Local Cultural Identities - Essay Example

? (Translating Culture Seen Exam) 3191 words Translating Culture Seen Exam Globalization and Weakening of Local Cultural Identities Globalization can be considered as the spread of ideas, customs, institutions, and attitudes from a certain part of the world to the rest of the globe whereby the entire world uses a free market system. Globalization leads to integration of markets, nation-states, and technologies. Globalization has compressed time and space owing to mass media and technology. Globalization can be considered as three-dimensional term encompassing political, economical, and cultural aspects.1 There is a close interconnectedness between identity and globalization, even though the latter has an uneven and contradictory impact on identity. Globalization is an overwhelming global trend drawing both positive and negative influences. One of the significant impacts of globalization on cultural identity lies in the spread of multinational corporations. This has been a significant driver of consumer culture and standardization of products and values.2 Globalization has been significant in propagating economic opportunity, elevating human rights, and enhancing access to information, technology, and goods and services to the people. Globalization has had a remarkable influence on the viability of locally made products and the people who take part in producing them.3 Local culture can be analyzed in terms of three dimensions. The first dimension relates to human relationship to nature and to life while the second dimension relates to symbols and rituals that aid people in structuring social relationships and building communities. Lastly, culture infers quest for ultimate meaning that avails goals and motivations. People make culture, and culture, in turn, makes people. Cultures keep on changing, and evolving, and the elements within any cultural identity reflect consumer choices. Nevertheless, globalization may accelerate cultural change and lead to a quick dilution of local cultural identity.4 From a socio-cultural perspective, globalization has a permeating effect on building of relationships between and among people.5 Prior to the emergence of globalization, most cultures were local, autonomous, distinct, and well-defined. The previous robust and culturally sustaining experiences, connections and reinforced local cultural identity have been destabilized. In this case, identity can be perceived in terms of gender, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, and nationality. In the contemporary world, people’s lives are perpetually being modified by contradictory trends of globalization and identity. Cultural identity and globalization are correlated and interconnected phenomena. Globalization is a critical source of transformation of new and modern ideas, development of human capital and information. Globalization has enhanced contacts between people with their values, ideas, and ways of life. Globalization diffuses cultural traits from one society to another. Culture is altered by other cultures that it comes into contact with through diffusion, commercial or political relations. Globalization has been associated with free flow of information, rapid advancement in technology and communication. Similarly, there has been phenomenal growth in the transportation sector, leading to the world becoming a “global village.” The new global culture signifies a “deterritorializing” character of globalization and eventual emergence of a borderless world. This aspect is blamed for diminishing the consequence of locality in cultural experience.6 Globalization has eased the way in which people can take part or integrate into another country’s cultural, economic, and political life. The dominance of capitalism geared towards selling as much as possible to maximize profit has contributed significantly to the weakening of local cultures. The hyper commoditization stems from massive advertisement campaigns carried out to disseminate information concerning the products. Consumer culture and ‘McDonaldization’ of the world has a significant effect on individual identity, especially in altering the individual’s self-image. McDonaldization of society emanates from globalization and ultimately leads to global uniformity with heavy influence on local habits and traditions. Globalization has been associated with ruining of cultural identities whereby local cultures suffer the wrath of encroachment of a homogenized, westernized, and consumer culture. However, the perceived influence of globalization on culture is contestable. Globalization disperses culture throughout the world; this makes the world more heterogeneous and draws a deeper connection and understanding between different people.7 In contrast, there are those who argue that globalization makes cultures more homogeneous resulting to a unified world culture that comprises of diluted versions of local cultural trends. Nevertheless, globalization has significantly reduced the concept of local identity. Globalization nourishes social and political integration; in the process, it tears down local cultural identity. Globalization impacts local cultural identities in unprecedented ways. In today’s society, local cultural identities are increasingly becoming entangled in the unforgiving wheels of globalization. The weakening of the local identities by globalization is raising questions on the sustainability of local cultural identities. Distrust on globalization rests in the contention that such a process may highly erode national cultures and individual identities. Globalization has a phenomenal effect on socio-cultural and psychological identity of many people. Globalization has resulted to construction various cultural, religious, and psychological crises, inclusive of cultural imperialism and pluralism. This has resulted to changes within traditional social structure emanating from decline in social solidarity and creation of complexity in social relations. The transmission of cultural traits affects the assimilation and acculturation that indirectly influences culture and economic structures of societies. Globalization creates a global culture with amalgamation of identity bringing about a homogeneous culture throughout the world and micro-nationalism.8 The notion of the society and its cultures becoming fragmented and values becoming lost is not farfetched. Globalization has heralded a fresh wave of cultural experience aided by the ever advancing technology. Culture identity has become an easy prey to globalization. This arises from the fact that identity represents a dimension of institutionalized social life in modernity. Through globalization, the world has somewhat been transformed into a single place, single culture, and single identity. In the modern world, cities are increasingly becoming clones of each other; most of the city’s identity and local cultures are slowly melting at the hands of globalization. This is evidenced by loss of enriching culture and history of most cities. Individual distinctions of culture and society have become widely diffused resulting to the emergence of a homogeneous culture.9 This has redefined most cultural contexts. Cultural pluralism, heralded by globalization, has fuelled cultural conflict among the locally defined cultural traits with cultures from other places. Local cultures and national identities are slowly giving way to a world dominated by western values and symbols. This has arisen from treatment of cultural goods the same way as any other commodity in the global trade. Cultural imperialism has nowadays become a pertinent issue arising from political and economic domination of some countries, which exalt their global power in spreading their values and customs at the expense of local cultures. Fear for loss of cultural identity, demonstrated by skepticism of foreigners or immigrants, and leading to the emergence of widespread political mobilization.10 The debates concerning globalization and the loss of cultural identity have centred on safeguarding national sovereignty, preserving ancient heritage of indigenous people and safeguarding of national culture in light of growing inflows of foreign people and cultural goods such as films and music. The anti-immigrant groups cite the fact that national culture is being threatened, which sparks regressive responses that are nationalistic, xenophobic, and conservative. The defence of national identity comes at a heavy loss emanating from distortion of both human and economic development. The above efforts of shielding national identities are self defeating because cultural identities are heterogeneous and evolving; internal inconsistencies and conflict drive the change. In contemporary socio-cultural context, people are in constant search for fresh identities and cannot inevitably stay committed to a single identity for a long time.11 Globalization cannot be turned back as it is an ever-expanding process. Nevertheless, international business should perceive cultural goods and services differently from the other goods to protect the cultural diversity of developing countries. This is informed by the fact that rich and powerful countries have invaded much of the world markets, which has placed the people and cultures at a disadvantage due to their inability to compete.12 Globalization has resulted to integration of cultures whereby not a single culture can be said to control the world. For instance, even though America has always played a prominent function within the arena of cultural globalization, it has not been a one-way street as other cultures are influential within U.S. and vice versa. In any society, people assimilate other cultures and also share their cultures too. Despite the homogenizing effects of globalization, globalization can also be said to reinforce local cultures. The homogenizing effect of globalization leads to many people feeling insecure of losing their own identity, which sparks a reaction among people who want to reaffirm their own cultures. This is mostly exhibited in Islamic states where there is a violent reaction to western cultural influence or what they refer as “Americanization.” Globalization can be considered to proliferate rather than destroy identities.13 This is shaped by the notion that a person is not a simply an object of cultural influence, but a subject who has the capability of rejecting or integrating the culture. The advancement of technology, transport and communication has brought people closer than before. The closeness that has been heralded by globalization is not in conflict with diversity. In fact, in the era of globalization, people are becoming more sensitive to their own uniqueness, especially their own local culture. Local identities and cultures have gained strategic importance in the global arena. This has apparently been the case for peripheral localities. Consequently, there has been an intensification in importance of initiatives directed at preservation of cultural heritage both in financial and symbolic terms. Globalization and Effective Communication Globalization has enabled people to come closer to each other through consumerism, ideology, and knowledge. The modern world has been altered into a “global village” in which people are no longer constrained by borders or distances. The need for effective communication is becoming more pronounced and is critical to the success of today’s globalized arena. Globalization has raised the stakes even higher on the need to forge effective relationships with people from different cultures.14 Intercultural communication refers to how people from diverse cultural backgrounds endeavour to communicate (verbally or nonverbally) or work together. The interconnectedness aspect of the world demands building of stable relationships with people from other cultures. The integration of people in the modern world is critical to human society development. Globalization has made it difficult for any country to place a claim of exclusivity in the world cultural heritage. Intercultural communication infers communication between people whose cultural perceptions and symbol systems are unique enough to alter the communication event. Societies and communities have little or no choice but to participate in the globalization process. The character of people’s participation is shaped by distinct social, cultural, economic, and political conditions. This heralds a multi-level process of mediation between the global and local issues, which forms a critical character of communication and promises to change the context and nature of intercultural communication. Globalization has made intercultural communication inevitable as people come into constant contact with diverse cultures.15 The objectives of intercultural communication lie in establishing and understanding how people from diverse cultures behave, think or do. In today’s business world, intercultural communication translates to attaining a competitive edge as it plays an essential role in impacting people’s ability to communicate effectively within different cultures. Globalization has led to more effective communication and better association between individuals from other cultures. Globalization has radically changed the way of thinking and strategies of communication; this has led to an enhanced cultural integration. Globalization has enhanced competence in communication. Globalization welds people and institutions together thus promoting communication between people.16 This demands a close resemblance of cultures to enable concise sharing of values, beliefs, and customs. Besides the travel and communication, the growth in information technology has enabled an increased degree of information storage, retrieval, and communication. Globalization and Translation between Cultures Globalization and translation are intertwined, and each has had a significant effect on the other. Translation is perceived as one of the means, among other communicative activities, of shaping, reflecting, negotiating and interacting with the wider social context. In effect, translation brings cultures closer. Globalization, which pursues interconnectedness and interdependence between societies, has had a phenomenal effect on linguistic and social impact on translation.17 This arises from the fact that globalization necessitates translation as many parts of the world become interested in one another due to reasons such as world conflicts, world economics, and shared concerns, among other factors. Resulting from the current trend in globalization, translators and interpreters are no longer required to spotlight a translation of a phrase in the target language, especially if this would result to the target language text losing credibility. In the new age of globalization, people are constantly bombarded with technical and nontechnical words, which they must adopt. Globalization has made translators significant mediators among cultures. Globalization has radically impacted on the process of translation of cultures. Through globalization, literature and languages have found a wider audience.18 The volume of translation carried out worldwide has had unprecedented increase over the years. Translation and globalization have impacted immensely on political, cultural, philosophical, economic, and social aspects. The advancement of technology has condensed the cost of propagating information by making translation inexpensive as demonstrated by the fact that revisions are easier to make. However, with the rapid advancement of technology and accompanying liberalization of markets and cultures, the social context has emerged as conflicting with the functionality of translation. This is informed by the fact that translation targets distinct audiences, which can mainly be availed through localization.19 Localization in this case infers the process of facilitating globalization via addressing linguistic as well as cultural barriers. Translation, localization, and globalization can be considered to be hierarchically related. Globalization can be considered to evolve around translation and is critical to economic, technological, cultural, and commercial interests of any society. Historical Approach Historical approach to understanding national identity encompasses evaluation of social and cultural identities evolving out of history. A people’s cultural identity hinges on the historical context whereby cultural identity of historical persons, nations, and civilizations, among other aspects are probed. Civilizations, societies, individuals, classes, and styles are all subjects of history. Identity construction is demonstrated by historical accounts on human action such as historical biography, national history, cultural history, and Intellectual history. For instance, the approach may be based on a probe of language as a marker of ethnic and or national identity in diverse historical periods.20 This approach to cultural identity treats various aspects such as language as discursive constructions within specific historic discourses. Legal Approach A legal approach to cultural identity explores legal frameworks that have an enormous bearing on cultural identity such as citizenship laws, kinship laws and Diaspora programmes. This approach may probe the efficacy of policies dwelling on plural nationality and territorial approaches to cultural identity. Legal approach to cultural identity explores aspects such as mobilization of shared norms and beliefs across state boundaries. Cultural identity both informs and is influenced by aspects such as legal norms of state membership. This approach is somewhat restrictive as it is an assumption that national identity can purely be understood as a legal phenomenon. Racial Approach Racial identity refers to a sense of group or collective identity grounded in a person’s perception that he or she shares a common heritage with a certain group of persons. This approach delineates cultural identity in terms of the ethnicity or racial attributes. In this approach, identities are racial defined or differentiated. This approach uses racial identity as the locus for analyzing cultural identities.21 Ethnic identities characteristically have cultural distinctions as an outstanding primary difference. Racial approach to cultural identity is informed by the fact that people are ethnically distinct. Performative Approach A performative approach refers to discursive practice that enacts or produces that which it names. Performativity is a poststructuralist paradigm and has been an essential concept in understanding of issues such as language, culture, and society. Performativity is directed at illustrating categories such as cultural identity as not merely pre-existing entities, or the cause of certain practices, but rather the effect of institutions or discourses within certain power relations.22 A performative approach to cultural identity depicts cultural identity as dynamic; cultural identity is perpetually being reshaped, revalued, and reconstituted both through discourses, which recontextualises the notion. A performative approach to cultural identity perceives identities as an observable effect of situated social interaction, rather than an expression of some pre-existing inner essence. The acts of cultural identity are perceived as performative in the manner that the subject is constituted as a dynamic and aggregated effect of performing them. Much of the body of literature on language and cultural identity highlights the assumption that language and cultural identity are pre-given categories. Performative approach to identity infers that cultural identity is the object of discourse; simultaneously, it constructs ideologically loaded categories via which people organize their thoughts, as well as their social lives. Conclusion As demonstrated, globalization has had a phenomenal impact on people’s lives and cultures. Similarly, globalization has significantly impacted on translators’ work and lives whereby translation has evolved to become a critical tool for propelling understanding between cultures. Furthermore, globalization has transformed people’s familiarity with cultures that they were alien to them. The notion of cultural globalization infers a sense of interdependence, interchangeability, and permeability between local cultures and identities. Globalization has weakened or inadvertently destroyed cultural identities as well as destabilizing localities. Most anti-globalization lobby cite this fact as a reason to call for protection of local cultural identities. However, the protection of national cultures and identities should be accompanied by adoption of open policies that do not overly restrict the flow of goods, knowledge, people, and capital. The policies should be multicultural in order to strike a balance between trade, immigration, and investments in a manner that recognizes and respects cultural differences and identities. In this case, the aim is not to preserve tradition but to protect cultural liberty while expanding people’s choices in a manner that they can live freely and identify themselves. This is informed by the fact that defending humanity can hold back human development; thus, people should focus on respecting the differences and diversity among them. As demonstrated, diversity thrives in a globally interdependent world where people have multiple and complementary identities that belong not only to local community and the country, but also to humanity at large. Bibliography Gudykunst, Willian. Cross-cultural and intercultural communication. California, CA: Sage, 2003. Hall, Eliud & Reed, Hall. Understanding Cultural Differences. Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press, 1990. Shiyab, Said. Globalization and aspects of translation. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010. Tomlinson, John, Globalization and Culture, Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2001. Wang, Yi. “Globalization enhances cultural identity.” Intercultural Communication Studies, 2007, 16 (1): 83-86. Read More