The geographical dimensions of cultural globalisation

Abstract

During the last few decades the notion of globalisation has become a cornerstone in the endeavour of capturing the ‘spirit of the times’ for academics, politicians and journalists alike. Because of its social embeddedness globalisation has been reduced to a buzzword. However, the spread of global processes underlines the need to investigate globalisation as well as the concomitant spatiotemporal transformations.

The cultural dimensions of globalisation were neglected until quite recently, yet widening, deepening and accelerating global interconnectedness have made processes of cultural reproduction more conspicuous. Moreover, through commodification, a strong interdependence has been evolving between culture and everyday consumption practices. An increasing number of human geographers (affected, too by the cultural turn in human geography) is directing its attention towards cultural aspects, challenging the exclusively explanatory role of political and economic considerations.

Yet a research gap still exists in Hungarian literature regarding not only specifically cultural, but also comprehensive studies on globalisation. In order to fill this lacuna, this study offers some insight into the interpretation of theories of cultural interactions at the global level as well as a critical analysis of the three distinctive approaches conceptualising the changes in cultural spatial inequalities: ‘cultural convergence’ envisioning a westernised global culture, ‘cultural differentialism’ involving the stubbornness of particular cultural roots, and ‘hybridisation’ resulting in a global mélange.

The paper attempts to grasp the prevailing discourses, key issues, and critiques based on a wide range of empirical findings. Hybridisation, informed by the anti-essentialist concept of hybridity, is becoming an increasingly popular concept among scholars. Although not offering a tangible way of understanding cultural identities, hybridity as a holistic interpretative perspective is particularly suited to investigating the fluidity of cultural processes.

This paper argues that cultural flows and the responses to their products, images and symbols are linked to increasingly complex and interconnected cultural identities with people from different places using different methods for their cultural reproduction. Furthermore, exploring the geographical dimensions of cultural globalisation, one must accept the necessity to measure against varying standards so that dichotomous grand theories and false generalisations can be avoided.