Translating culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Translating culture - Essay Example 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 cu lture, 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 s ource 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 â€Å"global village.† The new global culture signifies a â€Å"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 pol itical 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