Issues on Global Cultural Migrations - Essay Example

Fear and otherness: Managing ‘we are here because you were there’ in an understanding of culture The ment ‘we are here because you were there’ indicates a discourse on colonialism, suggesting that migration was caused because of colonization in other lands, stripping them of their lifestyles and performing a transformation of the means of survival. The statement, however, also develops a more abstract philosophical debate on how culture has evolved in respect to where it has been in contrast to where it currently stands. Globalization has occurred because of how migration has occurred throughout history, rather than just through the impact of England as a conquering nation that transformed, often times through destruction, other regions of the world. Understanding the difference between culture and nation begins an understanding of how culture has evolved through the collision of beliefs and traditions that have integrated citizens of England, defining the culture as influenced by ‘otherness’, negating the very meaning of the concept of ‘otherness’. A nation is built upon a culture that develops a need to come together and form a structure of government in which beliefs and power are cantered, radiating out and using, protecting, and impacting all of those that live within its boundaries. The concept of creating a nation includes a sense of inclusion and exclusion in which those that are included are a part of something that ties them together, defined by those that are outside of those boundaries who do not have the same benefits. When a nation becomes powerful enough and economically advantageous enough to be seen as a place of opportunity, the result will be to attract people from other places, creating an influx of ‘otherness’ which begins to impact the core culture that originally developed the nation. The emergence of an integrated nation becomes a new entity. Migration becomes a source of cultural change, a system in which one culture shifts the entirety of another. The historical dialogue about the way in which history develops tends to keep cultures separated, the conversation becoming focalized on one culture independent to another. However, this is not a real representation of how the integration of cultures in one location develops. Caribbean history is not independent of English history, which is not independent of Scottish history, nor independent of Chinese history. The pieces of the historical relationships between the cultures are integrated, affecting the course of theory, philosophy, and tradition. As Gilroy (1995, p. 189) suggests, the revisionist tendencies of history tends to focus in one way or another, misinterpreting a culture as it is positioned within modernity. More even than misinterpreting culture through the entity of history, migration itself becomes a centre of debate, a dehumanized entity in which the act of moving from one region to another becomes separated from the individuals who will migrate. Migration becomes an evil that is part of a plot to take employment, resources, and advantages from the core culture, a threat against the ‘good’ of the current sense of nation. According to Garner (2007, p. 146), migration becomes tied to morality, those intending to come to a nation characterized by stereotypical negativity that places them within a questionable framework. The intentions of migration become in question, thus creating a sense of danger from ‘otherness’. The central problem with looking at migration as a separate system, a sense of culture and ‘other’ in which dangers and threats are lurking to pervert the existing sets of beliefs and traditions is that integration of cultures has already occurred, a long history of cultures colliding, shifting and moulding the world in such a way that globalization has been a long standing element of Earthly life. As an example, the rise of Humanism in the 17th century represented an embracement of ancient Greek philosophies which helped to inform and shift the philosophies of politics, which in turn supported the migration of Europe to the Americas in which a new nation was formed under ideologies that were not based upon focalized power such as a monarchy. King (1991, p. 3) questions whether “nationally defined society is the most appropriate unit either for cultural or social analysis”. The defining boundaries of nation is not the same as the defining boundaries of culture. Nation is about power. Culture, on the other hand, is primarily about belief systems, which in the case of a nation supports the power that it holds. King quotes Janet Wolfe for suggesting that “we need a theory of culture ‘at the level of the international’ and second in suggesting that cultural theory ‘has started to move away from its earlier, rather ethnocentric approach to investigate the global dimensions of cultural production and consumption”. The idea of culture and nation has often been focused on skin colour and power as they are situated within ethnic separations. However, it is the integration of differing cultures that has melded into a system of culture. The problem that often occurs is that culture becomes defined by physical characteristics, supporting some notion of race as an identifying aspect of culture, but the truth is that this is a construction of a socialization of beliefs about skin colour and physical attributes which are truthfully an arbitrary and meaningless way to define a social group. Merely by constructing these sets of belief, culture becomes defined through its beliefs about what skin colour means. Where in one culture green eyes may have meaning, in another culture blonde hair may have meaning. These are signifiers of culture, rather than a way of defining culture. In World War II Germany blond hair and blue eyes had a meaning that they do not have in modernity. In fact, blonde jokes are a common form of demeaning discourse in the United States as a form of putting down women. Culture is defined by beliefs about skin colour, rather than about the actual meaning of skin colour. Therefore, the first step in determining how the discourse of colonialism fits into the meaning of migration is to understand that the way in which ’otherness’ is ascribed has had meaning only because it is given credence as a dehumanizing resource. Often what is viewed in migration is a assertion of notions of slavery that is conferred an ethnographic profile. Guilt, shame, and resentments that are a part of the cultural social dialogue are then turned towards a sense of both disdain and responsibility. The politics of migration becomes a conflict in which cultures that were once independently defined by physical geographical boundaries no longer are within those constraints, thus the meaning that has been developed shifts to an undercurrent of emotional responses to the aftermath of colonization. The fear is based upon a belief that immigration is a source of threat. The English Empire proved that immigration can indeed be a great threat. Imperialistic beliefs sent the wave of English influence through nations, destroying cultural systems in a swath of believed superiority that dramatically changed the nature of survival through region after region. Therefore, the English people know very well what the impact of one culture upon another can lead. However, this fear is based upon a history of conquest, not upon a history of refuge. Migrants come to English borders as refugees from a colonial past, not as conquering entities that will sweep through the nation with a force of volatile change. It is fear of the ideological, however, that is stronger than fear of the militarily centred sense of destruction. According to Lucassen (2005, p. 2), as an example, one of the propaganda within the French borders is that Islam is quickly becoming the “dominant religious faith”, evoking stereotypical images of fanaticism, terrorism, and the decline of Christian values. The fear is ideological rather than physically centred, thus supporting prejudices and definitions of ’otherness’ that divide a culture as it stands. The same fears exist in England as migrants come to the shores, often based upon the still ringing aftermath of colonial destruction of the means of survival. The collide of cultures did occur through a belief in the right of imperialistic beliefs, that England was superior and due the resources that it could take from others without regard or respect to their existing needs of survival. English were the ’other’, the force of migration that went in and dealt destruction. In a world where the nation is no longer the centre of the world, the fear of the backlash influences is built upon knowing what it means for one culture to collide upon another. Chamberlain (1998, p. 2) suggests that the borders of nation as a means of a defining boundary is archaic. This globalized world in which corporations and economic entities cross borders and ideological restraints with ease is a unifying force that has conquered almost every corner of the world. Still, the debate on migration continues, a sense that holding on to the old beliefs of nation and culture is clawing and desperate. Culture is now a worldwide phenomenon in which beliefs and traditions are melding together into a capitalist, consumerist notion of need and want. Therefore, the debate on migration is almost moot. They are indeed here because of infiltration into their society there. Sending one culture into another will always have an impact, thus the impact that was sent upon others returns in the form of influence and change as it sweeps through philosophical and ideological corners to promote shifts and reflections. As an example, the Caribbean influences on food, beliefs, art, and the aesthetic is undeniable. The rich influences of this culture has reciprocated the conquering forces that entered their shores, however this reciprocation has not come on the tip of a sword, but through bringing a rich culture to bare upon the English backdrop. The debate is about fear. The reality is about a broadened awareness of ’other’. The hope is that someday the idea of ’other’ will not include that fear. References Chamberlain, Mary. 1998. Caribbean migration: Global identities. London: Routledge. Garner, Steve. 2007. Whiteness: An introduction. London: Routledge. Gilroy, Paul. 1995. The black Atlantic: modernity and double consciousness. London: Verso. King, Anthony D. 1991. Culture, globalization, and the world-system: contemporary conditions for the representation of identity. Binghamton: Dept. of Art and Art History, State University of New York at Binghamton. Lucassen, Leo. 2005. The immigrant threat: the integration of old and new migrants in Western Europe since 1850. 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