Name- Ojasvi Gulyani

Roll no. – 131

Question- What is globalization? Examine its relationship with consumption.

Answer- Globalization, according to sociologists, is an ongoing process that

involves interconnected changes in the economic, cultural, social, and political
spheres of society. As a process, it involves the ever-increasing integration of
these aspects between nations, regions, communities, and even seemingly
isolated places.

In terms of the economy, globalization refers to the expansion of capitalism to

include all places around the world into one globally integrated economic system.
Culturally, it refers to the global spread and integration of ideas, values, norms,
behaviors, and ways of life. Politically, it refers to the development of forms of
governance that operate at the global scale, whose policies and rules cooperative
nations are expected to abide. These three core aspects of globalization are
fueled by technological development, the global integration of communication
technologies, and the global distribution of media.

David Howes however, focuses on cross-cultural aspects of globalization and

refers to Grant McCracken who states that one of the most important ways in
which cultural categories are substantiated is through the material objects of a
culture created according to a blueprint of culture. McCracken agrees with Mary
Douglas who holds that goods are needed for making visible and stable the
categories of culture. As the material part of culture, goods afford set of markers
which both structure perception and facilitate social interaction.

The idea that goods substantiate the order of culture has inspired an extensive
body of research in the sociology and anthropology of consumption. However,
the conclusion of this research has led to a situation of cross-cultural
consumption, for when goods cross borders, then the culture they substantiate is
no longer the culture in which they circulate. Hence, with goods passing in and
out of cultures all the time, the interpretive power of notion like blueprint, code
or system of objects seems compromised.

Therefore, the relationship between goods and culture needs to be rethought,

taking the constant displacement of things in the increasingly global marketplace
into account. In other words, we need to know about the logic by which goods are
received in different societies.

David Howes further points out that the contemporary thinking about the cultural
effects of the migration of goods within the world market system has tended to
be dominated by the paradigm of global homogenization. According to this
paradigm, cultural differences are increasingly being eroded through the world-
wide replacement of local products with mass- produced goods. This process of
colonization of the non-western world through the institution of new regimes of
consumption is sometimes referred to as Coca-colonization.

The Universalist aspect of the Coca-Cola image was highlighted in the popular
1970s’ television commercials which showed a group of teenagers of diverse
ethnic origins on a hilltop singing. While Coca-Cola is promoted as a universal or
transcultural product, it is at the same time closely identified with the culture and
ideals of the United States. Coke is intimately bound up with the so-called ideal of
living in a consumer democracy. The consumption of Coca-Cola is thus, apparently
allied with the internalization of American political ideology and economic values.

The film The Goods Must Be Crazy provides another illustration of the association
between Coca-Cola, political change and consumerism. In this film, coke is
attributed an almost magical power to re-make societies in the image of its
country of origin. It is one of the most fetishized commodities the world has
known.

It has been observed that the replication of uniformity is the main reason for
Coke’s success. However, coke changed in 1985 when the formula was altered. It
led to the re-introduction of its original brand, now called Coca Cola Classic as
distinct from Coca-Cola. The result of this led to a significant increase in Coca-
Cola’s market share as there were two classes of coke drinkers where formerly
there was one. Thus, coke owes its current market dominance not only to the
replication of uniformity, but also to a strategy of the generation of the
difference or Coca-classicization. This Coca-classicization is a form of customized
mass production. It involves the exploitation of differentiation as opposed to
standardization. It has emerged as a major marketing strategy of the late 20 th
century.
Thus, the fact that the mass-produced and marketed goods such as Coca-Cola,
blue jeans, Hollywood movies are not only increasingly available in countries all
over the world, but appears to serve as a catalyst for cultural and political change
in those countries. Coca-Cola has displaced local products like coconut milk, fruit
juice and even water in many regions. Looking at the meanings and uses given to
specific imported goods within specific local contexts or realities, we find that the
goods have been transformed in accordance with the values of the receiving
culture. In addition to acquiring new uses, imported objects often become
imbued with alternative meanings upon incorporation into a new cultural setting.

David Howes therefore, says that the process of recontextualization whereby

foreign goods are assigned meanings and uses by the culture of reception may be
termed as hybridization or creolization. The creolization paradigm contrasts with
the Coca-colonization paradigm as firstly, coca-colonization refers to the flow of
goods and values from the west to the rest of the world whereas creolization is
concerned with the in-flow of goods, their reception and domestication.
Secondly, while coca-colonization is centered on the intentionality of the
producer, creolization also takes in the creativity of the consumer.

No imported object, Coca-Cola included is completely immune from creolization.

Indeed, coke is often attributed meanings and uses within particular cultures that
are very different from those imagined by its manufacturer. It seems that coke is
perceived as a native product in many different places. However, recognizing
creolization as an internal dimension of cross-cultural consumption can
significantly enhance one’s understanding of the migration of goods both within
the world market system and at the local level. The creolization paradigm
sensitizes one to all the ruptures and deflections, rejections and subversions that
can take place at each point in the economic cycle of production-exchange-
consumption. Creolization is thus, an intermediate construct rather than a
universal tendency. It is always the product of a conjuncture, an intersection,
hence not amenable to abstraction.

However, the main focus is on articulation between the local and the global in
each and every situation of cross-cultural consumption. The idea of abstraction
like the notion of creolization differs from many of the other formulas which have
been advanced to characterize the current state of the world system such as the
spread of modernity, the globalization of fragmentation, the process by which the
world becomes a single place.
Indeed anthropology has a vital role to play in the reconstruction of globalization
theory and transnational marketing alike, because of the unique insights which
result from the special position which the anthropologist as marginal native takes
up. The anthropological perspective is thus, bi-or multi-lateral as opposed to
global and marginal instead of central. And hence, it is the anthropologist who is
in the best position to study the local arrangements and to grasp the motivation
behind the assemblages people construct.

Moreover, the recognition that culture is constructed through consumption and

not just production is not confined to sociology and anthropology. Historians
have increasingly come around this view involving them in the complete historical
reperiodization of consumer culture, reconceptualizing its causes and
revaluating its moral and political consequences. Conceptualizing the
relationship between mode of production and mode of consumption has thus
become far more complex.

However, there has been serious attention paid to the construction or

reconstruction of culture through consumption outside of Western history, such
as Africa. Jean Comaroff explores the role of clothing in the making of colonial
subjects and ethnic communities in southern Africa. She points out that clothing
was considered to represent the fabric of civilization and was seen as a major
means of fashioning new social identities for the Africans. Comaroff goes on to
describe how the second-hand clothes from Britain did indeed foster the
Europeanization of Africans, playing into the making of new ethnic and class
divisions as well as encouraging syncretism with indigenous styles.

One such example of syncretism is that of South African chief who ordered a
European style suit to be made for him out of leopard skin. Given that leopard
skin was the traditional symbol of chiefly office, the chief was not simply
emulating European fashion, rather through cross-cultural consumption he was
seeking to double his authority in his community to construct a power that was
greater even than the sum of its parts.

Another person who also took a historical approach to the study of consumption
is Constance Classen. Her analysis is in the form of a family tale. Her narrative is
sensitive to the sudden materialization of products, substitutions all of which
have lent a surreal atmosphere to consumption in the Argentine northwest. Her
account provides a vital counterpoint to the prevailing biography of things
approach to the study of consumption.

Addressing the link between food and cultural identity, Allison James explores the
changes which have occurred in the British patterns of food consumption. James
notes, for example, that Indian food outsells fish and chips which feature a range
of international cuisine.

Brad Weiss, in coffee breaks and coffee connections describes how the Haya of
Tanzania use locally grown coffee as a masticatory and how this products fits
within the fabric of Haya social and ceremonial life. He finds out significant
conjunctions and disjunctions in the way this commodity has entered into the
definition of class relations and domestic relations. Carol Hendrickson on the
other hand explores various handmade items that are present in the US mail-
order catalogues. Her analysis reveals the powerful marketing value of cultural
difference in the West.

David Howes then throws light on aboriginal communities of North and South
America and how they have responded to the globalization of the consumer
society and particularly, to the commodification of their own way of life as a
result of international tourism, mass media representations and other such
forces. Some believe the marketization of culture or commodification of
tradition has become essential to cultural survival as it brings international
recognition and creates employment opportunities for youth, thus saving many
cultures from becoming museum items.

Mary Grain on the other hand, examines the situation faced by native women
from the town of Quimsa who are employed as domestic servants in an
international tourist hotel in Quito. She says that the Quimsa women’s strategy
for dealing with commodification may be described as one of accommodation
that is, they chose to live with their negotiating identity, while at the same time
exploiting it. An alternative strategy would be for the members of a community to
seek to restrict the appropriation of their way to life, that is, to remove their
culture from the market. This oppositional strategy is practiced by various
aboriginal groups of the US and Canada including the Hopi of Arizona.
Another strategy which people may to counteract the forces of misrepresentation
is to themselves employ modern media of communication to represent their
culture and world. This is the possibility explored by Marian Bredin. She notes
that electronic media are seen as homogenizing forces and the power of such
media to disseminate the values and practices of the dominant society should not
be underestimated. In the aboriginal communities, it appears that the
introduction of radio and television has had the effect of stimulating demand, not
just for mass-market programmes but for local programmes in local languages.
The result of such a demand is oral tradition going electronic.

Thus, what we find is that globalization has impacted every aspect of life
negotiating identities, transforming the traditional to the modern. Infact, the new
positions from which one can speak have increasingly evoked, not erased, the
borders they have transformed, but they have done so not to divide but to
interface and construct.