Global Cultural Flow Research Articles

‘All Divine’: mapping the intersections between spirituality and modernity in independent Indian music

ABSTRACT In this paper, I examine some ways in which Indian artists explore tradition and modernity by fusing devotional music and spiritual themes with popular music. This is illustrated through examples such as ‘Krishna’ (1996) by the indipop group, Colonial Cousins, as well as works such as ‘Aathma Raama’ (2012), ‘Vaishnava Jana To’ (2019), and ‘All Divine’ (2022) by hip-hop artist Brodha V. My analysis draws upon established theoretical frameworks including cultural hybridity, globalisation theory, transculturation, and modernity. While spiritual motifs appear to be inextricably linked with traditional Indian musics, this is rarely viewed through the lens of modernity. Through a series of case studies, I explore key instances indicative of sonic conversations negotiating the global and local, emphasising the role of language and global cultural flow in facilitating both resistance and transculturation. Beyond uncovering contemporary engagements with spirituality, case studies reveal how Indian modernity is increasingly characterised by a manner of hybridity. Ultimately, the analysis contributes to our understanding of hybrid modernities and postcolonial identities.

Chinese Popular Culture in Translation and Transmission

The introduction to the Special Issue, ‘Chinese Popular Culture in Translation and Transmission’, provides an overall view of the theme. It starts with a discussion of the definition of popular culture and its powerful presence in today’s world assisted by technological development. To follow is a sketch of Chinese popular culture in the contemporary political and cultural context. We then propose a translational perspective, through which modes and issues of exchange, mediation and intervention when Chinese popular culture enters the western cultural and ideological landscape can be located, examined and analysed. Finally, five articles in this special issue – respectively on ‘tai chi’, Peppa Pig and China, internet celebrities and Chinese learning, Chinese online literature in English translation and fan translation of BL web novels – are briefly introduced. When read together, the collection reveals some paradigms and trends of Chinese popular culture in global cultural flow.

Disjuncture as a Trope of Conjuncture in Sudeep Pakhrin’s Selected Poems

Unremitting global flow of people have become the inherent characteristics of contemporary society. Since the concept of global village invaded each nook and corner of the world, thousands of people have been lining-up to enter into the global village from their local villages. They move leaving their ancestor’s places behind in the search of opportunities, better life, and to pursuing dreams. However, each such flow unknowingly creates a disjuncture within them. In this context, the paper argues that the specific disjunctive feeling itself becomes a means to connect them with their places and people. Mainly, they try to revisit their past, place and people through memory, which becomes instrumental for their reconnection. Concentrating on it, the paper critically examines the disjuncture as a trope of conjuncture in Sudeep Pakhrin’s selected poems. His poems, “Golden Street” and “Maavala” focus on the childhood memories that become strong thread to tie-up with his place and relatives in the verge of overpowering sense of disconnectedness. To critically analyze the isolated and vulnerable human condition in present society, I have employed Arjun Appadurai’s concept of global cultural flow and disjuncture as a theoretical backing.

RESONANCE OF VALUES OF THE CONSUMPTION SOCIETY IN REASONING OF YOUTH

When speaking about the overall processes of the 21st century, the notion “cultural globalisation” is traditionally applied in research. It is characterised by cross-sectoral activities and inevitability of interaction of various areas of culture, aswell as by rapidmerging of education, economics andpolitics and the legitimisation of these interdisciplinary activities. It has been en- countered that part of Latvian society – youth – experience incompatibility of transfer of terminal and instrumental values. Its reasons can be found in the monetary educational reform that is strengthened and implemented according to the needs of consumption society. The authors of the educational reform, by mutual agreement with the creators of economic policy, are implementing “The Financial Literacy Strategy for Latvia’s Population for the Period 2014–2020” with an aim to raise the level of financial literacy of the population and reach the strategic goal to create a new member of society who will maintain and express consumption culture and corresponds to the reasoning of mass person. Despite the fact that the contents of education in the country is negotiated in accordance with the needs of the development of student competences, nevertheless the establishers of the economic policy in the global cultural flow with strategies characteristic of a short-term, transitory policy have influenced the social addresseemore rapidly, namely the need for changes in values of the school’s youth and human values included in the contents of arts subjects.

Memorials and the Mine Disaster in Monongah, West Virginia: From Trauma to an Italian Global Memoryscape

Memorials and the Mine Disaster in Monongah, West Virginia: From Trauma to an Italian Global Memoryscape

Making Up for Lost Time

In an essay entitled “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy,” Arjun Appadurai proposes a framework for understanding the process of global cultural flow, particularly in the field of economics. The term “culture,” in this sense, is summarily defined as “behaviour and beliefs that are learned and shared: learned so that it is not ‘instinctual,’ shared so that it is not individual” (Pieterse, 1390). Essentially, Appadurai’s framework is segmented into five distinct categories, or “scapes,” including: (a) ethnoscapes, (b) mediascapes, (c) technoscapes, (d) financescapes, and (e) ideoscapes (589). As products or attributes from various communities are introduced into new societies, they are inclined to go through a process of indigenization, often resulting in configurations of cultural hybridity and exchange. This process is evident in global music and media business networks, informing artists and professionals alike on emerging models, markets, and trends within the seemingly limitless boundaries of the global stage. The global cultural flow of music and media incites measurable consequences across all five of Appadurai’s scapes; in turn, this activity informs the character and development of the geographical sites facilitating such exchange. One such relationship exists between Lisbon, Portugal and Toronto, Canada, or more specifically, Lisbon and the Toronto neighborhood known as Little Portugal. Stemming from a complex history of colonialism and immigration, Lisbon and Toronto have developed as symbiotic nodes among the larger structure of global music and media networks. By examining each of Appadurai’s scapes within the context of Lisbon and Toronto’s transnational relationship, one can better understand the effects of global music exchange and the development of the music city itself.

Socio-Economic Global Cultural Flow with Reference to Select Indian English Novels

The world is unified by the word ‘globalization’ as a result of the growing interdependence of the world’s societies, economies, technologies, cultures, investment and information. Today, everything is accessible at one’s finger tips, because the world is interconnected. There is networking in all walks of life. Communication has become easier than ever and technology has begun to replace human resources. On one hand, globalization claims to have simplified living by interconnecting different parts of the world, but on the other hand, life seems to have become more complicated in the name of sociocultural networking and technological revolutions. The circulation of ideas, culture, language, and material goods as a result of networking, the reason for globalization, has been identified as global cultural flows, according to the social anthropologist and globalization theorist, Arjun Appadurai. The paper aims to look into the socio-cultural, political and economic impacts of globalizationon developing countries like India, with the help of three contemporary novels of the twenty first century Indian English literature – The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri, The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, and Q&A by Vikas Swarup. It explores the aspects of globalization in the select novels, in an attempt to understand the modern world under the influence of globalization, liberalization and capitalization.

“Your one and only source”: “peripheral” fashion editorship within the transnational cultural flow. St. Petersburg publication Modnyi magazin (1862–1883)

ABSTRACT This article discusses how a fashion editor in a culturally “peripheral” country engages with the global cultural flow as a local gate-keeper. Classifying Paris as a metropolis and St. Petersburg as (semi-)periphery, it looks at one of the earliest Russian fashion publications, Modnyi magazin (1862–83), edited by Sofia (Rekhnevskaia-)Mei. The article examines Mei’s fashion editorials referring to recent insights into fashion journalism. It particularly focuses on the dialectics between local and global fashion-related discourses within them. In this regard, it is suggested that reflections of the Swedish social anthropologist Ulf Hannerz on the metropolis-province interplay, media, and local cultural actors provide an insightful framework for identifying the potentialities of peripheral fashion journalism and the role of a local editor in realizing them – as much nowadays as in the nineteenth century.

STRATEGI MENGHADAPI TANTANGAN ARUS BUDAYA GLOBAL MELALUI PENDIDIKAN KARAKTER BERBASIS BUDAYA

Artikel ini disusun berdasarkan hasil kajian dengan tujuan mengetahui dan memahami strategi menghadapi tantangan arus budaya global melalui pendidikan karakter berbasis budaya. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode kualitatif. Data diperoleh melalui observasi, wawancara, dokumentasi, dan studi pustaka dalam latar alamiah. Analisis data dilakukan melalui tiga kegiatan secara bersamaan yaitu reduksi data, penyajian data, dan simpulan atau verifikasi. Hasil kajian menunjukkan bahwa dunia pendidikan dewasa ini tengah menghadapi tantangan arus budaya global, yakni proses dan sistem ekspansi ekonomi pasar bebas bersifat transnasional yang merambah ke dalam berbagai bidang kehidupan seperti politik, agama, sosial budaya, dan pendidikan. Pada era keterbukaan yang ditandai dinamika masyarakat lokal, nasional, dan global, berbagai dampak tidak dapat dihindari. Oleh karena itu, betapa penting suatu bangsa perlu memiliki karakter dan jati diri dalam menghadapi arus budaya global agar tetap berdiri kokoh di atas nilai-nilai luhur budaya bangsanya. Pendidikan karakter berbasis budaya dapat dijadikan strategi edukatif dan investasi simbolis disertai upaya-upaya untuk mewujudkan lingkungan sosial yang kondusif melalui tripusat pendidikan (keluarga, sekolah, dan masyarakat). Menghidupkan kembali nilai-nilai kebudayaan lokal dalam kemasan tertentu merupakan salah satu pendekatan kebudayaan untuk pemberdayaan. Dengan demikian, revitalisasi nilai-nilai budaya lokal dalam era globalisasi sangat penting. Hal itu perlu dilakukan mengingat perilaku budaya di kalangan anak-anak dan remaja mulai berubah seiring semakin kuatnya tekanan arus budaya global.

Crowdsourcing, Social Media, and Intercultural Communication About Zika: Use Contextualized Research to Bridge the Digital Divide in Global Health Intervention

This article presents a case study of the Smarter Crowdsourcing project the International Development Bank and Governance Lab cohosted to cope with the emerging Zika outbreaks in Latin America countries. Using the lenses of intercultural communication methodologies, user-centered design, and global cultural flow, I examine the exclusion of at-risk populations as marginalized end users of the project. I also examine the impacts of this oversight on the effectiveness of the technocratic solutions. I then conclude by discussing the implications this case has for international health intervention, global technical communication, and community-based research.

The Evolution of the Korean Wave How Is the Third Generation Different from Previous Ones?

The Korean Wave, also known as Hallyu, refers to the impulsive spread of South Korean popular culture overseas. Overall, there have been three generations of the Korean Wave although disagreements exist about the time periods: the first generation of the Korean Wave, Hallyu 1.0, 1997 - mid-2000s; the second generation of the Korean Wave, Hallyu 2.0, mid-2000 - mid-2010s; the third generation of the Korean Wave, Hallyu 3.0, mid-2010s - present. Although the third generation of the Korean Wave, Hallyu 3.0, shares many characteristics of Hallyu 1.0 and 2.0, the allure of the Korean Wave contents in the recent period i s not the s ame as previous Hallyu features. Thus, in this study, I investigate the uniqueness of the third generation of the Korean Wave compared to the previous ones and analyze how these recent Korean media products and popular culture made South Korea a leader of global cultural flow.

Guru or Court Jester? The Lloyd percival paradox: the globalization of training regimes - the case of Canada, Sweden and the Soviet Union

In this paper, we explore the Canadian fitness advocate and coaching legend Lloyd Percival’s fabled The Hockey Handbook, and its influence on player development and team strategy in Canada, Sweden and the former Soviet Union. Utilizing the notion of global ‘scapes’, as developed by Arjun Appaduari, to more fully understand the complexity of the global development of ice hockey, we argue that globalization of the game must be perceived as a multi-faceted interaction at both the global and local levels, i.e. as a critical binary relationship. According to the conventional, evangelistic narrative, Percival’s instructional manual was responsible for the rise of ice hockey in Europe and the USSR. Our contrary argument is that the global cultural flow of The Hockey Handbook was a complex combination of factors related to the movement of capital, technologies, people, ideological considerations and mediated images. As such, it brings into question, the presumed status of The Hockey Handbook, as a dominant influence of the global hockey world. Rather, our argument suggests, it is a manufactured ‘scape’, serving to privilege a Canadian ice hockey system while relegating other ‘narratives’ and ice hockey systems to that of mere receivers.

The Global Scapes of Postmodernity: A Proposed Model for “Global Cultural Flow” in Fashion Education

This article proposes the use of Arjun Appadurai’s global scapes model, highlighted in ‘Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy’, as a tool for teaching fashion theory. Originally designed as a one-off lecture on globalization for undergraduates on a ‘Fashion and Society’ module, it has now been extended to cover the whole of the teaching on this module for a semester, with all subsequent classes referring back to Appadurai’s theory of scapes. Globalization is a hugely complex subject area, which is very important for students of fashion today. The reworking of this model to fit the worldwide network that makes up the fashion industry helps students to see their own place, and that of others, on a global scale. It also opens up discussion on important subjects that are all connected to fashion, such as ethics, geo-politics, discourse and practice.

The Chinese Diaspora in China–Malaysia Relations: Dynamics of and Changes in Multiple Transnational ‘Scapes’

This article investigates the dynamics of the Chinese diaspora within the multiple layers of China–Malaysia relations by drawing on the five dimensions—‘ethnoscapes’, ‘mediascapes’, ‘technoscapes’, ‘financescapes’ and ‘ideoscapes’—advanced by the anthropologist Arjun Appadurai in his model of global cultural flow. Certainly, the different labels associated with the ethnic Chinese in Malaysia reflect how their identities vary over time, space and situation. In this article, two case studies—transnational education and second homes—are examined, as they involve contemporary China’s institutions as well as the Chinese diaspora, old and new. In both cases, it is clear that, while racial stereotypes still linger to some extent, economic factors are of increasing importance for all parties involved. This finding is substantiated when the diasporic relations are further considered from an historical perspective, in order to understand how China, Malaysia and the Chinese diaspora are presently positioned within the globalization era.

The politics of taqlidi rap: reimagining Moroccanness in the era of global flows

This paper presents a multilayered cultural field where Moroccan rappers contribute to the debate on the complex and varied meanings of local, national, and global aesthetics. It showcases myriad angles from which to consider the politics of aesthetics in rap music. Within the last decade, taqlidi rap (traditional rap) has emerged as a music concept that aims to combine Moroccan traditional music and instruments with contemporary genres as a way to broaden popular music. Rap beats inspired by Moroccan music genres like Gnawa or Andalusi aesthetically express different perceptions of national identity, thus allowing rappers to reshape the boundaries of perceived Moroccanness. Taqlidi rap, however, also plays into the agenda of the Makhzen's (the Moroccan ruling elite), which promotes Morocco as a ‘modern’ yet traditional, moderate yet diverse country. At the same time, taqlidi rap is able to respond to a main concern of Moroccan artists: to show national identity in their music production as a main identity marker within a global cultural flow such as rap. This paper unpacks the work of Fnaïre, a Moroccan rap group, and considers other groups from the country such as H-Kayne, Don Bigg, and younger rappers like Dizzy DROS, to examine the role of national identity in a contemporary music genre established in Morocco during the 1990s. It aims to show that a sole focus on the national cultural field may not provide a complete picture of the predominant presence of national identity in Moroccan rap, but also that overlooking the local and national specificities of Moroccan identity politics may result in a simplistic consideration of the field.

A New Understanding of Ankara Music within the Context of Global Cultural Flow

A New Understanding of Ankara Music within the Context of Global Cultural Flow

Culture and Globalisation: The Indian Creative Industries

The processes of globalization have stirred different cultural practices resulting in cultural homogenization where local cultures are merged into a single macro cultural domain. This macro cultural domain is a result of the fusion of different cultures that have given the local cultures a new order and form. Here the local cultures seem to have lost their own identity and representation. Furthermore, due to the ambiguous nature of the global cultural flow other cultures that are in local or national form have sought to find their space among the chaos of global culture. Similar effects have been felt in the creative industries due to the proliferation of globalization further causing an air of change in the creative content and production. Hence, this conceptual study will look into two cases of Bollywood cinema and Indian rock music both facing an ongoing tension related to content creating ambiguity and imbalance, among its (content) creators and audiences.

Performing Post-Racial Asianness: K-Pop's Appropriation of Hip-Hop Culture

Drawing on theories from performance studies, dance studies, and critical race studies, this paper explores the ways in which Korean pop (K-pop)'s appropriation of hip-hop reveals a complex moment of global cultural flow. Western audience reception of K-pop is likely limited to framing K-pop either as a form of contemporary minstrelsy or a postcolonial mimicry, e.g., making fun of African American culture or a bad copy of American pop. This perspective, however, understands K-pop through the lens of American culture and only considers external signs of the performances. It fails to capture the local context in Korea, such as how and why the performers appropriate hip-hop, such as the process of embodiment and training process to learn hip-hop movement, rhythm, and styles, etc. By analyzing K-pop singer G-Dragon's (GD) music videos, this paper argues that Koreans' appropriation of American culture is neither minstrelsy nor postcolonial mimicry. K-pop's chameleonic racial and gender hybridity reveals incommensurability of contemporary Asian-ness, which I have called post-racial Asian-ness as non-racialization.

Post-human viewing: a discussion of the ethics of mobile phone imagery

This article discusses the relationship between theories of photography and mobile phone footage. In doing so, it asks if theories of photography still apply in a technologically saturated world of imagery. Technology is an increasingly important part of viewing imagery today and enables imagery to become part of a global cultural flow, thus calling into question the physical connection between viewer and image. This article analyses what happens to that connection when not only the image but also the physical body is mediated and challenged in post-human relations, and examines the ensuing ethical implications. The author takes photojournalism and, in particular, mobile phone footage as a starting point for an exploration of the (post-human) body as evidence and sign of authenticity in the modern age of digital communications and journalism.

The Arts in a Knowledge Economy: Creation of Other Knowledges

The knowledge economy that is so much etched into contemporary collective consciousness is reviewed against the small city of Hong Kong, a large financial hub. In its ingrained and single-minded economic pursuit, the territory’s history and education has moulded it into the international status it is today. Where do the arts stand in the knowledge economy and how are the arts able to contribute to it? By exploring Santos’ (Glob, Soc Educ 4(2):303–318, 2006) sociology of absences and his call for a sociology of emergences, this paper explores the linear, literal and quantitative as characterised by economic development against the arts’ non-literal, abstract and qualitative features. If unchanged, I view the knowledge economy’s goal as a reductionist closed point, whereas the arts offer possibilities into the unknown where creativity is located. Taking Appadurai’s (1996) five “scapes” in the global cultural flow, I propose the sixth “creative learning-scape” led by the arts. In the concluding section, unlike the schooling system, I argue that arts organisations through an arts learning model could be better equipped to lead in knowledge creation for the twenty-first century.