AR J u N AP PA D U R AI

PUBLIC wORLDS

Dilip Gaonkar and Benjamin Lec

Series Editors Mode rnity

R.No a t Large

VOLUME 1
Cultural Dimensions
Arun Appadura1, Alodermily at Large Cullural D1menssons of (Glohalizal1on
of Globalization

PUBLIC wORLDS. VOLUME 1

NE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS

MINNEAPOLIS LONDON
 2

Disjuncture and Difference in the

Global Cultural Economy

It takes only the merest acquaintance with the facts of the modern world
to note that it is now an interactive system in asense that is strikingly new.
H1storians and sociologists, especially those cuncerned with translocal
processes (Hodgson 1974) and the world systcms associated with capital
Ism (Abu-Lughod 1989, Braudel1981-84, Curtin 1984,Wallerstein 1974,
Wolf 1982), have long been aware that the world has been a congeries of
large-scale interactions for many centuries. Yet today's world involves in
(eractinDs of a new order and intensity. Cultural transactions between so
cial groups in the past have generally been restricted, sometimes by the
facis of geography and ecology, and at other times by active resistance to
interactions with the (Other (as in China for much of its history and in
lapan before the Meiji Restoration). Where there have heen sustained cul
tural transactions across large parts of the globe, they have usually in
volved the long-distance journey of commodities (and of the merchants
mostconcerned with them) and of travelers and explorers of every type
(Helms 1988, Schafer 1963). The two main forces for sustained cultural
interaction before this century have been warfare (and the large-scale po
lhtical systems sometimes generated by it) and religions of conversion,
which have sometimes,as in the caseof Islam, taken warfare as one of the
legtimate instruments of thcir expansion. Thus, between travelers and

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merchants, pilgruns and conquerors, the world has seen much long-distance n0w. Fur in the past century, there has been a
technological cxplosion,
(and lung-term) culuraltraffe.This inuch seems sclf-evident largely in the domain of transportation and inlornmation, that makes the in
But few will deny that given the problems of time, distance, and lim. leractions of a print-dominated world scem as hard-won and as easily
iled iechnologies for the command of resources across vast spaces, cul erased as the print revolution made carlicr torms of cultural traffhc
appear.
tural dealings between soc1ally and spatially separatcd groups have. until For with the advent of the sieainsh1p, the automobile, the airplane, the
the pastfew centuries, been bridged at grcat cost and sustained over time camera, the computer, and the telephone, we have entered into an alo
only wih great elfort. The forces of cultural gravity seemed always to pull gether new condition of neighborliness, even with those most distant Írom
away from the formation of large"scale ecumenes, whether religious, ourselves. Marshall McLuhan, amung others, sought to theorize about this
commercial, or political, toward s1maller-scale accretions of intimacy and world as a "global village," but theories such as McLuhan's appear to have
interest. overestimated the communitarian implications of the new mcdia order
Somctime in the past few centuries, the nature of this gravitational ficld (McLuhan and Powers 1989). We are now aware thal with media, cach
seens to have changed. Partly because of the spirit of the expansion of time we are tempted tw speak of the global village, we must be reminded
Western maritime interests after 1500, and partly because of the relatively that mediacrcatc communities with "no sensc of place" (Meyrowitz 1985)
autonomous developments of large and aggressive social formations in the The world we live in nuw seems rhizomic (Deleuze and Guattari 1987),
Americas (such as the Aztecs and the Incasi, in Eurasia (such as the Mon even schizophrcnic, calling for theuries of rootlessness, alienation, and
gols and their descendants, thc Mughals and Ottomans), in island South psychological distance between individuals and groups on the one hand,
east Asia (such as the Bug1nese), and in the kingdums of precolonial Africa and lantasies (or nightmares) of elecronic propinquity on tbe other. Here,
(such as Dahomey),an overlapping set of ccumenes began to emerge. in we are close to the central prublematic ot cultural processes in today's
world.
whichcongeries of money, commerce, conguest, and migration began to
create dårable cross-societal bonds. This process was acceleraled by the Thus, the curiosity th¡t recently drove Pico lyer to Asia (1988) is in
technolugy transfers and innovations of the late eighteenth and ninc some ways the product of a confus1on between somc ineffable Mc.
teenth çenturies (e.g., Bayly 1989), which created complcx colonal orders Donaldization of the world and the much subtler play of indigenous tra
centered on European capitals and spread throughout the non-Europcan jectories of des1re and fear with global tlows ol peuplc and things. Indeed,
world. This intricate and overlapping set of Eurocolunal worlds (irst lyer's own impressions are testimony to the lact that, if a global cultural
Spanish and Portuguese, later princ1pally Engl1sh, French, and Dutch) sct system is emerging, it is illed with ironies and resistanccs, sometimes cam
the basis for a permancnt rathc in ideas of peoplehoud and sellhood, outlaged as passivity and a bottomless appetite in the Asian world fur
things Western.
which crated the imagincd communjtics (Anderson 1983) of reccnt na
tIonalisms throughout the world. lyer's own account of the uncanny Philippine affnity for American
With what Benedict Anderson has called "print capitalism," a new popular music is rich testimony to the global cullure of the hyperreal,; for
power was unlcashed in the world, the power of mass literacy and
its at omehow Philippine renditions of American popular songs are both mure
tendant large-scale production of projects of euhnic affinity that were rc widespread in the Philippines,and more disturbingly faithul to their orig
markably free of the need for face-to-face communication or cven of
indi inals, than they are in the Unived States today. Anentire nation seems to
groups. The act of reading have learned to mimic Kenny Rogers and the Lennon sisters, like a vast
rcct communication between persons and
the stage for muvements based on a paradox-the Asian Motown chorus. But Americamization is certainly a pallid term to apply
things together set to such a situation, for not only are there more Filipinos singing perfect
deal else
paradox of constructed primordialism. There is, of cÍurse, a greatgenerated
dialectically renditions of some American songs (often Irom the American past) than
that is ivolved in the story of colonialism and its there are Ameriçans doing so, there is also, of coursc, the fact that the rest
constucted ethnicities is
national1sms (Chatterjec 1986), but the issue of of their lives is not in complete synchrony with the referentialworld that
surely a crucial strand in this tale. first gave birth to these songs.
cultural affinities and dia
But the revolution of print capitalism and the In a further glabalizing twist on what Fredric Jameson has recently
logues unleashed by il were only modest precursors to the world we live in,

= 29
28 =
called "nstalga for the preseng" 1989), these Fil1p1nos look back to a
wordd they have never loss This s une ol the central orones of the poltics lean Franços Lyotard into a world of sig% whoty unmoored from ther
ol global culural lows, cspecially in che arena of social sgnihers (all the worids a DsneyMand) Bast I would like to
cnsertsinmet and uggst
lemre plays havoc with the hegemony of Furochronology American that the apparenn insreasiny bstitutabilty of whole perods and postues
for one another, in the cultural styles of sdvanced captalsm, s ted so
nosalga feeds on Filipino desre represened as a hyperçompeient repro
du tuon Ilere, we have nostalgia withut memory. The paradox, ol. larger glohal lorces, whch hve done mch o show Amercas that the
course, has ts explanatsons, and they sre historical, unpacked, they lay pass is usually another counry If your present s thcir future (as on much
bare the story ol the American misunNzation and poltical rape of the modernization theory and in may selfsatshed tourst fantasses), and
sheir tuure is your past (as in che csc of the Flipino virtuosos f American
Philppines, one result of whh has heen thecrestion of a ntion of make.
popular music), then your ownpass can be made to appear s somplya nor
beleve Americans, who tolerased lor uo long a lead1ng lady who played
the piano while the slums ot Manila expanded snd decayed. Perhaps the malized modality of your presens. Thu, although some anthropologsss
mos radKal postmodernists would argue that this is hardly surprs1ng be. may continse to relegae their Others to temporal spaces th¡t they do non
cause in che peculiar chroncities of late cagitalism, pastiche and nossalgia themselves ocCupy (Fabian 1983), postindustral aukural producions have
entered a postnostalgic phase
are enral modes of image production and reception Amercans them.
selves are hardly in the presenn anymore as they stumble ino the mega The cnucial point, however, is chat che (United States is no longer the
technolygies of the twenty-hrst century orbed in the fhlm-noir wenarios puppeteer of awodd ysem of smages but is onty one node of a complex
of sxties chills, hlties diners, torties clothing, thirties houses, twenties sransnational constnsciion of imaginary landscapes. The wodd we live in
dances, and so on ad inhnitum. Loday is characserízed hy a new role for the imagintion in social ife.To
As far ss che United Stares is concerned, one might suggest that the yrasp this new role, we need to bring sogether the old idea of images, es
iswe is no longer oe of nossalgia but of asocial imaginairn built laryely pecially mechanicaly produced images (in the Frankhurt School sense).
the idea of the imagined community (in Anderson's sense), and the French
around reruns. Jameson was bold to link the politics of nostalgia to the ides of the imaginary (omaginaic) sa constructed landscape of collective
postmodern commodity sensibility, and srely he wa right (1983). The aspirations, which is no more and no less real than che collective represen
drug wars in Colombia recapitulate the tropical sweas of Vietnam, with tatios of Emile Durkheim, now mediated through the complex prism of
(9lle North and his ICCesion of masks-Jimmy Sewart concealng John modern media.
Wayne concealing Soiro Agew and all of them sransmogrifying into The image, the imagined, the ímaginary these are alltems that di
Sylveser Sallene, whe wis n Alghanisan-shus sumulianensly flkll. seci us to something crítical and new in global cultural processes. the imag
ing the ecret American envy of Soviet imperialism and the rerun (this malion as a social practice No longer mére fanasy (opium for the masses
time with a happy end1ng) of the Vieinam War. The Rolling Stones, ap whose real work is elsewhcre), no longer simple escape (froma wold de
proaching their hfties, gyrase before cighieen-year-olds who do not ap hned principally by more concrete purposes and structures), no longer
pear w need the machinery of nostalyja to be sold on ther pafents heroes clite pastime (thus not relevant to the lives of ordinary pcople), and no
Paul McCartney is sellng the Beaes to a new audience by hitching his longer mere contemplat1on (irelevant for new lorms of desire and uhjec
blye oalya to their deúre lor the new that smacks of the old. Dragnd tivityi, the imaginatíon has become an organízed held of social practices,
is back in nineties drag, and so is Adam-s2. not to speak of Batman and Mis. 2 torm of work (un the sense of both labor and culturally organnzed prac
sioH Smposbe all dresed up technologically but remarkably faichful to the tsce), and a form of negotiation between sites of agency (individuals) and
asmospherics of theis orig1nalk glohally dehned helds of posssbility. This unleashing of the imagination
The pass is now not a land so reurn to in a sinmple politics of memory Inks the play of pastiche (in some settings) to che terror and coercion of
Is has hecme a ynchronc warehoue ot culural «cenarios, a kind of tem states and their competitors. The imagination is now central to all lorms
poral cennral castsng, to which recourse can be taken as appropriate, de. of agency, is itself a soc1al fact, and is the key component of the new
ending onthe moie so he made, the sene tn he enscted the hossages to global order. But to make this claim meaninghul, we must address some
be secued Allthis s par for the course, if you follow Jean Baudrillard or other issues

D u intt dnd Djfercmct

31 =
 called "nostalgia for the prescnt" (1989),
world they have never lost. This is unc these Filhpinos look back to a
of global cultural lows, cspecially
of the central ironies of the
politics lean-Franço1s Lyotard into a world of signs
in the arcna of cntertainment and social signifiers (all the world's a wholly unmoored from their
leisure. lt plays havoc with the hegemony nf Funchronology. American that the apparent increasing Disneyland). But I would like to suggest
nostalgia feeds on Filipino desire substitutability of wholc periods and
duct1on. Ilere, we have nostalgiarepresented as a hypercompctcnt rcpro for onc another, in the cultural
styles of advanced capitalism, ispostures
tied to
larger glohal forces, which have done much
course, has its explanations, and theywithout memory. The paradox, of
are historical, unpacked, they lay
to show Americans that the
past is usually another country. If your present is
bare the story off the American
modernization theory and in many self.sat1siedtheir future (as in much
Philippines, one result of which hasmissiunization and political rape of the
been the creation of a nation of make. theirfuture is your past (as in the casc of the tourist fantasies), and
believe Americans, who tolerated for so lung Filipino virtuosOs of American
a leading lady who played popular music), then your own past can be made
the piano while the slums ot to appear as simply a nor.
Manila
most radical postmodernists would expanded and decayed. Perhaps the
malized modality of your present. Thus, although
argue may continue to relegate their Others to temporal some anthropologists
cause in the peculiar chronicities of late that this is hardly surprising be. spaces
capitalism, pastiche and themselves occupy (Fabian 1983), postindustrial cultural that they do not
production and reception. Americansnostalgia
are central modes of image productions havc
selves are hardly in the present them
cntered a postnostalgic phase.
anymorc as they stumble into the mega The crucial point, however, is that the United
technologies of the twenty-irst century garbed States is no longer the
in the film-noir puppetcer of a world system of images but is only one
forties' clothing, thirties' houses, scenarios
of sixties chills, Afties' diners, node of a complex
transnational construction of imaginary
dances, and so on ad inhnitum. twenties' today is characterized hy a new role for landscapes.
the
The world we live in
As far as the United States is
concerned, one might suggest that the grasp this new role, we need to bring togetherimagination in social life. To
issue is no longer one of nostalgia
but pecially mechanically produced images (in thethe old idea of images, es
around reruns. Jameson was bold to of a social imaginair built largely the idea of the imagined community (in Frankfurt School sense);
link the
postmodern commodity sensibility, and surelypolitics of nostalgia to the
he was right (1983). The idea of the imaginary (imaginaire) as a
Anderson's sense), and the French
drug wars in Colombia recapitulate construCted landscape of collective
the tropical sweat of Vietnam, with aspirations, which is no more and no less real than the
Olie North and his succession of tations of Emile collective represen
masks-Jim1ny
Wayne concealing Spiro Agnew and all of Stewart concealing ohn Durkheim, now mediated through the complex prism
of
modern media.
Sylvester Stallone, who wins in chem transmogrifying into
The image, the inmagined, thè
ing the secret American envy ofAlghanistan--thus simultaneously fulAlI rect us to something critical and newimaginary-these are all terms that di
Soviet imperialism and the rerun (this in global cultural processes: the imag
time with ahappy ending) of the ination as a social practice. No longer mére
Vietnam War. The Roll1ng Stones, ap
proaching their hfties, gyrate before whose real work is elscwhcre), no longer fantasy (opium for the masses
pear to need the machinery of nostalgiaeighteen-year-olds
to be
who do not ap
fined principally by more concrete simple escape (from a world de
Paul McCartney is selling the Beatles to a sold on their parents' heroes. clite pastime (thus not relevant to purposes and structures), no longer
oblique nostalgia to their desire for the new new audience by hitching his the
longer mere contemplation (irrelevant forlives of ordinary people), and no
is back in ninetics' drag, and so is
that smacks of the old. Dragnet new forms of desire and subjec
Adam-12, not to speak of Batman and Mis tivity), the imagination has become an
ston Impossible. alldressed up a torm of work (in the sense of organized field of social practices,
tcchnologically but remarkably faithful to the both labor
atmospheYics of their originals. tice), and a form of negotiation between and culturally organized prac.
The past is now not aland to
return to in a simple politics ot glohally deined felds of possibility. Thissites of agency (individuals) and
lt has become a synchronic
warehouse of memory. links the play of pastiche (in some unleashing of the imagination
poral ccntral casting, to which
cultural scenarios, a kind of tem. settings) to the terror and coercion of
recourse can be taken as appropriate, de stares and their competitors. The
pending on the movie to be made, the <cene
to be enacted. the hostages to of agency. is itself a social fact, imagination is now central to all forms
be rescucd. All this is par for and is the key component of the
the course, if vou follow Jean global order. But to make this claim new
Baudrillard or other issues. meaningful, we must address some

30
 llomogenization and Helerogenization
The central problem of today's and flexible theories of
cultural homogen1zation and
global interaciuns is the tension
betwcen Marxist tradition (Aminglobal developmen1 that
1980, Mandel 1978, have come out of the
emprical facts could be broughtcultural heterogenizatiun. A vast array ol
to bear on the side ol the
1982) are inadequately quirky
and Wallerstein 1974, Woll
Scot Lash and John Urry have have failed o come to tern1s with wha
tion argument, and much of it has homogeniza
of media studics come from the left cnd of the
spectnum complexity ofthe current glohalcalled disorganized
economy has to capitalism(1987). The
(Hamelink
some from other perspectives 1983, Mattelart 1983, Schiller 1976), and mental disjunctures between do with cerla1n lunda:
(Gans economy, culture, and politics that we have
mogenization argument subspeciates 1985, lyer 1988). Most oftcn, the ho only begun to theor1ze.'
Iprupose that an elementary
Ican1zation or an argument about into either an argument about Anner. Iramework
Is (o look at the relationship among fur exploring such disyunctures
two argumentsare closely commoditization, and
linked. What these arguments failvery
that at least as rapidly as furces
often the
to consider is that can be termed (a) ethnoscapes, hve(b)
dimensions of global cultural lows
new societies they tend to from various mctropolises are brought into nancescapes, and (e) ideoscapes. The suffixmediascapes. (c) lecbnoscapes (d) f
become ind1genized in one or tluid, irregular shapes of these landscapes,-scape allows us to point to the
is true of music and
housing styles as much as it is true another way: this shapes
national capital as deeply as they do internationalthat characier1zc inter.
rorism, pectacles and constitutions. ot science and ter
The dynamics of such terms with the common suffx -scape also indicate clothing styles. These
have just begun to be explored indigenization that these are not objec
nerz 1987, 1989, lvy 1988; Nicoll systemically (Barber 1987, Feld I988, Han
tively given relations that look the same from
every angle of vision but,
rather, that they are deeply perspectival consurucis, mlecied
needs to be done. But it is worth 1989, Yoshimoto 1989), and much more torical, linguistic, and politicalsituatedness of d1fferent sorts ofby the his
noticing that tor the peuple of Irian Jaya. actors: na
Indoncsianization may be more worrisome than Americanizatioo, as tion-states, multinationals, diasporic communities, as well as
Japanization may be for Koreans, Indianization subnational
fur Sri Lankans, Vict group1ngs and movements (whether rel1gious, political, or economic),
namization for the Cambodians, and and
Russianization for the people of So even intimate face-to-lace groups, such as villages,
viet Armenia and the Baltic
republics. Such a families. Indeed, the individual actor is the last locusneighborhoods, and
Americanization could be greatly expanded, butlistit ofis alternative fcars to set uf landscapes, lor these landscapes are
of this perspectival
eventually navigated by agents
ventory: for polities of smaller scalc, chere is always not a shapeless in who both experience and constitute larger formations, in
part from their
a
sorption by polities of larger scale, especially those fear of cultural ab own sense of what these landscapes offer.
man's imagined community is another man's that are nearby. One These landscapes thus are the building blocks of what
political prison. (extend1ng
This scalar dynamic, which has widespread Benedict Anderson) Iwould like to call inagined uorlds, that is,the
also tied to the relationship betwcen nations and global manifcstations, is worlds that are constituted by the historically situated mult1ple
states, to which Ishall re imaginations of
sons and groups spread arvund the globe (chap. ). An important factperof
turn later. For the moment let us note that the
simpliiçaion of these many
forces (and fears) of homogenization can also be the world we live in today that many persons on the globe live in such
expluited by. nation imagined worlds (and not just in imagined communities) and thus are able
states in relation to their own minorities,'by posing global commoditiza
tion (or capialism, or some other such external enemy) as more real than to contest and sometimes even subvert the imagined worlds of the oficial
the threat of its own hegemonic strategies. mind and of the entrepreneurial mentality that surround them.
The new global cultural cconomy has to be seen as a complex,overlap. By ethnoscape. I mean the landscape of persons who constitute the shifting
ping, disjunctive order that cannot any longer be understood in terms of world in which we live: tourists, immigrants, refugees, exiles, guesl workerS,
and other moving groups and individuals constitute an essential leature ot
cxisting center-periphery models (evcn those that m1ght account for mul the world and appear to affect the politics of (and betwcen) nations to a
tiple centers and peripherics). Nor is it susceptible to simple models of hitherto unprecedented degree. This is not to say that there are no rela
push and pull (in terms of migration theory). or of surpluses and dehcits (as tively stable communities and networks of kinship, frendship. work, and
in traditional models of balance of trade), or of consumers and
producers leisure, as well as of birth, residence, and other flial forms. But it is to say
(as in most neo-Marxist theories of development). Even the most complex that the warp ot these stabilities is everywhere shot through with the wool

32 = 33
 hon
e s h m S ,

amony snpresable

relationshp
prhmty
global snd
dsynctie MMS

s deeply w s OWO eshmemMIal:

thrc iagrs n inda hink nog HS o mcAInR s ubject

tO Poone or Maoras ha landscapes
and some she es
moNTng ao IDuha and HauOn andhegs fran Sru l arka hnd informasional,

themsehes some
onra
n Soh inda x wel sm Srand s a
the Hmong ac drven o mdel ot
hal somny mus take
London a l a to Phiadhia And x nternataonal captal elementary
Thus. even an
relatsonshos
shitts it5 disunctne
ncec, produchon and technojoY Rnerate difterent ccds, as the deeply tranger
naton snto sccount and hnancal
states shitt ther poloes on ctupre populations, technoloyical flow, ( h i c h hardy torm a srmpie me
these mmvIng grOups an ment, disyunCUres
never attord to let ther imagnataons resI too long, these
cven if thcy wish 1O. Further retracting csE) ar wha and
By ircbmoscape I meanthe glotbal contguration. ako cveT fluid, of intrastructuein any
ogy and the fact that technolory both bigh and low both technnl chanical global landapes ot emages Medosse
mechanical and relacd
ideoscabes, which are closely and
intormational, now moves at hugh speceds across vanous kinds of previously electron capebeitaes 1o produce
mperviOUs houndaries. May countrics now arr the roots of both to the distribution of the magazimes. teiesion statnx
mulkinational seminate informatíon
(newspapers,
enterprisc a huge stèelcomplex 1n Lbva may involve interests from India, v21labie to a gowing u b o i
China, Russia, and Japan, providingdifterent components of klm-oroduction studios), which are now
amages of rhe
logical new techno
confhguratios. The odd distribution of technologies, thus the private andpublic interests throughout the worid. 2nd to the
pecul1arities of these technoscapes, are increasingly driven not and
by any obvi worldcreated by these media. Thesc mages imvohe mamy compcated n.
ous economies of scale, of political control, or of market Nections, depending on their mode (doCumentary or entertanmen) ther
rationality but by
increasingly complex rclationships among money flows, political possibili hardware lelectronic or preelectronic), their audiences (loxal, natonal o
ties, and theavailab1lity of both un- and highly skilled labor Su, while India Iransnational), and the interests of those who own and control them
Cxports waiters and chaufteurs to Dubai and Sharjah, it
warc engineers to the United States-indentured bricfly
also exports sot What is most important about these med1ascapes rs that they provsde ies
or the World Bank, then laundered through the
to Tata-Burroughs pecially in their television, film, and cassette toms) large and complex
State Department to be repertoires of images, narratives, and ethnoscapcs to vicwers throughout
come wealthy resident alicens, who are in nurn
objccts of seductive messages the world, in which the world of commodities and the world of
to invest their money and know-huw nfederal
and state projects in India. nes and
The global economy can still be described in politics are profoundly mixed. What this means is that
tems of traditonal ind1 many audaences
cators (as the World Bank continues to do) and around the world expericnce the media
themseves 2s a
studied in terms of tradi
tional comparisons (as in Project Link at the University of
Pennsylvania),
interconnected repertoire of print, celluloid, electronic complacated and
but the complicated technoscapes (and the boards. The lincs berwcen the screens, and b1ll
see are blurred, so that the fartherrealistic and the hcional landscapes they
shifting ethnoscapes) that un
derlic these indicalors and comparisons are
turther out of the reach of the away
qucen of social sciences than cver bcfore. How
is une to make a meaning. expericnces of metropolitan life, the these audienLes are from the d1rect
ful comparison of wages in Japan and the
(osts in New York and lokyo, without
United Statcs or of real-estate imagincd worlds that are chimerical, more likely they are to construct
taking sophisticated account of the ticularly if assessed by the aesthetc, cen
very complex iscal and investment
flows that link the two cConomies imagined world. crntena of some other tantastic objects, par
through a global grid of currency speculation
and capital transter:
perspective, some other
Thus it is useful to speak as well of
fnncescapes, as the dispos1tion of
Mediascapes, whether produced
global capital is now a more mage-centered, by prvate or
tollow than ever beforc, as mysterious, rapid, and difhcult landscaoe to they offer to thosenarrative-based accounts of state enterests, tend to be
and commodity speculationsCUrrency markets, national stock exchanges. ments (such as who experience
and
stips of real1ty. and what
can be formed ofcharacters, plors, and transtorm them is a sernes of ele
move megamonies through
national turo.
in other places imagined textual forms) out of
lives. their own as which scripts
These scr1pts can and do get well as those of others lving
disaggregated intocomplex
 sets of metaphors by which people live (Lakotf and Johnson 1980) as they rhetoric encoded in a pul1tIcal
help to cunstitute narrat1ves of the Other and prutunarratives of possible document. The very relationship ul readiny
to hearing and seeing may vary in
lves, fantasics thatcould beconie prolegomena to the desire for acquisi. important ways that determine the mor.
phology of these different ideoscapes as they
national and transnational coniexls. This shape thenselves in ditlerent
(uon Jnd movement.

Ldeocepes are also concatenations ot images, but they are vlien directly has hardly even becen noted, but it demands globally variable synaev1hes1a
nolhtwal and trcquently have to do with the ideolugies ol slatcy and the urgent
has clearly becume a master term, with powertul analysis. Thus denocTACy
LQunterideologies of movemenis explicitly oriented to capturing state Poland to the former Soviet Union and China, but echues from Hat1 and
DOweror apiece of it. These ideoscapes are composed of elements ot the it sits at the center uf a
variety of ideoscapes, composed of distinctive pragmatic
Lnl1ghtenment worldview, which consists of a chain of ideas, ierms, and rough translations ol other cenral terms trom the vocabulary conhgurauons of
umJgcs, unclud1ng reedom, welare, nghis, soverengnty. represenlation, and the mas ot the Ln
lightenment. This creales ever new terminological kaleidoscope,N stales
ter term demotacy The master narrative oB the Enl1ghtenment (and its (and the groups that seek tu capturc them) seek to pacity populations
many varnants in Brita1n, France, and the United States) was construcLed whosc own ethnoscapes are in motion and whose med1ascapcs may create
with a certain internal logic and presuppused a certain relationship be severe prublems for the ideoscapcs with which they are prescned The
tween reading, representat1on, and thc public sphere. (For the dynamics of iluid1ly of idcoscapes is complicated 1n particular by the gruwing d1asporas
this process in the carly history of the United States, see Warner 1990) (both voluntary and involuntary) ol intellectuals who continuously inject
But the diaspora of these terms and images across the world, especially new meaning-strcams into the d1scourse ut democracy indifferent parts of
sunce the nineteenth century. has loosened the internal coherence that the world.
held them together ina Euro-Amencan master narrative and provided in This extendedterminological discussIUn ul the ive iermslhave comed
stead aloosely structured synopticon of politics, in which different nation sets the basis for a lentative formulation about the conditiuns under which
states, as part of their evolution, have organized their political cultures current global Hows vcur: they occur in and thruugh the growing dis
around different keywords (eg.. Williams 1976). junctures among ethnoscapes, technoscapes, hnancescapes, mediascapes,
As a result of the differential diaspora of these keywords, the politcal and ideoscapes. Ths formulation, the core ol my model oB global cultural
narratives that govern communication berween clites and followers in
dif tlow, needs some explanation. First, people, machinery, money, images,
terent parts of the world involve problems ot both a semantic and prag and idcas now follow increasingly nonisomorphic paths; ul coursc, al all
their lexical equiva periods in human hisLory, there have been some disjunctures in the tlows
matic nature: seaantic to he cxtent that words (and
lents) require careful translation from contcxt to context in their global of these things, but the sheer speed, scale, and volume of each ol these
movements, and pragmat1c to the extent that che
use of these words by tlows are now so great that the disjunctures have become cenral to the
subject to very different sets of politics of globalculure. The Japanese arc notoriously hospitable tu ideas
poliucal actors and cher audiences may be
chat mediate their translation into public politics. and are sterevlyped as inclined to expor (all) and import (some) goods
cuntextual conventions
the nature of poltical rhetoric: but they are also notoriously closed to immgration, like the Swss, the
Such coventions are not only matters of Swedes,and the Saudis. Yet the Swiss and the Saudis accept populations ol
aging Chinese leadership mean when it refers to
lor example, what does the Korean leadeship mean guest workers, thus crcating labor diasporas ol Turks, lalians, and other
she South
the dangers of hoolgansm: What does democratic industrial growth? circum-Mediterranean grous. Some uch guestworker groups maintan
when speaks of drscipline as the key
to
of what coninuous contact with their home nations, like the Turks, but others, like
These conventons abo involve the tar more subde question
versus hugh-level South Asian migrants, tend to des1re lives in their new homes
valued n what way (ncwspapers
sets ofcommuncatrve genres are conventios gov rasing anew the problem of reproductuon in a deerntonal1zed contex1
pragmatic genre
cunems hor example) and what sorts ot whie an Ind1an Deternitonialization, n gcneral. is one uf the central lurces of the mod.
kinds of text So, kuwer-class s
ern world because it brings labonng populations inuo the
dfferent
ern the collectuve ed1ngs of
attentve to the resonances ot a polit1cal speech n terms relat1vely wealthy socIcues, while sometines crealung
dudeN ay be Korean au tors and spaccs of
em1ascent ot Hind1 Cincma, a poltics en
attachment to
ol some kcywords and phrao neo-Conuc1an exakgerated and intensihed senses of LntIcIsm or
cod1ngs of Buddhst ur
dene may respond to the subtie
Dsa
 and
Cer other of travel, the eConom
and in
seductions
lapanese

and
the Bangkok, conveniences
fantasies that dominate gender
trade in the mobility
scx Other, brutal larue.
w o r l d at
Palestin1
Hindus, Sikh,u n d a m e n about
the nndthe
the hone state Jeterntonal1zatuon, whether
of wlobal
trade,
and the cultural politics of deterritoral.
varicty ol
global
ics ol parts of Asia about the
an nr Ikrainias, i mw at the core ol a Hindu casc many said it expreSses, it is ap.
In the poliucs in could be d i s p l a c c m e n t that
ex
talismn, in huding hlae and Hindu hundamentalism
of ndans
has hecn Whilefar
more of
s o c i o l o g y

role of the nation-statc in the d1s-

tor example, t is cear that the oveneas movementoutside India to create a andthe
larger
in the
ploted bv a variety ot interess hoth within and by whch ization juncture
t o bring
today
The relationship betwccn states
I d e n t i h c a t i o n s ,

at this culture
comyslcated network of inances and relixious ahroad has beconme
tied propr1atc
economy of onc. It is pussible to say that in
global cmbartled

the prablem of cultural reproduction for Hindus junctive wherc an haye becomc one another's pro-
to the poltics of Hindu tundamentalism at home nations is cvcry and the
state

Ahe •me tim, deterritoralizaton

creates new markets for hlm comn: and
ieties the
nation
morc properly
groups with ideas about'
which thrive on the necd or many soc nations (or
Inies, Jt impresarios, and travel avencies
That is, while co"opt states
and state power, states simul.
the detcmtorialized pupulation for contact with its homeland. Naturaliy. capture or
jects.
nationhood) scck to monopolize
ideas about nat1onhood (Baruah
thesc invented homelands. which consitute the mediascapes of deterrito capturc and transOatiet
seek to 1989a). tn general, separatist
nalzed grups, can uften becume sulticiently fantastic and one -sided tha taneously
1986; Nandy
they pruvide the material lur new deoscapes in which ethnit contiet5 can 1986. Chatterjcc teTor in their methode
including those that have included Raee.
hegin to erupt. The creation of Khalistan, an invented homeland ot the de movements Tamil Sri Lankans Sikhs,
of states.
terrntonalized Sikh populat1vn of England, Canado, and the United States Cxemplify nations in search represents imagined
commnunities het
ts one example of the bloody puienual in such mediascapes as they nter: Ouebecois--each of these
Moros out ot existing states
or carve pieces
act wth the internal colunialisms of the natuon-state (e g., Hechter 9751 seek to create states of their own
The West Bank, Nanib1a, and Eritrea are other theaters tor the enactmet seeking to monopolize the
Statcs, on the other hand, are everywhere
ol the bloody negotiation between existing nation states and various de. community, either by llatly claiming perfect coeyality
terrilorialized gruupings moral resources of
it is in the fertile ground of deterritorialization, in which money, com between nation and state, or by systematically museumizing and reore.
mod1tes, and persuns are involved in ceaselessly chasing each other senting all the groups within them in a variety of heritage politics that
aruund the worid, that the mediascapes and ideoscapes of the modern seems remarkably uniform throughout the world (Handler 1988, Herzfeld
world hnd their frac tured and tragmented counterpart. For the idcas and 1982, McQueen 1988).
images produced by mass media often are only partial guides to the goods
and experiences that deterritorialized populations transfer to one another
Here, national and international mediascapces are exploited by nation
In Mira Nairsbrilliant hlm ndia Cahart, we see the states to pacily separatists or even the potential fissiparousness of all deas
mult1ple loops ot this uf difference. Typically, contemporary nation-states
tractured deterritorialization as young women, barely do this by exercising
bay'smetronolitan glitz,come to seek their lortunes as competent in Bom taxonomic control over difference, by creating various
cabaret
prost1tutes un Bombay, entertaining men in clubs with dance dancers and tional spectacle to domesticate kinds of interna
with the fantasy of self-display difference,
rived wholly from the prurient dance formats de and by seducing small groups
scenes in turn cater to ideas about
sequences of Hindi ilms. These on _ome sort of global or
Western and toreign women and their
luoseness, while they provide tawdry career stage. One important new feature cosmopolitan
of these women come from alibis for these women, Sone disjunctive relationships among theof global cultural polhtics, tied to the
Kerala,
grapha hlm ndustry have blossomed,where cabaret clubs and the porno that state and nation are at various landscapes discussed earlier,
partly in response to the them is now less an each other's throats, is
tastes of Keralites returned from
the Middle East, where theirpurses and icon of and the hyphen that l1nks
Ives awav from women diasporic disjunctive conjuncture than an index of
level of any relationship
distort
tween men and women might their very sense ot what the relations bc.
be These tragedies ot between nation and state has two disjuncture. This
cer1a1nly be replaved in a morc given nalion-stale, levels: at the
detailed analysis of thedisplacement could
relat1ons between
nation, with state and it means that there is a
batle
the seedbed of nation seeking to of theimagi
peared trom brutal cannibalize one another. Here is
nowhere separati_ms--
and -majoritarianismns that seem to have ap-
microidentities that have become pol1tical pro-
 sectswithn the nation-state Atanuther levcl, this d1sjunctive
relatiunship
s deeply entangled wth the global disjunctures discussed throughout tial arts traditions,
this relornulated to meet the fantasICS ot
hapier: Idcas of nationhoud appcar to be stcadily increasing in (sometimes lumpen) youth pupulations,
scale
revularly cruss1ng ex1st1ng state boundaries, sometimes, as with the and and violence, which are in create new cultures contemporary
ol maculin1ty
ee 3se previous identutics stretched across Kurds. turn the fucl for increased
vast national spaces or. ay with and international politics. violence in naional
.h. Tanlb n Sri Lanka, the dormant Such violencc is in
turn the spur to an incrcas
threads of a transnational diaspura Ingly rapid and atnoral arms
trade
have been activated to ignite the micropolitics ul a
nation-state. worldwide spread uf the AK.47 andthatthepcnetrates the entire world. The
In discussing the cultural pulitics that state security, in terror, and in Uz, in hlms, in corporale
have and
inks the nation to the statc. it is especially subverted the hyphen that that apparently simple technical policc and m1litary activity, is a remnder
mooring of such politics in thc irregularities thatimportant not to forge the un1tormities often coxcal an increasingly
Complex sel of loops, linking imagcs ol
now
pized capital (Kothar1 1989c, Lash and Urry 1987). characterize disorya nity in sume imagincd world.
violence lo asp1rations for commu
and technology are now so widely separated,
Because labor, hnance,
the volat1lities that underlie Returning then to the ethnoscapes with
movemcnts for nationhood (as large as transnational Islam
on the one hand. paradox of ethnic politics in today's world is which
that
| began, the ceniral
or as small as the movement of the Gurkhas
for a separate state in Northeast language or skin color or neighborhood or kinship)primord1a (whether of
India) grind against the vulnerabilities that characterize ized. That is, sentiments, whose greatest lorce have become global
the
between states. States ind themselves pressed to stay open relationships intimacy into apolitical state and turn locality
is in their ability to ignite
by the forces of into astaging ground for
media, technology, and travel that have fueled identity, have become spread over vast
consumerism throughout and irregular spaces as groups
. the world and have increascd the craving,even in move yet stay linked to one anuther through
ities. This is not to deny that such primordia sophisticated
the non-Western wurld, media capabil
for new commod1ties and spectacles. On the other hand, are often the product of in
these very crav vented traditions (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983) or
ings can become caught up in new ethnoscapes, mediascapes,
and, eventu tions, but to emphasize that because of the retrospective affilia
ally, ideoscapes, such as democracy in China, that the state cannot tolerate disjunctive and
as threats to its own control over ideas of nationhood and peoplehood. interplay of commercc, media, national policies, and consumer unstable
cthnicity, once a genie contained in the bottle of some sort of
fan1asies,
States throughout the world are under siege,cspecially where contestsovcr locality
the ideoscapes of demucracy are fierce and fundamental, and where there (however large), has now become a global force, torever
slipping in and
arc radical disjunctures between ideosçapes and technoscapes (as in the through the cracks between states and borders.
But the relationship between the cultural and economc
case of very smallcountries that lack contemporary technologies of pro levels of this
new set of global disjunctures is not a simple one-way
duction and information); or between ideoscapes and inancescapes (as in street in which the
terms of global cultural politics are set wholly by, or conhncd wholly.
countries such as Mexico or Brazil, where international lending influences within, the vicissitudes of international tlows of.technology. labor, and
national politics to a very large degree), or between ideoscapes and ti
nance, demanding only a modest modiication of exi_ting nco-Marxist
ethnoscapes (as in Beirut, whcre diasporic, local, and translocal fliations are nodels of uneven development and state fomation. There is a deeper
suIcidally at battle), or between ideoscapes and mediascapes (a_ in many change, itself driven by the disjunctures among all the landscapes I have
countries in the M1ddle East and Asia) where the lifestyles represented on discussed and constituted by their continuously fluid and uncertain inter
both national and international TV and cinema cumpletely overwhelm and play, that concerns the relationship between production and consunmption
undermine the rhetoricol national politics. Inthe Indian case, the myth of in today's global economy. Here, I begin with Marx's tamuus (and olten
the law-breaking hero has emerged to mediate this naked struggle between mined) view of the fetishism of the commodity and suggest that this
the pictues and realities ot Indian pol1tics, which has Hruwn increasingly fetishism has been replaced in the world at large (now seeing the world as
buualized and cornupt (Vachani 1989). (one large, interactive systcm, composed of many complex subsystems) by
The transnat1onal movement of the martial arts, particularly through two mutually supportive descendants, the hrst of which I call production
As1a, as mediated by the Hollywood and Hong Kong hlm industrics fetishism and thec sccond, the tetishism of the consuner.
(Zar1llh 1995)1s arich illustration of the ways in which long-standing mar By produetion fetisbism Imean an illusion created by contemporary trans
 Thus the central featurc of global culturecannibalizetoday is the politics of the
one another and
masks translocal cap1tal,
transnat1onal carn.
mutual effort of sameness and difference to
natonal prodution lct that (cngagcd in var their successful hijacking of the twin Enlightenment
often faraway workers thereby proclaim
ingtlow. glohal managment, and the resiliently particular., This
ideas of the triumphantly universal and
operations) in the idiom and
spectacle
roUs konds ot hegh-tech putting-out terri face in riots, refugee lows, state
even worker) control, national productivity, and murual cannibalization shows its ugly
of local (somrtimes
various kinds of tree-trade zones ethnocide (with or without state support). Jrs
tonal sovereignty. To the extent that sponsored torture, and horizons of hope and
large, especially of high-tech expansion of many individual
have hecome the models for production at brighter side is in the
therapy and other low.
fetish, obscuring not social fantasy, in the global spread of oral
rehydration
commd1tes, pranductiun has tself hecomc a
which are sncrcas1ngly susceptibility even of South Africa
rclat1ns av such but the relatons of production, tech instruments of well-being, in the
The localty (both in thc sense of the local factory
or site of inability of the Pollsh state to repress
ransnateonal to the force of global opinion, in the
production and n the extended ense of thc
nation-state) becomes a fet1sh
classes, and in the growth of a wide range of progressive.
its own working
actually drive the produc could he multiplied. The
that drguies the glohYlly d1spersed torces that transnational alliances. Examples of both sorts
sense) twice intensihcd, of global cultural process today
tion procCs This generates alsenatron (in Marx's criticalpoint is chat both sides of the coin
complicated spatial dynamic sameness and differ.
for sts sncial sense Is now compounded by a are prod°cts of the ininitely varied mutual contest of
that s increas1ngly global. characterized by radical disjunc tures between different
herc that the con cnce on a stage
As for the fetishrsm of the consumer, mean to indicate sorts of global Aows and the uncertain landscapes created in and through
the med1a
sumer has hecn transformed through commodity Bows (and thése disjunctures.
into a sign, both
scapes, especially ot advertIsing, that accompany them)
Baudrilard's sense of a simulacrum that only asymptotically approaches
In
for the rzal seat The Work of Reproduction in an Age of Mechanical At
rhe for of a real social agen, and in the cse of a mask
and thc many
of 2gency. whh s not the conumer but the producer
the key technol. Ihave inverted the kcy terms of the title of Walter Benjamin's famous cssay
torces thar constitute production Clohal advertising is
and cultur (1969) to return this rather high-fying discussion to a more manageable
ogy tor the woridwide d1ssem1nation of a plethora of creatrve
aliy wellchosen deas rof onsumer 2geny These images of agency are in level. There is a classic human problem that will not disappear howcver
creRngiy dcrtíons of a worid of merchandis1ng so subtle
that the much glohalcultural processes might change their dynamics, and this is
conumer s consistently hclped to belseve that he or she is an actor,
where the problem today typically discussed under the nubric of reproduction
n tacr he or <he s 2t hesta chomcr (and traditionally referred to in terms of the transmission of culture). In ei
The giobalization ot cuiture s not the same as ics homogenization, but ther casce, the question is, how do small grous, especially families, the
ziobaizatssn nvolves the uc of a variety of instruments of homogenNzation classical loci of socialization, deal with these new glohal realitics as they
(armaments, dvetis1ng tchniques, language hegemonies, and clothing seek to reproduce themselves and, in so doing,by accident reproduce cul
seylesitha are ahsohed no local pslstical and cultural cconomics, only to lural foms themselves? In traditional anthropological tems, this could be
he repatriated s heterogencous dialoges of natíonal sovereignty, free en phrased as the problem of enculturation in a period of rapid
Ierprse, 2nd hondamcntalsm in whch the sste plays an increasingly deli change. So the problem is hardly novel. But it does take on some culture
cAE roe rxsmch openne« to global flows, and the nation-state is threat mensions under the global conditions discussed so far in this novel'di
cred by revt %n he Chuns yndrome-too littie,and the state exits thr Frst, the sort of transgenerational stability of chapter
aatNnal uaue. Buma Albana and Nnth Korca in varcus ways supposed in most theories of enculturation (or, inknnwledge that was pre
hane done Sn peneral, she ate has heuome the arbisrageur ot this repatuation ol sucsal1zationican no lonyer be slightly broader tems,
d nam the torm d grd, gs, stoysn and stvle:. But thn repatr assumed. As families move to new loca
Líons, or as children move belore older
Mum n txpon, oA th devgs snd commd1es of ditereme continuously daughtcrs return Irom time spent in strangegenerations, or as grown sons and
uethts the ent htus t majornar1annm and hrmngennzation, parts of the world, lamily rela
whatamm tregentv played onn n detases ower hertage tionships can hecome volatile, new
commodity
dehis and obl1gations are recalibrated, and patterns are negotiatc,
umors and lantasies aboul the

43
 nWtung art mUr nto
cXIstong repertures ot
prac txe. Otten, glohal Lahor dasporas nuvr ad
invove
women in particulat, as mmense srans un mar-
in Keneral and on
course, not eased by
hstoal patterns ot mariages beome these med1a affurd the cllets ut ne hanal arn (or
ehav Ceneatons socializatuon and new idcas the powerul resourccs fur ass
n and colletve yly drvde. as deas about property proot youth can project aga1ns1 counternodes of meda), for
Ranzatvon, there can be parental wishes or des1res Ar largervdentty that
m Alost mportant obhgton wther under the siexe ot dstance many torms ot cultural levels of or
the and populations (whether of refugees
pnoudly complnated bywork ot ultural
the pulksof eproduction in ncw seungs is are nflected in or of voluntary
poltics withan dsplaced
iDartaularly kor the yrung} repreenlng a tamly as normal important ways by med1a immugrants), all ot whch
ths nof coursc, not new to to neghbors and peers n the ncw ucale All
Ideoscapes they otter) Acentral (and the medascape
the cutural study of productIon and the role ot the knk between the trag1lites of culturalandre
What s nwshat ths s a mmwrathon of gender and mass med1a m luday's world
wurd in which both ponts ot violence. As s the polt1cs
and ponts of arrival are
in departure grade ilm industries that fantas1es ot gendered violence dumunate the B
points ot reference, s cntcalultural tlux, and thus the search tor gendered violence at home blanket the world they buth
retlect and efine
Kn ths atmospherc that life choices are made, can be very stcady are swayed by the macho and in the strects, as young men (un partcular)
the invention of dtfcult. k
ship, and other sdentity rad1tion (and of cthnicity, arc frequently denied real poltics ot selt-asserion in contexts where they
markers)
certauntes is regularly frustrated byycan becume slippery. as the scarch kinfor agency.
torce in new ways on the one and women are torced to enter the labor
the fuid1ties of transnat1onal hand, and cont1nue the
Thus the honor of womenmaintcnance of ta
nicat1on As group pasts bccome commu milial heritage on the other.
and coilections, both in national increasingly parts of museums, exhibits. an armature of stable (it
inhuman) hecomes nut just
comes less what Pierre Bourdicu wouldand transnational spectacies,
culture be ncw arena for the tormation of systems of culural reproduction but a
have sexual identity and fam1ly poltrcs,
reproducibie practices and dispositions) called a habitus (a tacit realm and women face new preSsures at as men
of work
Because both work and leisure have and new fantasies of leisure.
sCIOUs choice, justiication, and representation,and more an arena for con ties in this new global order but have lost none ot their gendered qual1
the latter often to multiple acquired ever subtler fet1shized rep
and spatiaily dislocated audicnces. resentations, the honor of women becomes
The cask of cultural reproduction, cven in its Identity uf embattled communities ot increasingly a surrogate for the
most
as husband-wife and parent-chld relations, becomes intimate arenas, such have to negotiate increas1ngly harsh
males, while their women in realhty
both polit1cized and the nondumestic
conditions of work at home and in
exposed to the traumas of deterritorialization as family members poul and workplace. In short,
negot1ate their mutual understandings and aspirations in sometimes frac displaced populations, however much deterntoralized communities and
they may enjoy the truts of new
turcd spatial arrangements At larger levels, such as community, neighbor kinds ol earning and new dispositions of capital
hood and territory, th1s politicizat1on is often the emotional fuel for more play out the desires and fantasies of thesc new and technoloy. have to
to reproduce the ethnoscapes, while striving
Cxpl1ctly violent pultics of identity, just as these larger politics soinetimes family-as-microcosm of culture. As the shapes ofcultures
grow less bounded and lacit, more fluid and politic1zed, the
peneirate and ignite domestic politics. When, lor example, two offspring work ol cul
lural reproduction becomes a daily hazard. Far more could,
in a houschold spl1t with their father on a key matter of political identsh and should, be
said about the work of reproduction in an age of
mechanical art the pre
caIoN In a transnational setting, prcex1stng localized norms carry littlc ced1ng discussion is meant to indicale the contours ot the problems that a
torce Thus a son who has joned the t ezhollah group in Lebanun may no ncw, globally intormed theory of cultural reproduction will have tu lace
longer get along, with parents or sibl1ngs who are alfiliated with Amal or
some other branch ot Shísethnw pulucal identity 1n Lebanon Women in Sbape and Process in (Global Cultural Formutios
particular bear the bruntof this sortof fricuon, lor they beLome pawns in
the heritage pulitCs of the househuld and are often subject to the abuse The deliberations olthe arguments that have made so far cunstitule the
and violence of men who are themselves torn about the relation between bare bones of an approach to a general theory of global cultural processes.
Fucusing on d1sjunctures, I have cmployed a set of terms (rbmoscapr. J
herinage and opportun1ty 1n shifting spatial and political format1ons.
ndncescape. rcbuonape, medissape, and udeos ape) to suress different sircams or
The pains ol cultural reproduction in a disjunctive global world are, of

45
 and prediction in the
contingency,
of causality, im.
perhans
qucstions flows, it is
great traditional disjunctive global
but in a world of of flow and un.
human sciences,
way that relics on images and
flows along whch cultural material mav be seen o be moving across na asking them in a order, stability
portant to start older images of
tronal boundares. lhave alsn soughtto exemplity the ways in which tness chaos, rather than on toward a theory of lobal
hence
var1nus flows (or landscapes from the stabilizing perspcctives of any gve certainty,
Otherwise, we will
have gone far woald
bargain. And that
imagincd world) are in hundamenal disiuncture with respect to one an; systematicness.
thrown out
process in the that
systems but of illusion of order
other What further steps can we take toward a general theory of glooa cultural toward the kind
notes part of a journey world that is so transparen

culural processes based on these proposals? make these impose on a

longer afford to
he irsis to note that our very models of cultural shape will have o we can no macrometaphors
these
alter,as confgurations of people, place. and heritage lose all semblance o volatile.
directions in which
we can push
Whatever the chaos), we need to
ask one other
Isomrphism. Recent work in anthropology has done much to free us ol classihcations, and some ore.
polythetic is there
the shackles of highly localized, boundary-oriented, holistic, primordialist (fractals,
out of the Marxist
paradigm:
Be.
old-fashioned question thesc global flows>
force of
images of culturalfom and substance (Hannerz 1989, Marcus and Fiscner relative determining driven
ex
T986, Thornton 1988), But nut very much has been put in their place, given order to the cultural systems as
the dynamics of global inlor.
Cept somewhat larger if less mechanical versiuns of these images, as in Eric cause I have
postulated
persons, technologies, finance,
among flows of link1no
Woll's work on the relationship of Europe to the rest of the world ( 1982) by the relationships some
stuctural-causal order
can we speak of version of
W'hat Iwould hke to propose is that we bein to think of the cuniguration mation, and ideology, economic order in one
to the role of the
of cultural forms in today's wurld as fundamentally fractal, that is, as pos these flows by analogy thesc flows as being, for a
Second, I Can we speak of some of
sesing no Fuclidean boundaries, structures, or regularities. the Marxist paradigm? reasons, always prior to and formative
of
to repre
would suggEst that these qultural forms. which we should strive
historical
priori structural or only be tentative at this poin,
that have been discussed hypothes1s, which can
sent as fully fractal, are also overlapping in ways other flows? My own
ous flows to one another as
they con:
examplc) and in biology (in the relationship of these vari
only in purc mathematics (in set theory, for is that social forms will be radically
context
we nccd to combine a
the language of polythetnc classilications). Thus stellate into particular events and their loops with hnancial fows
polytheric and
Iractal metaphor for the shape of cul tures (1n the plural) with a dependent. Thus, while labor lows
we
Without this latter step, may account for the shape of meda
account of their overlaps and rescmblances. between Kerala and the Middle East
relies on the clear separation reverse may be true ofSilicon Valley in
shall remain mired in comparative work that flows andideoscapes in Kerala, the
of the entities to be compared belore
serious comparison can begin. How
California, where intense specialization in a single technological sector
compare fracally shaped cultural forms that are also polytheti andparticular Aows of capital may well profoundlyy determ1ne
are we to (computers}
in their coverage of terrestrial space? ethnoscapes, ideoscapes, and mediascapes may take
cally overlapping interactions predicated the shape that among these
Finally, in order for the theory of globalcultural This doës not mean thatthe causal.historical relationship
any force greater than that of a mechanical but that our current
on disyunctive Hows to have
the various lows is random or meaninglessly contingent
something like a human vcrsion of
metaphor, it will have to mÙve into
chaos theory. That is, we will nccd
theuries of cultural chaos are insufhciently developed to be even parsimo
theory that some scientists arc calling
fractal shapes constitute a sim ntous models ät this point, much less to be predictive theories, the golden
to ask not how these complex, overlapping, fleeces of oñe kind of social science. What I have sought to provide in this
large-scale) system, but to ask what its dynamics are:
ple, stable (even if
when and where they do: Why do states wither chapteris"ä reasonably cconomical technical vocabulary and a rudimen
ethnic riots occur
Why do
times than in others? Why do sone tary model of disjunctive lows, Irom which something like a deceñt gtobal
at greater rates in somne places and analys1s might emerge. Without some such analysis, it will be dificult to
debt repayment with SO much
CounrIes tlout conventions of international
less apparent worry than others? How are international arms llows driving constnuct what John Hinkson calls a"'social theory of postmodern1ty" that
global stage is adequately global (1990, 84).
cthnic batles and genocides: Why are some states exit1ng the
at a cerlain
whle others are clamoring to get in: Why do kev events occur
are, of course, the
point n acerlain place rather than in uthers? These

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