Arjun Appadurai

BY: DIKESH MAHARJAN

MPHIL, DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
KATHMANDU UNIVERSITY
 Topics for discussion

About the theorist

Globalization for the theorist
The 5 Scapes of Global Cultural Flow
Discussion
 About the theorist

A cultural theorist and anthropologist.

Born in Mumbai, India in 1949;
Professor at the University of Chicago;
Major Publications: Modernity at Large: Cultural
Dimensions of Globalization (1996) and Disjuncture
and Difference in the Global Cultural
Economy (1990);
Major concepts: global cultural flow, scapes theory,
disjuncture, imagined worlds;
Co-founder of the journal Public Culture.
 Globalization for the theorist

Globalization refers to the increasing pace and scope of

interconnections across the globe
Appadurai argues that we used to always see the world in
a binary (north-south): that’s too simplistic.
We’re not two separate worlds separated by the rich and
poor or anything
We all influence each other. Our cultures intersect and
overlap all the time.
Instead, we should try to understand how ‘flows’ or
‘scapes’ sweep through the globe, carrying capital,
images, people, information, technologies and ideas.

(Appadurai, 1990)
 The 5 Scapes of Global Cultural Flow
Global cultural flow: refer to multidirectional movements
and re-allocations of human beings, artifacts and ideas
within the ill-defined sphere of ‘culture’ in its global, national
and regional dimensions.
Global cultural flow is a result of the process of globalization.
5 scapesof cultural flow (Scapes Theory). 5 ways cultures
around the world influence each other
Mediascapes
Technoscapes
Ethnoscapes
Financescapes
Ideoscapes

(Appadurai, 1996)
 Ethnoscapes

‘Ethnoscapes’ represent the movement of people

around the world.
Examples:
Refugees: People who have moved to seek asylum
from danger in their homelands.
Economic migrants: People moving to seek jobs
elsewhere.
Tourists: People traveling to share and experience
different cultures
 Technoscapes

‘Technoscapes’ refers to the ways technologies help

speed up cross-border movements.
Examples:
Handheld devices: The global movement of smart
phones, cameras and personal computing devices.
Internet: Technology has helped us to connect
across the globe at an unprecedented rate.
 Financescapes

Finance scapes represent the rapid movement of money

across borders.
Examples:
Stock Exchange: Trades of capital occur in seconds all
hours of the day across the global stock exchanges.
Credit Cards: Most credit cards will work in most countries
around the world, making it easier to spend globally.
New Transfer Technologies: Businesses like IME Pay
and Western Union are revolutionizing transfer of money
around the globe by creating new and cheaper money
transfer business models.
 Mediascapes

Media has an increasingly global reach.

Examples:
Blogging: Rather than getting information from books,
people can now get their news from anyone with an
internet connection and a website.
BBC: People around the world rely on global news
outlets like the BBC to get their information.
24-hour News: People are consuming media
instantaneously using Twitter and smart phones. This
has changed news cycles and fed a global hunger for
more and more news instantly.
 Ideoscapes

Ideoscapes refers to the ideas, symbols and

narratives that have spread around the globe.
Examples:
Capitalism and Socialism: Much of the second
half of the 20th Century was consumed by the
competing ideas of capitalism and socialism which
spread through their spheres of influence.
Christian Missionaries
 Application of Scape Theory
SAFF GAMES 2019 KATHMANDU

Clothing industry (T-shirt)

 Discussion
I find Appadurai’s theory to be very strong as well as necessary in a age of
globalization. More Realistic and important to understand the contemporary world
view where people have been perceiving culture being uni-directional or homogenizing
into american culture, this theory shows how culture flows around the world in multi-
directional way.

 The phenomenon impacts cultures across the globe and it is important to recognize
the effects rather than just pretend that cultures are isolated and unaffected by the rest
of the world. Learned that while cultures are unique and different, globalized
interaction does occur and no cultures are completely isolated.

I do believe on his argument that the more isolated cultures (less participation in trade and
are, the less they get affected by globalization like “Raute” in the Nepalese
travel)
context.

Five scapes defined by Appadurai provide useful tools for thinking about these various
forms of flows but the question remains why only 5 scapes? Why not 6 or 7 scapes by
including language scape or religion scape?
Also, we can see that among the 5 scapes one of them like financescape could be
powerful over others to impact the global society.
 References

Appadurai, A. (1990). Disjuncture and difference in the

global cultural economy. Public Culture, 2(1): 1-24.
Doi: 
https://doi.org/10.1177%2F026327690007002017  (
free access here)
Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural
dimensions of globalization. Minnesota: University of
Minnesota Press.
Tzanelli, R. (2011). Cultural Flows. In: Southern, D.
(Ed.) Encyclopedia of consumer culture. (pp. 384-
386). Los Angeles: SAGE.