Consumers+and+Citizens+Globalization+and+Multicultural+Conflicts


 * =Title Consumers and Citizens= ||  ||
 * =Author Nestor Garcia Canclini= ||  ||
 * =Date= ||  ||
 * =Summary By= || Tatiana ||
 * =Summary= ||  ||
 * Nestor Canclini, Consumers and Citizens

Questions of interest · How to get beyond binary view of globalization as local vs global, toward discussion of the how cultural practices develop in different countries and the interaction between multicultural social arrangements and globalizing projects. (3-4)

· How consumerism and globalization intersect with political power and citizen identity

· Consumption - the ensemble of sociocultural processes in which the appropriation and we of products takes place. He seeks to recast it as a positive place where “economic, sociopolitical, and psychological rationality is organized in all societies.” (38) · Identities are shaped less by personal history and more by consumption · Historically consuming nationally produced products reinforced cultural identity, more difficult today when product, though national (i.e. Ford) have parts (and assembly processes) that are produced internationally. · When we select goods, we define what we think is publicly valuable, and also ho we integrate or distinguish ourselves in society. (20). Similarly, citizenship has to do with more than just rights in a formal societal structure but also the struggle for recognition as other as people with valid interests, values etc.
 * Consumption is good for thinking 37-48**

· Local and national institutions decline in importance · There is a reformulation of patterns of urban settlement · Redefinition of the sense of identity/belonging, shaped less my national influences but more by international communities of consumers · **Interesting quotes** o “One of the conclusions of this study is that not only does the city not possess //one// public for culture but that such a public cannot even be brought together by a consolidated program like that of the festival. Despite its encompassing and multidisciplinary character, its appeal to both cultivated and popular audiences, and its location in both enclosed and open-air spaces, the festival turned out to be a kind of laboratory of the multicultural heterogeneity and dispersion of Mexico City. And, like the festival, the city can be said to exist more for the government and the press than for its citizens. Some urban researchers, notably demographers and sociologists, see the city as a whole. In contrast, and with few exceptions, most anthropologists and cultural studies scholars see the city as a disassembled jigsaw puzzle” (56)
 * Mexico 49-65**

o There are “three modes of organization that may also be found in other cities: (a) a "family corporatism" whereby members of an extended family participate in common activities of production and consumption as a defense against competition and uncertainty at the larger social level; //(6)// a "neighborhood corporatism" whereby neighborhood groups, under a strong and often religious leadership, organize the search for housing and jobs, the use of their free time, and the creation of mutual help networks, that compensate for the lack of services and protection; (c) a "civic association" that pursues similar goals, giving priority, however, to democratic participation over corporatist or authoritarian domination”. (57-58)

o “The point is to imagine how the use of international information and the simultaneous need for belonging and local roots can coexist without discriminatory hierarchies in a democratic, intelligent, and egalitarian multicultural society”. P61

o “The meaning of the city is constituted by what the city gives or does not give, by what the subjects can do with their lives within an overdetermined habitat, and by what they imagine about themselves and others in order to "suture" the flaws, the absences, and the disappointments generated by urban structures and interactions in response to their needs and desires. In an age of globalization, in which the city is constituted not only by what takes place within its territory, but also by the way in which it is traversed by migrants and tourists, messages and goods from other countries, we construct what is ours with greater intensity against the backdrop of what we imagine about others”. (62)


 * Urban Cultural policies 66-76**

Youth gangs and discrimination against migrants prevent discussion of homogeneous identity in large cities. Migrants fight for sociopolitical control and youth gangs offer alternative socialization and other means of access to commodities. The disintegration of the city as a result of demographic expansion and urban sprawl diminishes the organizational significance of the historic center and shared public spaces that once encouraged common experiences in the Mexican capital. Territorial expansion and the massification of the city that reduced interaction among neighborhoods are processes that date from the 1950s to the present, precisely the same period in which radio, television, and video spread throughout the city. P74

Divide between constructivist analysis of culture and fundamentalist doctrines of ethnic or national movements. The former believes that identities are constructed, etc and are constantly in flux and renegotiated; the latter assumes a purity that is unspoiled by history.
 * Narrating the multicultural**

Historically, belonging to a nation gave individuals identity. In a city context, the narratives are the result of the struggles between social groups for primacy (81), but still subordinate to the national identity.

“Large cities torn by erratic growth and multicultural conflicts are the sites where we can best observe the decline of metanarratives, of utopias that projected an ascendent and cohesive human development throughout time. Even in those cities laden with signs of the past, like the Mexican capital, the weight of the present and the perplexity of an anticipated uncontrollable future erode temporal experiences and privilege simultaneous connections in space.” P84

“The city is like a montage of discontinuous images” (84)

Discussion: IS there really a difference between globalization and globalization of the local?

Are identities really shaped more by consumption? How does globalization change my sense of community?

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