I’ve spent the last couple of weeks giving hints about what this project is, mostly because I wasn’t quite sure how it would evolve. However, a number of conversations I’ve had with people interested in the idea have helped shape the idea. So here it is, first draft:
This project will create an ecosystem of organizations, some of them non-for-profit, some of them for-profit and others just for-fun
Global Culture blog: remember that ‘old’ saying blog globally, act locally? Well this blog is the voice of the project, and it is supposed to have a global voice. A voice that speaks about issues that affect us all just the same. At some point, I will register a non-for-profit organization to support the activities around this blog, mostly seeking funding from NGOs and others that may decide what we talk about is worth supporting.
Migrant bloggers: I hope to recruit many, but will settle for just a few people that are in the process of migrating to Toronto (act local, remember?). They need a job but are always questionned for not having enough ‘Canadian’ experience, so this will be like their first job here. Even better, the [...]
Via one of the Creative Commons features I came across the openDemocracy online magazine. Reading about their articles filed under “arts & culture” I found a little experiment they ran a couple of years that resonated a lot with what we’ve set to do here. The first post of a discussion forum says:
openDemocracy readers are all over the world. As we anticipate the launch of our multiculturalism debate, we’d like you to tell us about life, or the view, or an event, on your street. Give other readers a glimpse of your world and see if they find it strange or familiar…
What I found particularly interesting was the final words of this request: “strange or familiar”. People all over the world did post for a few months and the debate probably didn’t go too far, but as you read through those little snapshots of life at any given street around the world, the mission to decide whether they are strange or familiar resonates as possibly a very important clue to determine the difussion of certain elements across cultural contexts:
We have “popsicle parties” on warm days in their front yard, shaded by a huge tree. [...]
Through a number of conversations I had this week, it became clear that while the ideas presented here are embraced with interest by many, there is always a cloud of uncertainty around what this project really is.
A friend of mine came up with a simple analogy: a tourist guide.
Written not by some foreigner that goes up and down on an unknown place, but by those who live there
Intended to help you get to know the real thing, not the usual tourist spots
With recommendations that go way beyond what to do for dinner and theatre
A guide to be consumed by those who embark on journeys with one-way tickets
Always up-to-date
Written in the native language, read in your own
With a special section with all those common mistakes to avoid, MacDonald’s included
With a powerful motivational introduction to give you the strength to keep going
Well, it is just an analogy. I’m not in the business of selling tourist guides, but I hope these features help explain the project.
Via an article by Alexander Rai entitled “Neoliberalism Globalization and The Commodification of Global Culture”, I’m finding strong support to some of the ideas mentioned in earlier posts.
While the article is a position about the advancement of Neoliberalism and its mechanisms to dominate culture, I found a lot more interesting some of the quotes used by the article itself. In particular those from Jeremy Rifkin in his book The Age Of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism, Where All of Life Is a Paid-For Experience. A few quotes from it:
When all forms of communication become commodities, then culture, the stuff of communications, inevitably becomes a commodity as well. And that is what’s happening. Culture-the shared experiences that give meaning to human life- is being pulled inexorably into the media marketplace, where it is being revamped along commercial lines
Marketing is the means by which the whole of the cultural commons is mined for valuable potential culture meanings that can be transformed by the arts into commodifiable experiences, purchasable in the economy
If the capitalist system continues to absorb large parts of the cultural realm into its sphere in the form of commodified cultural products, productions, and experiences, the [...]
The MIT faculty of Comparative Media Studies focuses some of its research on Global Culture and Media. Since I expect technology to play a fundamental role in the deployment of this project, I looked with interest for more information about their results. With statements such as:
these new technologies potentially accelerate long-standing trends towards the homogenization of world cultures
the multi-directional character of digital communications may open the global community to more diverse influences, enabling immigrants, migrants, and exiles to maintain stronger ties to their mother countries, and encouraging a greater global consciousness
Contemporary popular culture is increasingly internationalized, reflecting both the global flow of cultural materials and the influence of new waves of immigration throughout the world
I figured the search would be quite productive. However, looking through their projects, I started to realize that Corporations have found ways to leverage the power of academy to arm themselves with tools to better mine their markets. As explained by Convergence Culture Consortium their main interest is to disect the inner workings of how culture spreads by means of new media so they can advise Corporations on how to better market to the global community.
Yikes! Our project should be the [...]
This past week has taken me into other aspects of globalization, through a couple of documentaries. The first one “an inconvenient truth” is Al Gore’s crusade to educate us on the larger issue of global warming and its effect on climate change. The second one is “the end of suburbia” and its scary conclusion about the imminent collapse of the most common lifestyle in north-america as a result of always increasing oil prices. The common theme across these two documentaries is the unbelievable amount of energy required to sustain the growth of our civilization, at a time when the most important source of energy is quickly becoming a luxury item.
Globalization can be quickly misunderstood as a mandate for every person to move around the globe, pursuing their dream in an endless land of opportunities, without consideration for the energy output that is required to sustain such a lifestyle. A much more difficult implementation of this trend would be a carefully planned set of steps required to transfer as much value as possible from a community to others with the smallest cost possible.
Part of what this project aims to accomplish is to establish the mechanisms [...]
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