People say Indus valley civilization or Egyptian civilizations which are primitive civilizations. On the other hand, culture means the ways of thinking, acting, behaving that people have internalized in them and which are transformed into reality through their actions in the society. For example, respecting the elders or treating guests as the God; as in “Atithi devo bhava” are examples of particular cultural traits. Here before proceeding any further one needs to understand the various constituents of the culture.

When one studies culture, two things can not be neglected; cultural traits and cultural complexes. Cultural traits are the individual acts that defy any scientific reason but are simply followed on the basis that they are rooted in tradition. The examples of cultural traits are folding hands in front of a deity or touching the feet of elders. The inter-related cultural traits form a cultural complex.

For example while performing a “pooja” one lights an “agarvati”, chants some hymns or devotional songs, offers “Prasad” to the lord etc. All these activities constitute the cultural complex. The inter-play and interaction of the different cultural complexes form the substratum of culture. With so much of epistemological differences between culture and civilization one needs to see what separates the both. Culture refers to those intrinsic and intangible elements that engulf human whereas civilization includes all the physical objects that are the exemplification of some objective realities.

Civilization is the human creativity, intellect and volition translated into reality whereas culture is the morality and intellect that remain as the under current of human thought. Civilization progresses thorough the vehicle of knowledge and technology whereas culture thrives in human mind and proceeds through tradition. But when one says they lie in the same continuum means culture determines the civilization. For example, that society where the dominant culture is heroism and hero-worships like the Sioux Indians their substrata of civilization is based on heroism, physical prowess.

Their chief industry is making weapons for hunting and defending own clan members. And their structure of authority and leadership also hovers around this principle only. But at the same time civilization also influences culture in many ways. The technical developments and objective rationality in knowledge inquires the truth among the traditional customs. Reinterpretation of cultural complexes and superstitions from a scientific point of view makes room for reinterpretation of culture. So culture and civilization influence each other. The present write up requires an analysis if the advancement of civilization makes way for decline of culture.

As described earlier culture is morality and civilization is reality. Culture resides in ideas and civilization spurns out of ideas. So it is quite easy to see the pre-occurrence of culture vis-à-vis civilization. But such a concomitance is not that easy as once civilization is formed it tends to affect the ideas or the culture which is the substrata of its very own self. The advancement of civilization affects culture in many ways. And the very common notion is that the advancement of civilization declines culture. But to analyze the statement one needs to understand what does the “word” decline mean here.

Decline means as usual lessening of importance given on culture. But it also means that the earlier cultural axioms which have been adopted without question by all, comes under the hammer of reason. And all such preconditions about culture which are rooted in irrationality are increasingly given up. For example with the spread of awareness and knowledge among the mass the traditions like “sati” etc are given up. But this cannot be called a s a decline of culture because it is a constructive effort to eradicate a social evil from society.

So when one tries to establish a concomitance between civilization and decline of culture one needs to have a thin line approach, where one needs to separate the constructive and beneficial changes in culture and the decline of culture. One needs to see what is implied by advancement of culture.

The very phrase “advancement of culture” refers to a dynamic process; a change. Why on earth there is a change in civilization. There is a change from one state of affair to the other when 1. The preceding state of affair has some contradictions inherent in it or 2. When there is a better or new way of doing things which are superior to those in the preceding state of affair. Both of these above reasons refer to two different epistemological paradigms but what connects the both is the thread of rationality or objectivity which in common parlance called as scientific understanding.

Civilization, as stated earlier the material developments of human beings, proceeds from a state of less scientific to more scientific one. One can go to history to trace the brief advancement of civilization. The earliest form of civilization was the human horde in the pre-historic ages. This was a civilization where man was last rational and succumbed to the nature. But gradually rationality and scientific inquest impinged the earlier man also and he devised such rudimentary tools to defend himself against the adversities in a forest life and also hunt animals for subsistence. The first historical act of human being “production” was also his first step towards rationality. And for the rest of history man is trying to increase rationality of thought, behavior and action.

The next civilizations be it the civilization of Egypt or Mesopotamia or the Indus valley all developed because man made more scientific inventions and used his reason to overcome the nature. This civilization took man’s intellect to a newer and higher level. His earlier horde culture was replaced by a family culture and the civilization influenced the culture. Of course the very birth of a civilization or in general an idea occurs in the human mind which is a purely cultural concept but when it becomes really existent it starts molding human mind and thereby culture.

Man’s progress from Bronze-iron ages to feudal age or industrial age or the modern age of today is the progression of rationality of thought from a lower level to a higher level. One cannot say that as civilization advances man becomes more rational. Rather when man becomes more rational civilization advances. And when civilization advances rationality creeps into society and culture comes under the hammer of scientific inquiry. So the irrational elements of culture are progressively shed off and hence the hold of culture on human mind declines.

Those cultural ideals which were prevalent in the yester years are rendered rather irrelevant by the progression of science and technology. In earlier days the farmers used to indulge in festivities to impress the Goddess of fertility to have good harvest. But now-a-days the farmer rather invests more money on tractors, insecticides and hybrid seeds than in cultural festivities to have a better yield. An epidemic like cholera or chicken pox is not perceived as a wrath of the presiding deity but treated by medically approved norms and procedures. So the advancement of civilization has created awareness among the mass and people are beginning to stride the kingdom of reasons.

The advancement of civilization is coincident with the advancement in science and technology. New technology and new methods of production requires a definitive change in the existing division of labor in society. And thus associated changes do occur in the cultural aspect of the economic society. With the prevalence of factory mode of production the labor forces have become mobile instead of the fixed labour in case of feudal economy. Mobile labor force gives rise to urban culture. So the earlier human culture which was predominantly rural has been diversified into a urban culture.

Certain norms and values of the rural society are not applicable in the urban society. So a certain amount of changes do occur in the culture. Some cultural traits are negated and some new cultural traits specific to the urban area people do develop. The earlier joint family structure breaks to give rise to the new neo-local nucleus family structure. Religious rituals in the daily life go to a back stage. And new subcultures like shopping mall culture, multiplexes and other agencies of entertainment become important in case of city life. So as culture advances there occurs a change in the culture.

In some cases the old cultural elements are thrown to back burner, new cultural traits arise or in some cases the old cultural elements are reinterpreted in a radically different way. But one has to agree that the advancement of civilization effects changes to the culture.\The change in culture with associated advancement of civilization is not always in a constructive way as depicted above. Advancement of civilization especially the rise of urbanism as a way of life has effected some irreparable damages to our olden culture.

The most pronounced change in the culture is the break down of family. In the earlier societies the family was the most important unit of society. As it was also an economic unit there was not much division of labor in society and all the family members are involved in the same economic pursuit. There were greater dependence with each other along with greater volume and density of interaction amongst them. Family acted as a conditioning device in which people can bank on each other at times of stress. But the new urbanization has made family an atomistic entity as imagined by Zimmerman.

As the volume ad density of social interaction decreases due to the break down of the extended family the expectation of people from each other increases manifold in a nucleus family. So family instead of a soothing device becomes a pressure cooker as remarked by David Cooper in his master piece the death of family. Other psychologists like Robert Laing talk that the family itself has become the biggest enemy of man by putting him into a catch 22 situation of immense pressure and enormous expectations. So individual in the family itself is at the receiving end.

This results in break down families, divorces and other familial discord including domestic violence. So urbanization has clearly broken down the earlier existing harmonic family culture. The effect of the advancement of civilization is also felt in the sphere of the morality in society. The earlier society has prescribed certain moral codes of conduct. But with the advancement of civilization and progress of scientific thoughts the moral codes are under attack. Some of the moral codes are, no doubt, established in irrationality; but they help to represent the collective conscience and preserve the social harmony. But scientific thoughts do not think in that direction.

Moral codes are discarded like anything in the new society. The simpler norms like honesty, punctuality, integrity, brotherhood, camaraderie etc are forgotten and in turn importance is given on individuation. Too much individuation results in less degree of integration with the society. This results in individual conscience influencing the collective consciousness more and more. This results in deviant behavior, corruption, dishonesty and other such social evils. Advancement of civilization throws up new values and techniques which also give way for social mobility. New level of stratification are created, older levels are destroyed and modified.

This reduces man to a marginalized one. A marginal man does not know about norms to follow and what norms to abhor. He is in a state of flux which is rightly said as the state of anomie. Culture is an integrating force. But certain development in the level of sub-stratum like at the level of civilization weakens the impact of culture. This makes the socialization process unhealthy and weak. This causes a lot of strain in individual. In a society the individual has a very limited existence.

Compared to the enormity of the society the individual is minuscule and powerless. His existence depends on the collective representation. But the new norms of the modern civilization weaken the collective representation and man becomes less integrated with the society and feels great stress. Besides the modern values bring out some such basic changes in the existing culture that the culture that the morality of society is endangered. Adoption of western values and life styles, though they are not at all harmful, but highly unsuitable for the Indian society.

They lack the collective representation of Indian mass. So the western yo-man becomes marginalized in the great Indian tradition. Certain values like freedom in sexual endeavors etc are not accepted in India even today. The so called moral police add fuel to the situation and make the situation more difficult. The adoption of western values also increase the conspicuous consumption in society and that creates a great amount of social divide and polarization among the people.

Besides in the age of globalization when a society integrates itself with the global society especially in the sphere of economics there is always threat that the existing indigenous economic base may collapse. Civilization and culture are related with each other intricately. A change in the former creates a great stir in the later. Civilization advances through the advancement of ideas. These advanced ideas are bred in the mind of a few and the rest of the society do not share such advanced ideas. They stick to the traditional ideas which form their culture of the society.

When civilization advances there occurs a conflict between the reality and the idea possessed by the majority in the society. But as the reality always scores over the ideas, the advancement of civilization brings about change in culture. The change in culture may be a positive one or a destructive one. So one cannot emphatically say that advancement of civilization does not always bring about decline in culture though change in culture is inevitable.

However the inculcation of rational thinking and reasoning among the mass weakens the blind acceptance of culture. So the importance of culture in the society declines. S one can say, the importance of culture may be reduced in a modern civilization but the very culture, its ethos can never decline but they may change to adopt new norms and values.

Adoption of new norms or values may cause a stage of confusion and anomaly in the society but one need to understand that after this anti-thesis stage (anomic stage) there comes a stage of synthesis where new culture emerges, a culture more rational one. The more the culture becomes rational the less importance it exerts on individuals in the society. So the statement again may e repeated that the importance of culture may decline in the process of advancement of civilization but culture itself can never be negated in the society

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It is notable, also, that conflict can be culturalized characterized by revenge and counter-revenge because of continued infliction on pain by another or as part of business and a craze for power and dominion over others that result into creation of social classes (less important people verses the most important characterized by negative discrimination) and social hierarchies.

Conflict also takes the context of different levels and understanding of civilization and their burning desire to spread and dominate one another. These, if not managed, potentially erase peace, deter human and ecological advancement and potentially threaten life of both humans and animals -right from the state of individual ill-health -who shares pain and suffering with a group of others to cause group ill-health, to cause breakdown of social fabric, breakdown of biological systems and eco-systems functioning -in totality, then demise or end to life.

Conflict is, thus, part and parcel of evolution and revolution -which happen with evidenced human reactions like surprises, shocks and sparks, and sometimes with pain and confusion. Various fields of professional practice led by psychologists (or psychiatrists), naturalists, and Buddhists spent considerable amount of time and energy to eradicate human and ecological afflictions -through circular critical thinking to establish harmony linear cause-effect relationships. Most importantly, they are excellent in terms of respect of diversity and management of extremes or mental imbalances, minimizing economic disparities through donations to the poor and volunteerism.

In addressing peace and conflict issues, therefore, experts must be mindful of the different manifestations and establish links with the current conflict situation. And while examining individual sources of conflict, the community-individual relationships must never be left out. This emphasizes the placement of mental health issues at the centre of research, analyses and policy of every nation ensuring equal representation, equal measure of respect, and equal measure of rights, equal participation in determining future actions applied to both progressive and conservative forces while working optimistically, giving nature its time to see off prevailing conflicts towards a better, habitable and dignifying world for everyone to live in.  Also very important to  help  children recover from trauma, if  has to help  child and student, consider becoming a child psychologist. That will go along way to establishing the right equilibrium in the human functioning (peace or normalcy) and eco-system balance for its consolidation.

Wars, disease, biting poverty, starvation, unfair distribution of resources, undemocratic leadership systems, unemployment, misery and nature itself at war with humanity have created a dark devilish picture in the minds of millions around the world. Uganda has had its share in the last 35 years yet conditions are still fresh for similar outbreaks of violence. And diseases mainly malaria in children and HIV in married people too are still big challenges.

According to the Malaria Control Program (2008), malaria was responsible for more illness and death than any other single disease in Uganda. While those with low immunity- pregnant women, children under five years and people living with HIV/AIDS- are particularly vulnerable, all people living in Uganda are at risk of being infected with malaria parasites and suffering from resulting illness.

A study by Makerere University Kampala confirmed that new cases of the disease were occurring among the married people between the ages 30 to 40 (medicalnewstoday.com, 2009). Kihumuro (2009) said, “HIV infection rates were rising again yet most of the funding was going into treatment rather than prevention.”

A culture and business of warring continues to pursue Uganda -helplessly. And any intervention is effective only if comes from outside the country. That is evident in Karamoja concern is said to be serious -and reports of acts of terror similar to what happened in northern Uganda in the late 1980s and early 1990s have cropped up (Olara S, 2010).

Those concern Uganda alone, but there are several countries around the world either still in conflict or nursing serious psychological effects -with no meaning to life. In neighboring Kenya, some 1,500 people were killed and another 300,000 displaced in a matter of weeks after the presidential polls in which President Mwai Kibaki was accused of having stolen the vote (Africannewslive, 2010). The Durfur genocide in Sudan happened in broad day light for the world to see. Over the course of more than three years of deadly conflict, mortality significantly exceeded 450,000 (Reeves, 2008), while WHO estimates showed 70,000. And in Rwanda, the 1994 genocide claimed one million. UN (2010) reported an estimated 240 women, girls and babies raped after rebels attacked the DRC town of Luvungi, but only 150 cases were confirmed.

There are several cases of nature being at war with humanity around the World. Uganda has its own of March 2010 -when landslide killed 51 people and 300 went missing in Bududa, Mbale (Daily Monitor, 2010). But over the next four (4) days, the death toll rose to 85 people. Interestingly, armed with a rifle and in full military uniform, president Museveni appeared at the scene -as though fighting avenging nature instead of environmental approaches to it. Amidst such occurrences, the United Nations and African Union have demonstrated pitiful weakness in their interventions by treating violence and natural disasters of symptoms rather than understanding the multi-faceted origins, the forms and appropriate actions -respectively.

The running of the two bodies has been hijacked by the same leaders (in Africa, USA and UK) accused of oppression (both human and environmental) by their citizens and other nations -respectively. Even membership to them is restricted to serve the interests of oppressors. Because they are oppressors’ clubs, no other leader is willing to cooperate fully to the best functioning of the regional and global agencies for peace and human rights. In Kenya, the government simply defended itself for not arresting president Omar Bashir (guardian.co.uk, 2010).

The result of the 1991 UN-endorsed Gulf War was massive loss of lives only to serve the interests of a handful -Bush II and Blair. Moreover in March 2003, without authorization from the UN enshrined in article 42 of the charter, they went ahead to mentally and physically maim Iraq population (Halliday, 2005). Yet against all that, humanity needs a peaceful and predictable environment conducive for prosperity, and attainment of life dreams (peace, harmony and happiness) -when approaches to their achievement are holistic.

If countries can achieve that, they will begin to discover the need to collective action to solving global problems, a well-functioning people (particularly in Uganda and global community in general) –free of wars, illness, misery and suffering -and peacefully co-existing despite diversity in culture and ideology. Annan (2005) observed, “Lessons for the US, the UN and other member states. I think in the end everybody’s concluded it’s best to work together with our allies and through the UN.”

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Our economy is already and increasingly globalized. The Internet is a global phenomena, national boundaries are almost irrelevant for the Internet. I heard a Peace Corp member telling a story about Kirghistan the other day, she said it is not unusual to see people talking on a cell phone while riding a horse or donkey.

The United Nations, Millennium Development Goals report, mentions that we are making progress getting insecticide treated mosquito nets, Aids drugs and cell phones to the people of Africa.

Grameen Bank has specialized in delivering micro-loans to the women of Bangla Desh and other nations. They favor women because the women are more likely to invest the money in the family.

Grameen Bank is also working in a joint venture with Danon company of France to deliver highly nutritious yogurt at an affordable price in poor nations. They also manufacture the yogurt in local factories, supplying jobs for the folks living in the poor nations.

The point is that everyone, including bloggers and entrepreneurs, need to be aware of the progress that is being made in the development of the global economy and civilization. This is the context in which we are participating.

The stock market in the USA has deflated by 50% during the last two years. When this economic convulsion is finished and we start recovering, the world economy will have a much more level playing field. The post industrialized economies will still have a considerable head start, but with the United Nations, the Internet, cell phones and the global flow of products, services and information, the whole world economy will be rising up together.

In order for us to evolve into a more peaceful and prosperous universal civilization, we must recognize the importance of world unity. We all must come together, there is just no other way to create peace and prosperity for all people everywhere.

We can no longer tolerate a small minority of humanity hoarding the earth’s resources for their own selfish advantage and at the expense of everyone else. Oppression is the absence of justice. True freedom, which is lawful, not lawless, as well as equal opportunity and justice for all people everywhere is absolutely vital in order to advance the cause of world peace and prosperity.

Universal education, including teaching a universal language, is another important aspect of developing a peaceful and prosperous global culture. Unity in diversity, not uniformity, is the nature and the goal of the global culture and universal civilization we are developing on earth today.

Our global culture blends the spiritual and the economic aspects of human nature together in a holistic approach to social and economic development. We must practice moral values and spiritual principles in our economic activities in order to replace the devastating economic cycles and social inequality, with a sustainable, peaceful and prosperous global economy, which is an inherent attribute of the universal and divine civilization in which it exists.

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The video “Pre-school in Three Different Cultures” illustrates this diversity in educational styles to the viewer. The documentary consists of the filming of three different pre-schools in different countries during the span of a normal day. The summaries of the day’s activities given in the video for each of the pre-schools let the viewer analyze both the social and academic aspects of the children’s experience throughout the day. The pre-schools included in the video are Komatsudani from Japan, Dong-feng from China, and St.Timothy from the U.S. (Hawaii). The following paper will shed light on what is known as constructivism and behaviorism, and describe which one of the schools falls under each category.

Constructivism is the theory that views children as little individual scientists. When following the theory of constructivism, students are allowed to explore their environment, interact with it, and learn from it. The constructivist teacher acts as a support pillar for students to lean on when they are in need, not the leader that everyone must follow. Constructivism also sees differences amongst the children and the things they learn from their interactions; not everyone learns the same things at the same rate or with the same ease.

After watching the video, the school that seems to have the most constructivist approach is St.Timothy. When it came time for the students to partake on an activity, the teacher gave them the opportunity to choose the activity they preferred instead of assigning them one or making the whole class do the same thing. This approach allows the students to participate on an activity that they find stimulating, which tends to let students learn much more than an activity that they find boring. It is also worth mentioning that when the students chose an activity by pointing at the representative objects the teacher would let the student know that she wanted them to indicate it by using spoken language. The teacher used a constructivist approach when doing this since she did not guide the student on how to form the sentence, but rather let them construct their own sentences and correcting them if necessary.

One of the activities, and the teacher’s comment regarding the activity, shows the constructivist ideal beyond any other thing seen in the video. The activity being referred to is the block building activity, during which the students are allowed to rearrange the blocks in any way he choose to. This is a very different approach to the one used in one of the other schools in which students are given specific guidelines to follow when using the blocks. When asked about the difference in approaches, the teacher in St.Timothy responded that she thought their approach was better because when you let children build their own structures they will sometimes come up with things that the teacher would never even think of. This is a great example of the idea that children are like little scientists with very different approaches to learning through their environment.

Another aspect in which St.Timothy’s approaches were very constructivists was behavior and discipline. There is an instance during the day during which a student refuses to clean up the materials even after the teacher has asked him to do so directly. Instead of ordering the student to pick up the materials by using her authority like many teachers tend to do, the teacher talks to him at an equal level. She doesn’t just boss him into putting the things away, but rather tries to make the student think of the consequences that might come about from not picking up the materials. She explains to the student that if the materials are not picked up some of his fellow students might end up injured. After he refuses to comply once again, the teacher gives him two choices. The student has to choose between spending time alone or picking up the materials. It does not take more than a minute before the student decides to comply.

Some people might dispute that the Japanese approach regarding behavior and discipline at Komatsudani is more constructivists because it has less teacher involvement, but the teacher’s approach seems to be more negligence than constructivism. The principal of the school is quoted saying that it is normal and even necessary for boys to fight because it is the way that they learn how to resolve problems that might arise later in life. The statement might have some truth to it, but as his own statement says, the children are learning and therefore don’t have the required skills to resolve these problems yet. As a teacher, one can let them try to solve the problem by themselves but always keeping very close surveillance. It is not a good approach to simply ignore the situation or tell a child “why don’t you do something about it?”, like one of the teachers at Komatsudani was quoted saying when told about another child’s misbehavior. Behaviorism is the theory that states that people can be taught through the use of reward and/or punishment. The theory is also seen as the more repetitive of the two theories because it often involves the use of drill-and-practice as the main form of instruction. In behaviorism the teacher is the main focus of the class and all the students must often follow the directions exactly as they are given. The school that most resembles the ideals of the behaviorist theory in the video was Dong-feng from China. One of the first examples of this is when the 4:2:1 phenomenon is explained. The 4:2:1 phenomenon occurs due to the attempts of lowering China’s population. According to the school officials, the problem is that now more than ever a lot of children are single children that are showered with attention from two parents and four grandparents. Behaviorism is shown when the school staff claims that they must correct the mistakes done by the parents and grandparents regarding the children’s behavior due to excessive attention and spoiling. Another instance in which the school’s behaviorist approach was obvious was the bathroom usage. The school’s bathroom usage approach was weird to say the least, all students were to go to the bathroom at the same time and in the same place. The teachers claimed that if a student really needed to use the facilities he or she was allowed to go at another time than the one scheduled, but that it was good for students to become familiar with the concept of scheduling and should try their best to become accustomed to the time guidelines. The school’s behaviorist approach was also evident during formal instruction and before meals. Before every meal, the students must always participate in giving thanks for their food by reciting a chant in unison that goes something like “this food sure smells good, I bet it’s delicious, I am so thankful for my dad and mom”. The repetition of this chant serves as a way to reinforce the idea that the students should be thankful for their parents and whatever their parents were able to give them as a meal. When it comes to formal instruction their approach is very behaviorist and completely different from the approach taken by St.Timothy. In Dong-feng the students are given specific instructions on how to work with the wooden blocks and must set up the materials in a certain way before they are even allowed to start. Once they start building their wooden structures, they must follow the guidelines, and will not be given any positive reinforcement if they deviate from them by doing something different or creative. Instead of rewarding creativity like the staff in St.Timothy, the staff at Dong-feng seems to only care about the students’ ability to follow directions. When it comes to educating and teaching students with cultural and linguistic diversity, one must always keep the lessons interesting and original. As a future teacher, my area of expertise will most probably be math. My lessons will contain as many visual components as possible and as much student participation as the lesson allows. I will motivate the students to take risks by making a constructivism-behaviorism-constructivism sandwich. The students will be given a task to complete, which they don’t yet have the skills for. During this time the students will be encouraged to brainstorm ideas on how the task might be completed; both right and wrong approaches will be celebrated as achievements, the important thing is that they are willing to try new things. Once the brainstorming period is done, I will instruct them on how the task is most commonly completed. The students will then be given some time to practice following the specific steps that allow them to complete the task. After they seem confident enough using these steps, they will be given the freedom to experiment with other approaches that they might have thought of after being taught the steps. They will be encouraged to use any methods that make the task easier for them as long as it gets them to the right answer. They will also be told that it is perfectly fine to use the steps taught by the teacher, but that the approach might not be the only or easiest one.

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Postmodern culture, the politics of post-structuralism and the influence of globalization on identity are topics that have received much critical attention and have given rise to complex debates. Whether in the field of cultural and media studies, (post)colonial discourse analysis or aesthetics, these discussions are often perceived as being extremely complicated, confusing or removed from everyday reality. The subject of postmodernism is no longer restricted to learned debates by intellectual elites: Its appearance in mass media discussions concerning topics as diverse as architecture, drama, fashion, literature, music or film has become almost a daily occurrence. The importance of debates on the cultural impact of television is self-evident in the light of television being “an asset open to virtually everybody in modern industrialized societies and one which is increasing its visibility across the planet” (Barker, The Cultural impact of television, 3).

The Cultural Studies in a Global Context fosters cross-disciplinary research and teaching among social sciences and humanities scholars, focusing on the complexities of increasing globalization and intercultural contact. These changes have stimulated both formal and informal dialogues and collaborations among faculty, graduate students, professors of departments, and programs. Recently their works have focused on environmental issues in postcolonial contexts; empire, masculinity and gender; ethnic and religious violence; migration and diasporas as it currently occurs in the face of accelerating globalization and from a historical perspective; theories of cultural hybridity and interculturality in the context of asymmetrical power relations; and geopolitical and other kinds of borders where differences of all kinds cause peoples to clash and intermingle.

Two powerful scenarios dominate the public discourse about the cultural consequences of globalization. The one very common scenario represents globalization as cultural homogenization (for example Benjamin Barbers McWorld vs. Jihad). In this scenario the culturally distinct societies of the world are being overrun by globally available goods, media, ideas and institutions. In a world where people from Vienna to Sidney eat Big Macs, wear Benetton clothes, watch MTV or CNN, talk about human rights and work on their IBM computers cultural characteristics are endangered. As these commodities and ideas are mostly of western origin, globalization is perceived as westernization in disguise. The other scenario is that of cultural fragmentation and intercultural conflict (Huntington’s Clash of civilizations and most recently “confirmed” by the ethnocide in Yugoslavia).

But can we really reduce the processes of cultural globalization (i.e. the process of world-wide interconnections) to these two stereotypes? What about the meaning that local people attach to globally distributed goods and ideas? Why do people drink Coca Cola and what sense do they make of the soap-operas they watch? Do they really trade in their century old life worlds for the kinds of Madonna and Bill Gates? And how does the homogenization scenario fit with its rival, the imminent cultural fragmentation? (Joana Breidenbach and Ina Zukrigl).

Global and local analysis is inseparability. Global forces enter into local situations and global relations are articulated through local events, identities, and cultures; it includes studies of a wide range of cultural forms including sports, poetry, pedagogy ecology, dance, cities. The new global and translocal cultures and identities created by the diasporic processes of colonialism and decolonization. Cultural studies consider a variety of local, national, and transnational contexts with particular attention to race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality as categories that force us to rethink globalization itself.

It is very important how local and particular discourses are being transformed by new discourses of globalization and transnationalism, as used both by government and business and in critical academic discourse. Unlike other studies that have focused on the politics and economics of globalization, cultural studies, today, articulating the Global and the Local highlights the importance of culture and provides models for a cultural studies that addresses globalization and the dialectic of local and global forces.

Globalization leads to a new cultural diversity. Culture is one of the most prominent global concepts and gets appropriated in highly diverse ways. From its origins, cultural studies have defined its interdisciplinary impulse as a necessity derived from the nature of its object of study. Stuart Hall locates the origin of cultural studies in the refusal to allow “culture” to be distinguished from the social and historical totality of human practices, as exemplified by the refusal of cultural studies to acknowledge the autonomy of high art from mass or popular culture, or the autonomy of cultural artifacts from practices of reception and consumption in everyday life. Thus globality leads to the emergence of new cultural forms – a process points out that everywhere cultural tradition mix and create new practices and worldviews.

One of the key questions in globalized cultural studies is whether we have now entered a new moment in the institutionalization of cultural studies and interdisciplinary work more generally. Cultural studies also have a long history of skepticism and self-critique directed at its own institutionalization. Typically, the way cultural studies seeks to make its methodologies mirror the “totalizing” nature of its object is cited as a defense against reductive institutional codification along disciplinary lines, which it is feared will not only reduce cultural studies to a formula but also eliminate the interdisciplinary forms of dialogue, collaboration, and critique of disciplinary limits that have informed the history of this movement. The logic of epistemological mobility and boundary-crossing that cultural studies shares with its definition of culture is supposed to provide an inherent resistance to disciplinary formation, the traditional mode of academic legitimating. The interdisciplinary logic of cultural studies makes possible an alternative mode of institutionalization, so that Stuart Hall distinguishes “institutionalization,” as a positive process, from the dangers of “codification.” On one level, what a cultural studies program institutionalizes is its own skepticism toward institutionalization as a discipline.

Javad_Alipoor

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