Appadurai's Complementary Dimensions:

Apparadui’s article entitled, “Disjuncture and Difference In the Global Cultural Economy”, proves to be very enlightening as it adds a new way of conceptualizing the global cultural flows that influence our modern landscape. Globalization and cultural imperialism have been our most vital topics of discussion over these last couple weeks, as we have been learning alot about the various ways of understanding flows and counterflows. Unlike other models that describe the global cultural flow, he does not analyze culture in terms of a traditional core or periphery network, rather he conceives of global cultural flow in terms of five specific dimensions, which he refers to as: ethnoscapes, finanscapes, technoscapes, mediascapes, and ideoscapes.
Each concept in essence, refers to a type of movement. To put concisely, ethnoscapes refer to the flow of peoples (immigrants, refugees, tourists, exiles etc.) throughout the globe as we become increasingly mobile. Finanscapes involve the flow of money through currency markets and stock exchanges for example. An example of this would be foreign investments channeled through the World Bank for energy and transportation development projects in Brazil (Lull 2000). Technoscapes include the flow of machinery, hardware and software, through the production processes of transnational corporations, national corporations and governments. India, China, Russia and Japan for example, have all exported technology to Libya in order to construct a huge steel complex there (Lull 2000). Mediascapes consist of the flow of images and information from the various forms of mass media and growing interactive technologies. Viewers essentially use these images of the mediascape to construct cultural narratives of the ‘other’ (Lull 2000). Finally, ideoscapes are similar to mediascapes in that they are image-oriented, however they are more often political in nature and deal with the flow of ideology throughout the globe. Ideological arenas such as democracy, rights and freedom, equality, responsible etc, are all examples of common domains represented as part of these ‘ideoscapes’ (Lull 2000). Appadurai describes the relationship between these ‘scapes’ as deeply disjunctive and unpredictable and sees that they influence culture not by their hegemonic interaction, global diffusion, and uniform effect, but by their differences and ‘counter-tendencies’.
This line of thinking is very unique as he strays from more traditional views and focuses more on the complex set of interactions and contested relationships that occur between each. Basically its how people organize these cultural stresses that determines the key to understanding contemporary social stability on the whole. I find these concepts and their connection in understandings global cultural flows to be very useful in understanding a number of present day phenomenon's. This theoretical model, or conceptualization, provides us, as media scholars, with an additional avenue to further our understanding and analysis of our complicated cultural world.
The concept of deterritorialization, as discussed in Appadurai’s article, proved to catch my interest. It essentially refers to the loss of the natural relation between culture and its geographic and social territory, and has been described as bringing “ laboring populations into the lower class sectors of spaces of relatively wealthy societies, while sometimes creating exaggerated and intensified senses and criticisms to politics in the home state” (Appadurai 38). The migration of people from third world nations, to more developed countries, and their loss of a physical and cultural connection with their homeland, is essentially what this is referring to.
More specifically the corresponding concept of reterritorialization, as a more positive term leads to a good example of a disjuncture between ethnoscapes and finanscapes. Reterritorialization refers to the attempt by people to re-establish a new cultural home wherever they migrate.
Labeled as ‘ethonscapes’ in Appadurai’s terms, many cohorts of individuals migrate to Canada and the United States for example, for a variety of reasons, usually leading to a number of consequences. Alot of the time when people migrate to Western countries, with the use of modern media and communication technologies, they tend to engage in media and cultural consumption from their homeland. Culturally symbolic forms such as pop music, videos, newspapers, magazines, books and computer software are vital in the reterritorialization processes to establish diasporas communities. Essentially immigrants create a need for indigenous products from back home. These populations in turn create new business opportunities for entrepreneurs especially for those in the media and cultural industries of their homeland. This relationship I can see most related to the disjuncture or difference between finanscapes and ethnoscapes, where unequal or opposing flows become evident. Migrants move, or ‘flow’ into one country while at a very different rate and direction, their economic capital or finances move, or ‘flow’ outward in the consumption of indigenous cultural products from their homeland. In addition to the desire that these diasporas groups have for indigenous cultural products from home, there is also a growing market for videos, music, magazines, clothing and software produced in exile and sent back to their home countries. For instance, Vietnamese cultural materials produced in California sell well in Vietnam and Persian products exported from Los Angeles sell well in Iran (Lull 2000). These types of bi-directional cultural flows further show how Appadurai’s conception of ‘scapes’ can be used to explain these disjunctive global relationships.
It is evident that Arjun Appadurai deals precisely with the diverse global economic and cultural activity that threatens the nation state (Lull 2000). His theoretical concepts and five dimensions prove to compliment many of the theories we have concentrated on so far in the course, and it clearly adds a new ‘dimension’ to the way that I view global culture. His ideas, however, should not be used alone, rather I emphasize once more, that I believe they provide an additional way to further analyze global culture.




References:

Appadurai, A. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” Modernity at Large:Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1996. 27-47.

Lull, James. Media, Communication, Culture: A global Approach. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.