Free Essay. Appadurai's 5 Scapes of Globalization

For a long time, we have been used to see the world in binary form - First world vs. Third World, North vs. South, East vs. West etc. From this archaic concept, the world is separated by the rich and poor, and this is what Appadurai aimed to change by proposing the Scapes theory. In the age of globalization, our cultures intersect and overlap all the time due to the global cultural flow as explained by the Scapes theory; mediascapes, technoscapes, ethnoscapes, financescapes, and ideoscapes (Brown, McIlwraith, and de Gonzalez, 2020).

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Ethnoscapes represent the global movement of people around the world. This global movement has a direct influence on a nation's politics and economy. Tourists, immigrants, guest workers, exiles, etc. influence the politics of nations. This concept can also be used to explain how our cultures will be impacted in the future when we become interplanetary species. Will our interaction with other intelligent beings influence our cultures?

Technoscapes refers to how technology has spearheaded border movements. The internet has allowed different people from different parts of the globe to interact; this global interaction influences our culture in different ways. Financescapes explains the rapid movement of money across borders. The use of technologies such as Visa and MasterCard have enabled global movement of money and thus influencing how we conduct transactions. This can be experienced when you visit countries such as Iran and Cuba that have been partially blocked from global financescapes.

Media is another concept that plays a major role in constructing our identity in the modern world. Mediascapes has allowed information to traverse the sphere at a rapid rate. Ideoscapes describes how ideas and narratives spread around the globe. For instance, the Arab Spring saw the spread of liberal ideas where the Arab world demanded democratic reforms (Kidd, and McIntosh, 2016).

Conclusion

The examples outlined by Appadurai can be applied in today's world and provide answers for the economic, political, and social practices experienced in the 21st century. Appadurai argues that the central problem of modern-day globalization is in regard to the tension between heterogenization and homogenization. According to Appadurai, these theories do not hold since cultural elements reach new societies under modern globalization, and these cultures are indigenized into the local culture.

References

Brown, N., McIlwraith, T. and de Gonzalez, L.T., 2020. Globalization. Perspectives: An Open Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, 2nd Edition. Retrieved from: https://perspectives.pressbooks.com/chapter/globalization/

Kidd, D. and McIntosh, K., 2016. Social media and social movements. Sociology Compass, 10(9), pp.785-794.Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dustin_Kidd/publication/307626329_Social_Media_and_Social_Movements/links/5a661a74a6fdccb61c5a697a/Social-Media-and-Social-Movements.pdf