ABSTRACT
By the end of Chapter 9, you will be able to:
Discuss the relationship between race, identity and culture with a focus on cultural hybridity
Consider the cultural dynamics of globalisation
Interrogate the impact of globalisation and capitalism on the modern world
Understand and explain the relationship between cultural difference, displacement, diaspora and migration
Apply understanding to contemporary case studies
In Chapter 9, we examine culture, identity, diaspora, globalisation and migration. Starting with the theory-work of postcolonial critic and public intellectual Homi K. Bhabha (1949–), we return to colonial forms and consider the ambivalence of colonial power. Bhabha’s theory of cultural hybridity takes our focus. The following key concepts are explored: Third Space, multiculturalism and mimicry. Next, we discuss the cultural dynamics of globalisation with Indian American socio-cultural anthropologist Arjun Appadurai (1949–) who conceptualises the global cultural economy in terms of disjuncture and overlap as opposed to centre and periphery, and culture in terms of difference and dimensionality. Appadurai (1996) offers us five scapes of global culture that anchor modern subjectivity: ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes and ideoscapes . Our discussion of globalisation continues with Egyptian–French Marxist economist, political scientist and world-systems theorist Samir Amin (1931–2018). We examine Amin’s critique of capitalism, globalisation and Western hegemony considering how oligopolies monopolise the world economy.