more specific version of Westernization might be Americanization of global
culture. This argument is partly built on empirical evidence of US dominance in the
cultural industry in both Western and non-Western countries such as film, news

broadcasting, television programme, etc. However, Americanization is not limited to

the cultural industry. It includes life style, structure of economy and way of thinking
(Holton, 1998:167). McDonaldization, captured by George Ritzer explains the
penetration of Americanization into many cultures in the world (Ritzer 1993 cited in
Holton 1998:167).
The criticism of Americanization could be:
It is capitalism rather than Americanization that is becoming globalized although
many aspects of capitalism may be seen as having American origin;
The global field is multicentred rather than dominated by a single centre
(Appadurai, 1990);
The global culture is not Americanized or homogenized
heterogenized, decentralized, localized, and retribalized.

in

general

but

It might be worth to mention more about the last point made above. The
heterogenization or the cultural divergence of the world has shown its strength
since the end of Cold War. Issues like ethnicity, nationalism, religion or specific local
cultures are far from withering away as some homogenizer would expect, instead
they are continuously growing. There are salient examples: migrant ethnic groups,
keeping their own language and cultural practice instead of assimilating into the
local culture; the separatists movements in many different places in the world; the
rise of fundamentalism; any form of effort to protect their own identity against the
homogenized global culture.
Recognizing the importance of the counter-trend towards fundamentalism in beliefs
and lifestyle, Kilminster (1998:110) cites that this counter-current has arisen in
opposition to the intermingling of Western and traditional attitudes and behavior. It
is likely to be prominent in nations that find themselves, through no fault of their
own, structurally at the lower end of the international stratification ladder which is
dominated by the Western and Western-oriented nations.
Regarding these seemingly conflicting phenomena, Roland Robertson introduced
the practical term, glocalize which coined by Japanese and used mainly in
business area (Robertson 1992:173). An attempt to understand two contradictory
streams was made by Roland Robertson. He argues that we are, in the late
twentieth century, witness to and participate in a massive, twofold process
involving the interpenetration of the universalization of particularism and the
particularization of universalism (Robertson, 1992:100).
While this may highlight the complexity of globalization, Hay and Marsh (2000:6)
suggest to view globalization not so much as a process or end-state, but as a
tendency to which there are counter-tendencies. In this way the studies on
globalization would be to reveal the dynamic and contingent articulation of

processes in certain spatial contexts at certain moments in time to yield effects

which might be understood as evidence of globalization (Hay and Marsh, 2000:6).
According to them this insertion of subject (certain space and certain time) would
help to account the phenomenon often recognized as globalization, instead of
searching general causation of globalization. In this sense it would be possible to
avoid the causal process which the logic of necessity and inevitability so widely
associated with the notion of globalization (Hay and Marsh, 2000:6-7).
In the same line Holm and Sorensen indicate the importance of how simultaneously
to draw attention on the development of the world as a single society, while doing
justice to evidence of differentiation in the conditions of existence and forms of
identity that the worlds inhabitants express (cited in Holton, 1998:14-5).
Acknowledging the controversial nature of globalization with centripetal and
centrifugal forces, which bring about convergence and divergence of culture at the
same time, searching for the global culture, which transcends homogenization of
culture, is one of the current topic of globalization debates. Human rights could be
regarded as the global culture. However, it is controversial because on the one hand
some could argue against the universality of human right in the favour of the
relativistic notion of human rights or the specific character of a certain culture such
as Muslim or Chinese but on the other hand there are human rights activists in
these countries (or cultures), trying hard to raise issues on human rights and to
draw attention of world citizen. There is even fuzzier concept of cosmopolitan
culture, which is moving into the globalization debates.
Synthetic approaches
So far I have discussed the various arguments of globalization with emphasize the
economical and cultural aspects respectably. Now I will look at the attempts of
several commentators who take multi-dimensional approaches or rather holistic
approaches to globalization.
It can be argued that the explanation of the global process via culture is too much
of cultural determinism just as the neo-Marxian or the neoliberal view of
globalization is to economic determinism. Moreover there is a risk of separating the
inseparable (Foster-Carter 1996:101).
Once one enters the field attempting to correct, via culture, for the material
emphasis of world-system theory, then one has automatically reproduced the
culture/structure dualism and its correlates (Kilminster 1998:107).
Recognizing this problem there has been effort to link between economic and
cultural aspects. Ngai-Ling Sum posits the need for a new cultural political
economy sensitive to the complex and dialectical interplay between discursivecultural dynamics on the one hand and economic-institutional factors on the other

(Hay and Marsh, 2000:12). This rather interdisciplinary or even post-disciplinary

analysis of globalization is well presented by Nigel Thrifts term, cultural circuit of
capitalism (ibid.)
On the other hand Giddens, criticizing Wallersteins much too mechanical model of
globalization, suggests other dimensions such as the political dimension, are equally
important, since the world capitalist economy and the nations-state system are
connected in various ways, neither can be explained exhaustively in terms of the
other (Giddens, 1990). Four dimensions contended by Giddens are:
World capitalist economy;
Nation-state system;
World military order;
International division of labour.
However, Robertson argues that Giddenss view of globalization as a consequence
of modernity is inappropriate to account comparative interaction in globalization,
especially in relation to the global-human condition. For Robertson globalization
involves the interplay of four major aspects of global field: national societies;
individuals or selves; the world system of societies (or relationships between
national societies); humankind (Robertson, 1992:25-6).
In another attempt to approach globalization in a multi-dimensional way Appadurai
identifies five dimensions of global flows (Appadurai, 1990):
Ethnoscapes: the landscape of persons who constitute the shifting world in which
we live. They include tourists, immigrants, refugees, exiles, guestworkers and other
moving groups and persons;
Technoscapes: the flows of technology and communication which moves across
boundaries;
Finanscapes: the landscape of global capital movement such as currency markets,
national stock exchanges, and commodity speculations;
Mediascapes: the distribution of electronic capabilities to produce and disseminate
information and images created by these media;
Ideoscapes: the political and ideological complexity of images by states and its
opposite movements.
In an effort of integrating those approaches Malcolm Waters suggests three regions
of social life through which globalization is traced (Waters, 1995:17):

The economy: social arrangements for the production, exchange, distribution and
consumption of land, capital, goods and labour services;
The polity: social arrangements for the concentration and application of power that
can establish control over populations, territories and other assets;
Culture: social arrangements for the production, exchange and expression of
symbols that represent facts, affects, meanings, beliefs, commitments, preferences,
tastes and values.
Along with the multi-dimensional approaches there is another group of people who
look more closely at the effect of globalization on identity building. Some argues
that the awareness of economical and environmental danger in global level will form
the peoples identity of we as potential victims (Beck 2000:12). Also Robertson
(1992:8) in his definition of globalization highlights the intensification of
consciousness of the world as a whole.
According to Kilminster (1998:96) Elias made more synthetic approach, which is
known as figuration. This approach attempts to starts from the structured process
of interwoven interdependent people in the plural (ibid.) and at the same time to
overcome the abstract analytical social spheres, regions, or dimension. Figuration
approach involves the recognition that the social processes increasingly take place
above the level of nation-state, and the macro sociological concepts such as social
system, social structure and total society were non the less effectively synonyms
for nation (Elias, 1968 citied in Kilminster, 1998:103).
Conclusion
Having discussed various globalization talks some emerging tendencies become
obvious. Among these tendencies I may arguably identify the followings:
The tendency that single cause thesis of globalization is avoided;
The tendency that more efforts is made for searching multi-dimensional approaches
or synthetic approaches to globalization;
The tendency to comprehend the contradictory (convergence and divergence)
directions of social process;
The tendency to emphasize the particularity of global social process with
consideration of time and space subjectivity rather than universal globalization.
Robertson (1992:55) argues that the problem of globality is very likely to become a
basis of major ideological and analytical cleavages of the twenty-first century. Ten
years after his argument it seems to me that his anticipation became true. The use
of the term global and the image of globe have become a part of daily life for
many people. In almost all kinds of social science disciplinary the sheer amount and

scope of discussions has considerably increased, while their implications spreading

all different, and sometimes conflicting, directions. As Rosamond notes these
notions of globalization are obviously not value free:
Conceptions of globalization carry with them not just understandings of what the
world is like, but also what can be done. Globalization has clearly become a site of
political contestation. ... the hegemonic liberal narrative of globalization is being
increasingly challenged by a cosmopolitan progressive leftism and a recidivist
autarchic conservatism (Rosamond, 2000).
Discourses of globality have long been utilized by policy makers, business people,
anti-globalists, economists and social activists to their tastes. The phenomena
identified as globalization processes in many parts of the world are not likely to stop
in any near future and so is not the discourse of globalization.