Globalization & Culture: Global Melange

by Jan Nederveen Pieterse

Is there cultural life after the 'clash of civilizations' and global McDonaldization? Internationally award-winning author Jan Nederveen Pieterse argues that what is taking place is the formation of a global mZlange, a culture of hybridization. From this perspective on globalization, conflict may be mitigated and identity preserved if transformed. The book offers a comprehensive treatment of hybridization through a series of 14 conceptual tables embellished by textual analysis laced with tantalizing examples from around the world. This historically deep and geographically wide approach to globalization is just what is needed on the brink of more war bred by cultural misunderstanding. The first book in the new 'Globalization' series edited by Manfred Steger and Terrell Carver, Globalization and Culture sets the tone for short, provocative treatments of hot topics in the expanding universe of globalization studies.

Genres: Nonfiction, Academic, Theory, Cultural, Sociology, Economics

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Kacey · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75 Stars

I read this for a class, and let me tell you, it was a chore.

The writing was so disorganized, a splattering of loosely connected thoughts and examples that go in circles. Maybe it would have read as more coherent if I had any kind of background in globalization or culture or anthropology or history. Alas, I do not.

I felt especially lost since Pieterse would often supply a number of examples without ever explaining or contextualizing them. I was always taught AEC—Assertion, Evidence, Commentary. Make a claim, provide evidence, and explain how the evidence connects to prove your point. Pieterse often fails to explain his examples. Rather, he just leaves them hanging there and moves on. I couldn’t really gain anything from the examples as such. Granted, I have the internet at my disposal, and I very well could go do my own research, but isn’t that his job? Furthermore, I was to read this book in 2 weeks for my class, so I really couldn’t go digging into every random mention of some faraway group or event or place. Sorry I’m UNWORLDLY! (I really am sorry, actually)

Another writing quirk of Pieterse’s was the unpredictable direction of his arguments. He’ll introduce a mode of thought, give credence to it, then tell you why it’s actually wrong or Eurocentric or shallow or what have you, only to then tell you the counterpoint is also unfounded or flat or whatever. It felt like being led through a maze, and just when you think you’ve reached the end, you’re led down yet another turn. As a result, it’s difficult at times to get the point.

I was also dreadfully bored reading this and wishing it would be over soon. I genuinely had to count down the pages (a tenuous task on an ebook with changing page numbers). Though I did not enjoy this book, I admit I am probably just too dumb for it. Too terribly dumb and unfamiliar with the world.

Pieterse did make a lot of great arguments, so far as I could tell. I previously had a very Eurocentric view on globalization as being synonymous with Westernization or Americanization. I lamented the McDonaldization or Disneyification of the world. But the deeper, more historically accurate view of globalization is that it has existed all along, and we are only now (post-ICT explosion) experiencing accelerated globalization, which is multidirectional and generative rather than blended in a melting pot. Hybridity offers a lens of viewing the ways cultures merge and make anew, also giving space for the hybrid, the in-between, the borderlands.

Still, a lot of this text went over my head. One thing I did get was that the predominant direction of globalization has shifted, starting from the East with the Silk Road, then from the West in the 19th and 20th centuries, and now back from the East, best exemplified by the rise of China while America has been rapidly declining as a result of neoliberal plutocracy and nationalism which has bred anti-globalization. I agree with all of this, but I can’t even say that with full conviction because how can I fully agree with something I don’t fully understand?

Overall, super dense and disjointed read that promises a lot of valuable knowledge that is locked behind a thorough education of worldly affairs. It felt like trying to read the scraps of text around a paywall.

[Karla Kitalong · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a textbook used in the global cultures class at MTU. Seems too challenging for first-year students, and parts were boring to me, but I resurrected some ideas--boundary, boundary objects, fixity, hybridity, mimicry, translation, mestiza--from my early academic years, so it was time well spent.

[Sergej van Middendorp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introduction to the duality of globalization and culture, blending concepts associated with each to help us understand both phenomena as interrelated and from the outside as well as the inside.

[Ricardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lucid and engaging discussion of cultural hybridization in the context of globalization. Pieterse takes the long view, insisting that globalization has a deep history. It is not a phenomenon of just the last few decades. Likewise, the sort of cultural mélange that we think of as characteristic of globalization is nothing new. Hybridity happens, and its been happening, for a long time, as cultures have come into contact through a variety of ways, some peaceful and some not. In fact, hybridity is only meaningful in the context of some kind of normative purity, because when you get right down to it, all cultures are hybrid cultures. It's just that some hybridities are more salient, and draw our attention, while others go unnoticed, or are mistaken for pure forms. One of the real merits of the discussion is the attention Pieterse pays to power asymmetries. Hybridity rarely involves a symmetrical relationship between two forces. Usually one or the other exerts more pressure, enjoys greater authority, or has more momentum. The two forces, however, are not necessarily those of the modern west and the non-modern rest. In given instances, it can be the "nonwestern" component that exerts itself. In others, we can be dealing with hybridities made up entirely of nonwestern components. The book is polemical, taking stands against prominent naysayrs of hybridity as a useful concept, and against those who would see globalization as McDonaldification or the clash of civilizations, but it is all the better a read for that.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has an interesting concept; it's a shame it's such a snoozefest while also being a bit overly-romantic about the possibilities of a "hybrid" theory of globalization.

[Jakub]

Read while in Oaxaca. Very thought provoking. The title pretty much captures what its about.

[Serena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great introduction to hybridity theory.