Page 186 - Cultural Studies A Practical Introduction

14

Transnationality, Globalization,

and Postcoloniality

with Hanna Musiol

Culture is often national in character. The culture of Japan is distinct in
many respects from that of nearby China. The cultural traditions are dif-
ferent; the current political culture is different. If one moves a little further
away, to Indonesia, say, or to India, the differences multiply – according
to religion, food tastes, language, literary and musical traditions, and so

on. But one would also find similarities between these very different
national locations. The same shows might be on television, imports often
from one country to the next, or the same Western - style clothing might
be on sale in stores. On the radio, one might hear the same international
pop music. In many places, culture is both national and transnational, a

matter of local production or tradition and a matter of “ flow ” between
nations.
Cultural nationalists endorse the belief that states are politically sover-

eign entities with clearly defined borders, a unified political and economic

system that affects all similarly, and a set of legal and cultural practices
shared by its citizens. Nation - states, in such a view, are imagined as more
or less homogeneous, culturally and ethnically: culture is produced inter-

nally, within a country ’ s borders with little outside influence, and shared
by the country ’ s citizens equally. Accordingly, nationalists ignore or reject
the transnational dimension of cultures, and, no less importantly the diver-
sity of cultures within one country. Think, for example, how a culture of
Native Americans on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota might
differ from that of the financial elite in New York or of Chinese immigrants

in San Francisco.
Considered as a transnational phenomenon, culture transcends, under-
mines, and displaces national borders. In the second half of the twentieth
century, the cultures of the former Eastern Bloc in Europe (Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, Poland, Romania, and, to a lesser degree, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria,