Transculturation After The Information Revolution

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

The concept of Transculturation has first been brought up by Fernando Ortiz in the 1940s and explained the concept of the creation of a new type of culture, which was neither acculturation nor deculturation, but rather dealt with a transition and a merging between interacting cultural groups. Transculturation occurred as a result of a cultural clash due to the presence of multiple cultures in the same space, thus it was classified by Ortiz as a more physical phenomena that would resolve itself over time. Yet in a world where over a third of the planet is networked and has the potential to interact and communicate without any physical restrictions, one has to reconsider the impacts and influences of these cultural shifts and clashes as they occur on a much vaster and faster scale thanever before and through the digital avatars rather than the physical presence. Transculturation has not been theorised or revised to suit the modern post information revolution society.(Taylor)

Transculturation should not be mistaken with multiculturalism, as it in essence provides a solution over time. It takes into consideration the wide aspect of culture and historic event over a wide span of time, rather than the simplified suggestion of a definition of a cultural change due to the introduction of a foreign culture. While it is a cultural shift that leads to a new type of culture, it provides for a merge that leads to a potential new platform for the culture thatshifts not only the personal identity but the collective and the socio-political, rather than purely the aesthetic. Yet one of the problems with the Ortizian theory of transculturation is the span between history and geopolitics, the culture and the economy, biology and daily habits, and the attempt to merge those into one single concept that would explain it all.(Trigo)

Thus transculturation as a concept has been adapted by many throughout the 20thcentury such as Angel Rama, yet some may argue that transculturation has never gone beyond the point of an ideological manifestation of modernity, and thus cannot be classified beyond that definition.

Hence why the predominant term debated about nowadays is Multiculturalism.

Multiculturalism while may vaguely be interpreted as a part or a phase of transculturation implies rather forcoexistence, rather than a merging or clashing with the resulting new or altered culture. Multiculturalism simply refers to the demographic diversity of cultures within a place. The fact that it is a diversity of cultures means that it must not be confused with transculturalism, where the cultures contribute to a formation of another culture. In multiculturalism cultures simply coexist without necessarily ever having to interact, and some would even argue that today disintegration clearly dominates within our society. (88-92,Bauman)

Zygmund Bauman argues that the current concept of ‘minorities’ is one that is being enforced by the ‘powerful collectives’ in power, while Redfield mentions thatthe concept of ‘ethnic minorities’ is enforced as a product of ‘outside enclosure’. Either way this imposes as problem of cultural separation and lack of cross communication, which is essential for the formation of a community.Andarguably the attribute to the differences do not stem from the minority, they relate to the context that they are in, and perhaps are created artificially due to that context.(90, Bauman)

Arguably the most crucial of the differences dividing the phenomena collated under the generic name of the ‘ethnic minority’ is correlated with the passage from the nation building stage of modernity to its post-nation state phase.(90, Bauman)

The concept of ‘nation building’ meant the aim to achieve the one state, one nation principle, which essential could be identifiedto some degreeas homogeneityand ultimately the denial of ethnic diversity within the group.Thus the presence of the cultural or linguistic differences was considered as a not yet extinct relics and artefacts, within the formation of the idea of state relics. (90, Bauman)

Thus while the idea of the local or tribal stood for backwardness, and the idea of homogeneity seemed to be appealing according to Bauman, and there was to be only one within the borders of a state. The current reality could not be furtherfrom these ideas about nation states. Perhaps this is a result of the political consequences that emerged from these theories such as nationalism and liberal,and the dimensions that these political forms took on throughout majority of the twentieth century.Yet as far as the solidarity of the state formation goes, every state needed a strong sense of nationalism to form their solid states, borders and cultures, and vice versa. Bauman argues that the political ideology made no or very little difference to the communities as the possibility of a self-governing community was out of question for either form of governance. Yet perhaps it is exactly those developments of the nation states and political forms that prevented Ortiz’s idea of transclturation and pushed society towards homogeneity. Thus resulting in such contemporaryand current issues as minorities and majorities, and how they were and are defined as a result today.(92, Bauman)

Thus a lot of the problems today can be written off to the nation building concept. Bauman goes further though by saying that while globalization playsa new role withinour society, with its network acquiring world wide scope of networks. Furthermore he claims that the speed and vastness of these phenomenais not being matched by the political control nor by anything that could resemble the emergence of a global culture.Accordingly this is turn has as an upside the fact that the individual is experiencing a new form of freedom, unmatched by the control of the government and their disempowerment. The surrender of control over the ideological and cultural development withina country allows for a speculation on the definition of a modern state to be done, as this disassembles and disintegrates its basis.

One cannot argue that we do not live in a vastly changing world with growing migration. Yet according to Bauman we live in a world full of potential as the governments are being disempowered and globalisation setting up new rules and regulations for both the governments and the individuals. On the one hand it’s a welcomed and positive phenomenon. Yet on the other it does not change the formation of diasporas and cultures separating themselves from communities due to their backgrounds and ethnicities. Thus the concept of multiculturalism being misused for political purposes and cultural pluralism not changing anything within communities, with case studies of Britishintegration problems and the political aspects within it.(96-104 Bauman)

Recent examples of groups of young men attempting to establish Sharialaw zones within

London, may serve as an example of the conspiracy that is behind the multicultural clash as Bauman mentions, where in this specific case one group within the community choses to abandon the laws of the countryand establish a zone of religious law. (Camber)

While all this may seem rational, the theories of both Bauman and Ortiz essentially are lacking the understanding of the media of communication within societies, and the power of that media. While Bauman quotes Jeffrey Weeks claiming that the strongest sense of community is being brought about by the existential threat of the premises of the community which may lead to a strong sense of empowerment within the community. Essentially this threatens the interests of the group, the communityor the individuals within the community. (92, Bauman)

The digital media that has vastly progressed and developed within the last decade, perhaps can be seen as part of globalisation, yet the accessibility of information and the vastness of networks created by the Internet by far supersedes any of the factors that both Bauman and Ortiz mention. Surely migration nowadays is a major issue and is important within this conversation of potential transculturation and the fragility of the concept of multiculturalism, but it has not been a major factor for the last few years. Surely the topic has been mentioned more often than before recently, yet they are not being directly put in relation to the digital media. Media is an inevitable point within this debate as it forms the cultures. While the analogue forms of media may have been restrictive on a global scale, which cannot be said about the printed media necessarily, the digital media poses completely new potentials of interaction of cultures without the physical clash and communal disintegration as it is in the usual cases.

Up to date the Internet uses over 2% of the entire global energy consumed, and at the

Current rate it is increasing by 10% every year (Heargreaves). All that energy is used to power 500,000 datacentres around the world that accommodate a total of 1.8 trillion gigabytes of information produced, published and replicated, this number doubles every two years (Hudson).

The electricity that is needed to power the servers of Google alone could power all the homes in the city of SanDiego, (Heargreaves) considering that Google is not the biggest energy consumer.

While Facebookhas more registered members in the USA, than Americans possessing passports. A staggering 155million Americans -50 per cent of the population -are on the social network, while only 115million people -37 per cent -have a passport. On the global scale if the Internet was a country, it would be the fifth consumer between Japan and Russia, consumption and necessity still growing.(Stevens)

The mass spread of a media allows for a network of information accessible at any time in almost any location. These new invisible boundaries and line of interaction cause for a shift in society. As now there is a direct interaction, whichhas the potential of a digital tansculturation that is essence will have effects in the real physical world. This sharing of instant information allows for a much faster spread of events and changes the views of the occurring events. One can follow global events as they unfold being miles away. This unrestricted access to information is unique for a media, and it is almost its immunity towards censorship and control, with the exception of a few countries. (Biddle)

In order to understand the transformation of cities and cultures one must understand the media, or the change that it brings about for the culture, if of course this is the case. What if the contemporary generic is sparked by original intentions of the spread of the media going almost a decade back? Is it possible that the cites have become trapped by the trading algorithms and the constantly updated networks between cities, providing the sole purpose of an automated financial system taking on a life of its own, and dictating the rules to the cities? Has the generic been sparked by a transition of the media, or is the media just a consequence of the initial nation building concept that has propagated the generic?

The concept that connectivity and adaptation take over proximity and history, certainly ap- plies to connectivity, leading back to the question of the media. Koolhaas claims that specifically the Europeans consider history part of their identity. Yet one also must acknowledge the media as part of an identity. Perhaps media defines the society in general, whilst history defines the specific geographic culture. Culture exist within society though thus clearly the must be able to adapt, which as Hajer mentioned is the key feature. Whilst society develops overall, whether in the right or wrong direction, ironically enough history will show, cultures need to find their part in that development.

The potential that the digital media holds has not been entirely unfolded yet, and it seems like the current stage is just a transition phase. One must understand the uniqueness of the digital media as a form of identity of our society, in order to be able to anticipate the cultural shifts that might be occurring, thus influencing our identities.

Whether we will lose our identities in the 'faceless' media or not can only be speculated upon, as the digital both unites and diversifies. It provides connectivity and a person-to-person communication that ignores proximity and borders. While there are studies that conduct the so social behaviour on the Internet, it is not purely the media that needs to be understood and identified with, but its expansion and influence due to that. Thus whether its effects on society will be positive or negative is not the primary objective, as it already is irreversible, and whether the media and the unrestricted information and networking will provide for a more generic culture or not, will be obvious in the near future.

The merging of the cultures due to the connectivity will be increasing even further, and by the year 2020 there will be five billion Internet users worldwide. Meaning that three fourth of all the people will be able to communicate and interact with one another. Surely this will have influences on each individual culture. Historically seen media up until the writing and printing cultures has been used as a measure for controlling the information of one individual culture, this mostly meant isolations of cultures. Once the media allowed for the information to be ex changed, one could see an adaptation of certain cultural aspects of one culture in another. This trend was expanding throughout the entire 20th century, especially towards the end of it. Partly this was due to globalisation as previously stated by Bauman. Every culture decided it wanted to borrow bits from another culture's lifestyle. This was during a highly controlled media, where the selection of choices was based on limited information. (Howard)

With the case of the digital, the only control measures that can be practised are restricted by the geographical borders of individual country, and even then there are ways of breaching these control measures. Thus for the future it is vital to understand the consequences and changes brought about by the information revolution, in order to be able to predict the future development of architecture and urbanism, one needs to understand the cultural changes brought about by this connectivity of people and cultures. The constant sharing and accessing of information is going to blend and recreate boundaries and borders, whether cultural or social. Both will be expanding and changing cities and cultures, as we know them. The Internet already has made some global changes on a political level, displaying the evolution and adaptation of culture towards this new media that the current society has to understand in order to be able to identify itself.

Yet making a speculation one could see some traces of transculturation appearing due to the digital media, and the scale at which these changes can start to take place is only restricted to the count of a few countries that despise the change of media as they cling on to the old fashioned top down typology of governance, ad realise that the introduction of a free media within their national geographic border will lead to a destabilisation of governance and their depowerment. Thus everything that Bauman expected from the process of globalisation is in fact condensed and sped up in the digital information media of the Internet. He could not have foreseen the power of this new media as it was rather in its developing stages still a decade ago in comparison to the vast amount of content and users today. Thus one should conclude that the potential that we believe the media has already today is impressive, yet probably will seem as only a transition stage in the cultural shift that it already has sparked.

Perhaps even the voluntary and willing interaction between cultures, while not at the exact same conditions that Ortiz was writing about, will lead to a real transculturation via the virtual media. The process of transculturation might not need the physical presence or shift of an individual, but rather occurs through the transition of knowledge or culture via the virtual interaction of individual from different backgrounds and cultures. It might be sufficient to create a mind shift, in order to spark the process of transculturation or the cultural merging. Thus the digital media provides the ideal platform for cultural diversity and interaction, which is not forced or unwished for by the individual participants, as well as the theories of transculturation and multiculturalism need to be viewed in relation to the digital information revolution and its consequences on cultures a society.

society.