Francis Uriel C.

Albiol
BSHM 1B
3 Dynamics of Local and Global Culture
Cultural differential-ism emphasizes the fact that cultures are essentially different and
are only superficially affected by global flows. The interaction of cultures is deemed to contain the
potential for "catastrophic collision." Involves barriers that prevent flows that serve to make alike;
Culture tend to remain stubbornly different from one another. Samuel Huntington’s theory on the
clash of the civilizations proposed 1996 best exemplies this approach.
Those who adopt this theory argue that there are lasting differences among and between
cultures, largely unaffected by globalization or any other bi-, inter-, multi, and trans-cultural
processes and flows. This is not to say that culture is unaffected by any of their processes.
Especially globalization, but it is to say at their core they are largely unaffected by them: they
remain much as they always have been. This theory has long history, but it has attracted increasing
attention and adherents in recent years because of two sets of events. One, the subsequent wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq, and the second, attach on twins’ tower on 9/11. To these events are seen as
the product of clash between Western and Islamic culture and seemingly eternal differences
between them. The other is the increasing multi-culturalism in US (Hispanic population and
Western European countries (largely the growing of Muslim population) and the vast differences,
and enmity, between majority and minority of population.
Cultural hybridization: the mixing of cultures and the integration of the global and the
local leading to unique combinations (Cvetkovich and Kellner, 1997) Cultural hybridization
emphasizes the mixing of cultures as a result of globalization and the production of new and unique
hybrid cultures that are not reducible to either local or global culture.
A key concept is “Glocalization” or the interpretation of the global and local resulting in
unique outcomes in different geographic areas (Giulianotti and Robertson, 2007, p 133). Another
concept is Arjun Appadurai’s “scapes” in 1996, where global flows involve people, technology,
finance, political images, and media and the disjunctures between them, which lead to the creation
of cultural hybrids. Hybridization is emphasizing increasing diversity associated with the unique
mixtures of the global and the local as opposed to toward uniformity. A cultural hybrid involves
the combination of two, or more, elements from different cultures and/or parts of the world. For
example, Filipino are watching K-pop performed by a Japanese band at French Club.
Cultural convergence: when cultures are subject to many of the same global flows and
tend to grow more alike or increasing similarities between cultures, which is not limited to beliefs,
consumer brands, and media. One important critique of cultural imperialism is John Tomlinson’s
idea of “deterritorialization” of culture. Deterritorialization means that it is much more difficult
to tie culture to a specific geographic point of origins.
This approach stresses homogeneity introduced by globalization. Cultures are deemed to
be radically altered by strong flows, while cultural imperialism happens when one culture imposes
itself on and tends to destroy at least parts of another culture.