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13.8: End of Chapter Discussion

  • Page ID
    56503
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    Discussion

    • In his research, Kelsey Timmerman discovered that the average American is wearing clothes made in many different countries. This demonstrates how everyday items can involve all five of Arjun Appadurai’s scapes. Choose another product that is part of your everyday life. How many scapes can you connect it to?
    • Globalization makes new forms of consumption possible, but the effects of globalization on an individual’s lifestyle vary based on many factors including socioeconomic status. In what ways is globalization experienced differently by people from wealthy countries compared to people in developing countries? How are producers of commodities like clothing or food affected differently by globalization than consumers?
    • In Latin America, globalization and neoliberalism have led to the development of policies, such as the privatization of the water supply, that reduce local control over important resources. In what ways is globalization a “double-edged” sword that brings both benefits and problems to developing countries?
    • Globalization presents the possibility of engaging in activity-based anthropology, where it is the activity itself that is the ‘“site”’ studied, or digital anthropology, where the field site exists online. What kinds of activities or digital environments do you think would be interesting to study using this approach?

    GLOSSARY

    Ethnoscape: the flow of people across boundaries.

    Financescape: the flow of money across political borders.

    Global North: refers to the wealthier countries of the world. The definition includes countries that are sometimes called "First World" or"Highly Developed Economies."

    Global South: refers to the poorest countries of the world. The definition includes countries that are sometimes called "Third World" or "Least Developed Economies."

    Globalization: the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.

    Glocalization: the adaptation of global ideas into locally palatable forms.

    Habitus: the dispositions, attitudes, or preferences that are the learned basis for personal "taste" and lifestyles.

    Ideoscape: the global flow of ideas.

    Mediascape: the flow of media across borders.

    Neoliberalism: the ideology of free-market capitalism emphasizing privatization and unregulated markets.

    Syncretism: the combination of different beliefs, even those that are seemingly contradictory, into a new, harmonious whole.

    Technoscape: the global flows of technology.

    Urban anthropology: The study of living in cities and the relationships of city life to broader social, political, and economic contexts including issues of globalization, poverty, and neoliberalism.


    Adapted From

    "Globalization" by Lauren Miller Griffith, Texas Tech University, and Jonathan S. Marion, University of Arkansas. In Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology, 2nd Edition, Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges, 2020, under CC BY-NC 4.0.


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