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Chapter 10: Globalization &
Culture Change
Objectives:
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Define globalization and major theories of
globalization
Identify different colonial strategies and describe
how they influenced culture change in the
colonial and postcolonial eras
Describe how globalization influences
contemporary fieldwork
Critically engage various Christian responses to
globalization
Globalization
Definition:
The integration of local,
regional, and/or
national production,
exchange, and culture
into a global system
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Economic dimensions
At times conceived in
binary terms
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Balkanization vs.
Westernization
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(Jihad vs. McWorld)
What is the experience of
globalization in local
places?
Theories of Globalization
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Modernization Theory
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Dependency Theory
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All societies move through common stages
Neoliberalism
Andre Gunder Frank
Some societies are dependent on others in the global
economy
World Systems Theory
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Immanuel Wallerstein
Global economy is organized into core, semi-periphery,
periphery
Colonialism and Culture Change
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Colonialism introduced new forms of global
economic integration
Colonialism vs. imperialism
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Different European powers practiced different
forms of colonial expansion.
Key concepts:
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Hegemony
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Political and cultural
Resistance
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May produce counterhegemony
Postcolonialism
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Refers to the cultural and economic legacy of
colonialism, including ongoing relationships between
former colonies and colonizers
Distinct from neocolonialism
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Meaning “new colonialism,” neocolonialism occurs
when a nation or group of people is essentially a
colony of another nation, despite the absence of direct
or formal political control.
Often involves blending cultural influences from
colonial powers with an independent national
identity
May involve cultural hybridity
Cultural Hybridity
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The cultural practice of combining and assigning new
meanings to previously separate beliefs, practices,
or ideas
A hallmark of the postcolonial condition in which,
following decades or centuries of colonial rule,
people have so deeply internalized cultural norms
and practices from the colonial power that they feel
natural and normal
Example of a site of contemporary hybridity: India
British
Raj
Post Raj
Boundary
India and Hybridity
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Prior to British colonialism:
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No central authority
Villages practiced local religious and political life
British imposed notion of Hinduism as singular
religion
Contemporary India engaged in decolonialism
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Cricket as national sport of India
Anthropology of Globalization Today
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What do anthropologists study today, and how do
they study it?
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Use of multisited research
Studies of diasporas
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Migrants
Refugees
Cosmopolitans
Deterritorialization
Interstitial zones
Localization
Christians Respond to Globalization
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Some—Ron Sider, Shane Claiborne, Mother Teresa—
argue that Christians must reject unsustainable
consumption, emphasizing local community and
simple lifestyle.
Others emphasize the benefits of globalization for
human flourishing.
Christianity itself is a global movement and
facilitates globalization in other ways.
Western Christians must recognize the negative
effects of globalization for some and the role
Western missionization has sometimes played.
Globalization, Christians, and the Church
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Globalization is a diffuse and complex process in
which Christians are, and must remain, intimately
involved. There are no simple answers as to how
economic, political, and social life can better reflect
God’s justice, but certainly Christians must ask
difficult questions and be willing to make changes
where appropriate. Anthropology contributes insight
into how globalization affects people and their ways
of life—knowledge that can help Christians be
increasingly aware of globalization and their
responses to it.