Concerned with the transnational mobility of people and global cultural flows, the “weakening of the ties between culture and place” (Inda and Rosaldo 2008:14) has been a central issue in an anthropological inquiry into the cultural dynamics of globalization. This process is commonly referred to as “deterritorialization”, invoking the use of the term by Deleuze and Guattari (1972). In anthropology, it is used to designate “the displacement of identities, persons, and meanings” immanent in the postmodern world system (Kaplan 1987:188).
103 By the term “globalism”, she refers to “endorsements of the importance of the global” (Tsing 2000:330). 104
Taking the dialectic definition of Giddens, the globalization in the present research is understood as “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” (1990:64).
105 The structure of the following part is inspired by Inda and Rosaldo’s outline of the section on the cultural
However, challenging the hitherto-assumed fixed relationship between culture and a particular locale, anthropologists do not assume the randomness of cultural flows floating without anchors across the globe. Generally, deterritorialization is considered to be accompanied by the process of reterritorialization, “reinsertion of culture in new time-space context” (Inda and Rosaldo 2008:14, see also Gupta and Ferguson 1992:9, 19f.), as conceptualized by Deleuze and Guattari (1972)106. For the present purpose, the notion of “reterritorialization” above all points to the fact that culture “continues to have a territorialized existence, albeit a rather unstable one” as it can no longer be treated as something naturally rooted in a fixed territory (Inda and Rosaldo 2008:14f., see also Gupta and Ferguson 1992). Accordingly, it remains the task of anthropologists to theorize how “spaces and places are made, imagined, contested, and enforced” facing cultural flows across the globe (Gupta and Ferguson 1992:17f., see also chapter 2.2.1).
As anthropologists working on global movements and linkages, Hannerz, Kearney and Appadurai pay special attention to the displacement of identities, persons and meanings, whether they directly speak of deterritorialization or not. Instead of assuming the link among culture, people and place to be naturally given, each of them calls for reconsidering the role of space and place in the formation of communities and identities in the interconnected world. All of them challenge “the ruptured landscape” of “autonomous cultures” that has been so prevalent in the common representation of the world (Gupta and Fergusson 1992:8). However, focusing on different kinds of transnational interrelations, each author develops his own notion of an interconnected space (Tsing 2000:342).
Suggesting the term “global ecumene”107
to allude to the interconnectedness of the world,
106
As Deleuze and Guattari put it: “It may be all but impossible to distinguish deterritorialization from reterritorialization, since they are mutually enmeshed, or like opposite faces of one and the same process” (1977[1972]:258).
107 Hannerz’s selection of the term is inspired by Alfred Kroeber’s discussion on the concept “ecumene” of the
ancient Greeks (1945). Building upon the ancient use of the term referring to the entire inhabitable world imagined by them, Kroeber considers that the concept “remains a convenient designation for an interwoven set of
Hannerz (1989) is concerned with worldwide interactions and exchanges in terms of two-way, albeit asymmetrical cultural flows between the center and the periphery. The “global ecumene” is conceptualized by Hannerz as an arena in which once-separate cultures increasingly come into contact with each other through the improved technologies of mobility as well as a growing range of media that characterizes the modern age (cf. Tsing 2000:342).108
Like Hannerz, Appadurai considers that an interactive system of the world at the end of the 20th century is exceptional in character, manifested in the increased speed, scale and volume of exchanges (1990).109 However, in contrast to Hannerz’s conception of cultural flows in terms of center-periphery relationships, Appadurai emphasizes the complexity of the new global cultural economy, which can no longer be captured based on simple binary models represented by center-periphery frameworks (1990:6). As one of the major characteristics of current global cultural interactions, Appadurai refers to growing disjunctures between the flows of people, information, technologies, finance, and ideology. In consideration of this, he argues that the theory of such global cultural formations should focus on the relationships among these five dimensions of global flows110, which he conceptualizes in terms of contested landscapes.111 Given the radical disjunctures between different sorts of global flows, for Appadurai deterritorialization is one of the central forces of the modern world (1990:11). Manifested in the “the loosening of the holds between people, wealth, and territories”, it
(1945:9). To denominate the interconnectedness of today’s world, Hannerz prefers the expression “global ecumene” over other established terms such as global village or world system, as he regards that these are already too fraught with connotations. In addition, by using the term “ecumene”, he attempts to remind anthropologists of the fact that the anthropology of the mid-20th century represented by Alfred Kroeber and Robert Redfield was already concerned with interactions beyond the community boundaries (Hannerz 1996:6f.).
108 Hannerz opens his seminal article “Notes on the Global Ecumene” with the following sentences: “Cultural
interrelatedness reaches across the world. More than ever, there is now a global ecumene” (1989:66).
109
Appadurai begins his highly-influential article “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy” with the sentence “It takes only the merest acquaintance with the facts of the modern world to note that it is now an interactive system in a sense which is strikingly new” (1990:1). Compare Hannerz’s opening of “Notes on the Global Ecumene” (see footnote 108).
110 Appadurai respectively terms the five dimensions of global cultural flows: (a) ethnoscapes, (b) mediascapes,
(c) technoscapes, (d) financescapes and (e) ideoscapes (1990:6f.). For a description of the respective five domains, see Appadurai (1990:6-11). Some scholars criticize Appadurai’s division of global cultural flows into the five domains for being counterproductive (Tsing 2000:344f.) or arbitrary (Oonk 2000:158).
111 Appadurai recurs to the metaphor of landscape to point to the fluid, irregular shapes as well as the relativity of
“fundamentally alters the basis of cultural reproduction”, which becomes progressively destabilized112. As the link between space, stability and cultural reproduction can no longer be assumed as given, deterritorialization represents a challenge to the anthropological representation of culture. In view of this, anthropologists working in the present are increasingly asked to reflect upon the conception of culture in a globalized, deterritorialized world (1996:49).
In order to understand cultural dynamics of deterritorialization, Appadurai (1996) pays special attention to the role of imagination in social life. Seeing a general break with all sorts of past in the modern world113 (1996:3), Appadurai considers that one of the principal shifts in the global cultural order is related to the altered role of the imagination in social life (1991:198). Despite the imagination itself not being a new phenomenon, the work of the imagination in the modern age is strongly influenced by the mutual interaction of mass migration and electronic media, whose globalization has taken on new force in the past few decades (1996:3f.). Appadurai argues that the imagination as a social fact is “central to all forms of agency” and as such it represents “the key component of the new global order” (1990:5). For “more persons in more parts of the world consider a wider set of possible lives than they ever did before”, inspired by information obtained from mass media and contacts with migrants. Accordingly, the new power of the imagination lies in affecting the life choices of people in different societies with images, ideas and opportunities coming from elsewhere (1991:198f.). Concluding that “the link between the imagination and social life” is “increasingly a global and deterritorialized one”, Appadurai calls for an ethnographic representation that focuses on the impacts of “large-scale, imagined life possibilities over
112
Concerning cultural reproduction in a deterritorialized world, Appadurai even speaks of a “hazard”, as he puts it: “As the shapes of cultures grow themselves less bounded and tacit, more fluid and politicized, the work of cultural reproduction becomes a daily hazard” (1990:19).
113 Theorizing this rupture, Appadurai emphasizes that his theory of modernity should be distinguished from the
framework of classical modernization theory. Identifying electronic mediation and mass migration as two major diacritics, his conception of modernity is not a teleological one. In addition, focusing on the increasingly translocal formation of the imagination, his approach to the break is explicitly transnational or even postnational (1996:9).
specific life trajectories” (1991:200).
In sum, Appadurai conceptualizes the global interconnectedness in terms of disjunctive flows that cannot be subsumed into a center-periphery model. Like Hannerz, he identifies a break with the past in the contemporary world, characterized by cultural transactions of a new order and intensity. Working on a theory of the modern globalized world, Appadurai focuses on the new power of the imagination, which has become increasingly translocal in its inspiration, influenced by migration and mass media.
Whereas Hannerz and Appadurai foreground the emergence of cosmopolitan cultural forms, Kearney discusses the deterritorialization of communities and identities with an emphasis on the global political economy. Drawing from his fieldwork experience with peasant migrant workers from Oaxaca, Kearney identifies transnational migration and agro-industrialization as two powerful forces that incorporate rural Mexican communities into transnational and global contexts (1996b:127, 145). Facing the globalization of communities and identities, he argues for the need to rethink “the bipolar imagery of time and space” expressed in modern anthropological theory,114 which associates centers with modernity and peripheries with tradition, respectively (1995:549). Instead, he calls for an anthropological theory that reflects “global complexity” (1996:130). Thus, like Appadurai, Kearney refuses center-periphery frameworks, considering this opposition to dissolve under the influences of globalization. However, working with agricultural producers, Kearney deals with the relation between identity and physical territory in a more direct manner. In his case, the notion of deterritorialization is closely related with the fracturing of peasantry as a social identity and anthropological category (see chapter 2.2.2.3). According to Wolf’s definition (1955:453, see also pp. 62f.), effective control of land is one of the central characteristics of peasantry.
114 Taking an open approach, Appadurai is also critical of classical modernization theory, which relies on the
teleology of development. However, Appadurai defines his undertaking as an elaboration of an alternative theory of modernity (1996:9, see also footnote 113). On the other hand, Kearney’s use of the term “modern” is rather critical as it is applied to designate the modernist discourse in anthropology. Prognosticating a shift of
anthropological concern from “modern structures” to “global complexity”, he classifies “the modern” as a fading period of anthropology (1996b:130f.).
Accordingly, peasantness is an identity that is dependent on soil as a means of production and as such it is tied to a specific physical territory. However, as indigenous agricultural producers increasingly engage with the global political economy, Kearney considers that the peasant becomes a disruptive category (1996b:6). In the face of transnational migration and agro-industrialization, he assumes that the peasantness increasingly gives way to ethnicity as “an appropriate form of identity for transnational communities” (1996b:180). Unlike peasantness as an identity rooted in soil owing to its productionist nature, ethnicity represents a dimension of social identity that is relatively, independent of space. In this way, it enables a different kind of community formation than the territorially-bounded peasant community, as envisioned by Wolf (1955, 1957, see also chapter 2.2.2.2) (Kearney 1996b:180). However, pointing out that ethnicity is not necessarily based on an appropriation of physical territory, Kearney does not wholly negate its spatial dimension; instead, the value of the territory increasingly becomes symbolic. For example, more often than not, ethnic mobilization seeking territorial autonomy is not only concerned with control of land as a means of production but also with control over its symbolic value considered crucial for the construction of collective identity (1996b:180). Similarly, the case of a Mixtec peasant community analyzed by Kearney illustrates that the territorially-bounded home community in Oaxaca – which now forms only one component within a larger transnational community “Oaxacalifornia” – still serves as its “spiritual core” and “the primary point of common reference for its members” (1996b:182).115
In sum, although each of the three authors is concerned with the displacement of identities, persons and meanings in the age of globalization, the comparative analysis reveals their different approaches to the deterritorialization of culture. While Hannerz conceives global connections in terms of two-way, albeit asymmetrical cultural flows between the center and the periphery, Appadurai and Kearney refuse the center-periphery framework, underlining
115
According to Kearney, the nature of this greater transnational community comprising parent and offspring communities is best captured by the imagery of network as it best describes its limitless capacity to stretch out spatially as well as an active process of self-differentiation (1996b:124f.).
complexity of processes that cannot be captured based on simple binary models (Tsing 2000:342f.). For Appadurai and Kearney, the current world order is reflected in a multidimensional global space without sharp boundaries and distinct centers. Although they evoke the similar imagery of the deterritorialized world, their approaches differ from each other. Appadurai focuses on the altered role of imagination in the new global order, paying special attention to the increased globalization of migration and mass media. Despite also dealing with transnational migration, Kearney’s concern with deterritorialization is a more direct one. For him, the process above all implies a gradual shift of social identity from that tied to a specific physical territory as a means of production to one that is relatively independent of space in the face of the transnational formation of communities.
This section thus far has dealt with the approaches of Hannerz, Appadurai and Kearney to the displacement of identities, persons and meanings in the age of globalization. The notion of deterritorialization was crucial in calling into question the spatial mapping of cultural differences, which had long been taken for granted in anthropology (Inda and Rosaldo 2008:12f.). Starting from the recognition of the global nature of cultural interactions discussed above, the following section presents how the organization of these flows is conceptualized by the authors Hannerz, Appadurai and Kearney.