Welp, I guess this is my last blog post, so perhaps I will keep it short and sweet. This week helped me wrap up a lot of loose ends to theory. When we initially started with Appadurai this semester it was so much information to take in but I was intrigued by what I knew was going to come throughout the weeks ahead. Reading, and going over Appadurai again this week has simply solidified some of the theories we have already learned about and has strengthened my understanding of Appadurai's theory.
As the semester does come to a close, I think Appadurai is still my favorite theorist. I don't know what it is about the five dimensions he emphasizes, ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes and ideoscapes, but they just all make sense to me in helping me understand theory, specifically his, as a whole.
What's interesting is, now I wonder, what is real, even more than I did when this class just begun. However, I believe this is due to my ability to think more critically at this time.
"There is a battle of the imagination," (518) writes Appadurai, and I believe that battle has infected our culture as a whole. Who is to say what is real and what is imagined? Who is to say what is imagined and what it real? Only those that think critically can begin to uncover these "truths".
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Arjun you stud
Arjun Appadurai was terrible to read to start the class. At the time it made me feel very intimidated of theory. I did not know if I was ever going to understand what Appadurai was saying.
Now that we have revisited Mr. Appadurai, I am actually grateful for reading him first. I had no idea who he was referencing when we first read him, but now after taking this journey through theory I have begun to make the connections that Appadurai is getting across.
"If your present is their future, and their future is your past, then your own past can be made to appear as simply a normalized modality of your present" (513).
I can't explain this one.
Ethnoscapes and technoscapes have begun to make more sense to me. They tie in together because technology helps to spread ethnoscapes. The spread of different cultures is made available through technology.
Now that we have revisited Mr. Appadurai, I am actually grateful for reading him first. I had no idea who he was referencing when we first read him, but now after taking this journey through theory I have begun to make the connections that Appadurai is getting across.
"If your present is their future, and their future is your past, then your own past can be made to appear as simply a normalized modality of your present" (513).
I can't explain this one.
Ethnoscapes and technoscapes have begun to make more sense to me. They tie in together because technology helps to spread ethnoscapes. The spread of different cultures is made available through technology.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Appadurai
When we initially read Appadurai, I was really confused and a little scared.. I didn't really know what to think about what he was saying, let alone what he actually WAS saying. But after rereading him, everything made a lot more sense. He basically ties in all the theorists and theories that we've read this semester and created a bridge between them.
I remember in the beginning of the term we discussed his fives "scapes": ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes, and ideascapes. He asserts that these are the five categories that heavily impact the world and hold systems that make our cultures exactly what they are. When Appadurai gets to the part about mediascapes, you can see him tying in Bourdieu and how the media plays a major role in how the media desensitizes us from things that are crucial in our world. He also agrees with Zizek by asserting that reality and fakeness has reached a point where it is indecipherable. "The lines between realistic and fictional landscapes they see are blurred, so that the farther away these audiences are from the direct experiences of metropolitan life, the more likely they are to construct imagined worlds that are chimerical, aesthetic, even fantastic objects, particularly if assessed by the criteria of some other perspective, some other imagined world." (515). This also relates to Eco because it implies that we, as humans, go about believing passively. We don't question the things around us. Therefore, the fakeness that we are being exposed to is perceived as real, which creates a very dangerous environment.
Another quote that stuck out to me was in relation to Baudrillard's theory of simulacra and how everything has become processed and artificially reproduced. "...The consumer has been transformed through commodity flows (and the mediascapes, especially of advertising, that accompany them) into a sign, both in Baudrillard's sense of simulacrum that only asymptotically approaches the form of a real social agent, and in the sense of a mask for the real seat of agency, which is not the consumer but the producer and the many forces that constitute production." (519) Appadurai goes along with Baudrillard's theory and adds to it by saying how simulacrum in conjunction with our passivity and uncritical willingness as consumers is what drives the success of 'consumerism'.
Although I was able to make some connections that I hadn't previously been able to in the beginning of the semester, there are still some things I'm unsure on, but I know we'll cover it in class tomorrow.
I remember in the beginning of the term we discussed his fives "scapes": ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes, and ideascapes. He asserts that these are the five categories that heavily impact the world and hold systems that make our cultures exactly what they are. When Appadurai gets to the part about mediascapes, you can see him tying in Bourdieu and how the media plays a major role in how the media desensitizes us from things that are crucial in our world. He also agrees with Zizek by asserting that reality and fakeness has reached a point where it is indecipherable. "The lines between realistic and fictional landscapes they see are blurred, so that the farther away these audiences are from the direct experiences of metropolitan life, the more likely they are to construct imagined worlds that are chimerical, aesthetic, even fantastic objects, particularly if assessed by the criteria of some other perspective, some other imagined world." (515). This also relates to Eco because it implies that we, as humans, go about believing passively. We don't question the things around us. Therefore, the fakeness that we are being exposed to is perceived as real, which creates a very dangerous environment.
Another quote that stuck out to me was in relation to Baudrillard's theory of simulacra and how everything has become processed and artificially reproduced. "...The consumer has been transformed through commodity flows (and the mediascapes, especially of advertising, that accompany them) into a sign, both in Baudrillard's sense of simulacrum that only asymptotically approaches the form of a real social agent, and in the sense of a mask for the real seat of agency, which is not the consumer but the producer and the many forces that constitute production." (519) Appadurai goes along with Baudrillard's theory and adds to it by saying how simulacrum in conjunction with our passivity and uncritical willingness as consumers is what drives the success of 'consumerism'.
Although I was able to make some connections that I hadn't previously been able to in the beginning of the semester, there are still some things I'm unsure on, but I know we'll cover it in class tomorrow.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Kayla Salyer -- Appadurai
Rereading Appadurai today was a completely new experience than before. When first touching on this piece, I was more than confused throughout the entire thing, and frustrated with each sentence I read. Now, I find myself far more comfortable with the material I read, and able to understand far more than I did in the past.
That being said, I want to talk about one specific thing Appadurai writes about: Cultural expansion. As mentioned early on in his essay, Appadurai shows the various restrictions and barriers cultures had to face in order to spread to other parts of the world. From geography to religious and political laws, culture was sectioned to certain parts of the world. This changed very quickly and very drastically in modern times. One of the most prominent ways it spread was due to the fact that we do not have to communicate face to face. We have telephones, internet, television and countless others that connect us with the world around. A stream of benefits and consequences have stemmed from this cultural change. Mentioning Jameson, Appadurai talks about this "nostalgia we have for the present"(Appadurai 512), this feeling of a loss of something. We constantly look back and think we are missing something in our present day lives, which causes us to search for something in the present that can be from the past. He is putting forth the idea that we are not living in the present anymore because we are always longingly looking into the past.
Relating these ideas to another class, I have been looking at the modernization of Japan. Japan was closed off from the rest of the world for a long period of time, until the west forced themselves onto their borders. Japan did their best to keep their culture, yet westernization was inevitable. Reading a book from the early 1920's, it is evident that westernization was taking a toll on the Japanese culture. A writer expressed his fears and longings towards a western girl, while wanting her to have a basis of Japanese culture. The woman in the book turned into the exact opposite of the writers dream because although she was western to an extent, she had no Japanese cultural background. The author expresses how detrimental this can be. The woman looses herself to a false, idealized western culture of lies, cheat and hatred. According to the book, the lack of a core culture, and the influence of a foreign culture had detrimental effects. This correlates with Appadurai's ideas of the consequences of the spread of culture, as well as the nostalgia for the present.
That being said, I want to talk about one specific thing Appadurai writes about: Cultural expansion. As mentioned early on in his essay, Appadurai shows the various restrictions and barriers cultures had to face in order to spread to other parts of the world. From geography to religious and political laws, culture was sectioned to certain parts of the world. This changed very quickly and very drastically in modern times. One of the most prominent ways it spread was due to the fact that we do not have to communicate face to face. We have telephones, internet, television and countless others that connect us with the world around. A stream of benefits and consequences have stemmed from this cultural change. Mentioning Jameson, Appadurai talks about this "nostalgia we have for the present"(Appadurai 512), this feeling of a loss of something. We constantly look back and think we are missing something in our present day lives, which causes us to search for something in the present that can be from the past. He is putting forth the idea that we are not living in the present anymore because we are always longingly looking into the past.
Relating these ideas to another class, I have been looking at the modernization of Japan. Japan was closed off from the rest of the world for a long period of time, until the west forced themselves onto their borders. Japan did their best to keep their culture, yet westernization was inevitable. Reading a book from the early 1920's, it is evident that westernization was taking a toll on the Japanese culture. A writer expressed his fears and longings towards a western girl, while wanting her to have a basis of Japanese culture. The woman in the book turned into the exact opposite of the writers dream because although she was western to an extent, she had no Japanese cultural background. The author expresses how detrimental this can be. The woman looses herself to a false, idealized western culture of lies, cheat and hatred. According to the book, the lack of a core culture, and the influence of a foreign culture had detrimental effects. This correlates with Appadurai's ideas of the consequences of the spread of culture, as well as the nostalgia for the present.
In Which Appadurai Gives Me Stuff to Talk About, BoredCaitlin
I can remember reading Appadurai at the beginning of the semester and being completely baffled. I finished reading the article in a confused daze and my only thought was, “what the hell did I just read?” (To be fair, Appadurai wasn’t the only theorist I had that reaction to.) Looking at it now that we’ve read so many theorists, it makes a bit more sense. I could understand what Appadurai is writing about and I was able notice connections to the other theorists we’ve discussed...
There are definitely more connections to other theorists to be made here, but if I were to go through all of them, this would be a very long blog post.
- “a new power was unleashed in the world, the power of mass literacy and its attendant large-scale production of projects of ethnic affinity that were remarkably free of the need for face-to-face communication between persons and groups.” (Appadurai 512)
- “if a global cultural system is emerging, it is filled with ironies and resistances, sometimes camouflaged as passivity and a bottomless appetite in the Asian world for things Western.” (Appadurai 512)
- “States find themselves pressed to stay open by the forces of media, technology, and travel that have fueled consumerism throughout the world and have increased the craving, even in the non-Western world, for new commodities and spectacles.” (Appadurai 518)
There are definitely more connections to other theorists to be made here, but if I were to go through all of them, this would be a very long blog post.
Brooke Bumgarner - Revisiting Appadurai
"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 that is strikingly new" (511) wrote Appadurai. This much is clear in society today, as each country does not merely possess the consumer goods of their own land, but we find goods shipped from near and far into almost every area. There is no denying however, that there are still areas of the world virtually untouched, or not near as easy to reach as others, however, "this intricate and overlapping set of Eurocolonial worlds... set the basis for a permanent traffic in ideas of peoplehood and selfhood, which created the imagined communities (Anderson 1983) of recent nationalisms throughout the world" (Appadurai, 511). However, this does not apply purely to capital, but even more importantly to the technical and mediated sphere of human life.
"For the past century, there has been a technological explosion, largely in the domain of transportation and information..." (Appadurai 512). Today, argues Appadurai, our media and technological advances make it so that media can be transmitted widely throughout the world. We are living in an era of cultural interactions that are blending our cultures together, it seems. It is further argued by Appadurai that, "most often, the homogenization argument subspeciates into either an argument about Americanization or an argument about commoditization" (513). Many today argue that Americanization is occurring throughout our world, however, we fail to understand how each culture may make simulated ideas their own.
Appadurai importantly argues that, "the new global cultural economy has to be seen as a complex, overlapping, disjunctive order that cannot any longer be understood in terms of existing center-periphery models... the current global economy has to do with certain fundamental disjunctures between economy, culture, and politics that we have only begun to theorize" (514). A very important statement to take into account, we have only begun to theorize them, for the world we are in is ever changing.
The disjunctures he argues are made up of five dimensions: ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes, and ideoscapes. All of which, I believe are constantly in flux, as noted above, ever changing.
Ethnoscapes can be understood as the shifting of and exchange of individuals through cultural boundaries, best understood as migration I suppose.
Technoscapes can be understood as the fluid, new and advancing exchanges of information and interactions between cultures due to the power of technological advances.
Financescapes is closely related to the previous two, however because of the specifics of every culture and landscape, it is hard to imagine a truly global political economy as Appadurai calls it. It appears to me that his is still the dimension with the biggest gaps. It is widely unpredictable because of its nature of change he argues.
Mediascapes Appadurai claims "refer both to the distribution of the electronic capabilities to produce and disseminate information" (515) across cultural boundaries previously held. This is reflective widely of the various media outlets- news, television, magazines, ect. that help us create an imagined world in which we can blend each part of cultures we like to create a utopian idea of what we would ideally wish to exist in.
And finally, ideoscapes, deal with the political side of such imaginary worlds, or fantasizes and they deal frequently with "ideologies of states and the counter-ideologies of movements explicitly oriented to capturing state power or a piece of it" (Appadurai, 516).
"For the past century, there has been a technological explosion, largely in the domain of transportation and information..." (Appadurai 512). Today, argues Appadurai, our media and technological advances make it so that media can be transmitted widely throughout the world. We are living in an era of cultural interactions that are blending our cultures together, it seems. It is further argued by Appadurai that, "most often, the homogenization argument subspeciates into either an argument about Americanization or an argument about commoditization" (513). Many today argue that Americanization is occurring throughout our world, however, we fail to understand how each culture may make simulated ideas their own.
Appadurai importantly argues that, "the new global cultural economy has to be seen as a complex, overlapping, disjunctive order that cannot any longer be understood in terms of existing center-periphery models... the current global economy has to do with certain fundamental disjunctures between economy, culture, and politics that we have only begun to theorize" (514). A very important statement to take into account, we have only begun to theorize them, for the world we are in is ever changing.
The disjunctures he argues are made up of five dimensions: ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes, and ideoscapes. All of which, I believe are constantly in flux, as noted above, ever changing.
Ethnoscapes can be understood as the shifting of and exchange of individuals through cultural boundaries, best understood as migration I suppose.
Technoscapes can be understood as the fluid, new and advancing exchanges of information and interactions between cultures due to the power of technological advances.
Financescapes is closely related to the previous two, however because of the specifics of every culture and landscape, it is hard to imagine a truly global political economy as Appadurai calls it. It appears to me that his is still the dimension with the biggest gaps. It is widely unpredictable because of its nature of change he argues.
Mediascapes Appadurai claims "refer both to the distribution of the electronic capabilities to produce and disseminate information" (515) across cultural boundaries previously held. This is reflective widely of the various media outlets- news, television, magazines, ect. that help us create an imagined world in which we can blend each part of cultures we like to create a utopian idea of what we would ideally wish to exist in.
And finally, ideoscapes, deal with the political side of such imaginary worlds, or fantasizes and they deal frequently with "ideologies of states and the counter-ideologies of movements explicitly oriented to capturing state power or a piece of it" (Appadurai, 516).
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
What is Normal??, Response to Trying Desperately to Find Something to Say About Foucault, BoredCaitlin
When reading Caitlin's post about Foucault and his binary oppositions, it got me thinking about why they exist, especially normal vs. abnormal. What classifies someone as normal? What does normal look like?
This train of thought jogged my memory about a video I saw not too long ago. It was about a man who decided to take measurements from numerous disabled people and created exact mannequin replicas of their bodies. These mannequins were displayed with clothing on them in store windows for all to see. The people who walked by noticed the bodies right away. Many were confused, and they continued to stare for a moment. The importance of the video was to show that no one is perfect, and we all come in different shapes and sizes so there truly is no concept of 'normal'.
I am currently in a disabilities class and this subject has become very dear to my heart after reading about many people's experiences and difficulties trying to fit in by making themselves appear more 'normal'. Like Foucault is saying, these binaries are unnecessary and even hurtful. If the world just stopped feeding into them, it would be a happier and a much more real place.
This train of thought jogged my memory about a video I saw not too long ago. It was about a man who decided to take measurements from numerous disabled people and created exact mannequin replicas of their bodies. These mannequins were displayed with clothing on them in store windows for all to see. The people who walked by noticed the bodies right away. Many were confused, and they continued to stare for a moment. The importance of the video was to show that no one is perfect, and we all come in different shapes and sizes so there truly is no concept of 'normal'.
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