The Research Of Globalization Theory Of Appadurai

Arjun Appadurai is an Indian scholar with the background of Marxism. Because of his studying experience he has learned through practice of modernity from different countries. And now he is a professor of anthropology department in the university of Chicago. He plays an important part of globalization and locality. At the same time, he is the director of the program of globalization research. He focuses on racial violence,electronic mediation and nationalism. His main work is Modernity at Large:Culture Dimension of Globalization,The Social Life of Things:commodities in cultural perspective and Globalization. The latter two works are edited by Arjun Appadurai. They are including many articles of different scholars. But the work Modernity at Large:Culture Dimension of Globalization is his core work on globalization. Therefore the discussion of my paper is centered on this work.In his work Modernity at Large:Culture Dimension of Globalization, he puts forward some key concepts to explain his globalization theory. The global culture is not to influence people by moral or culture, and it is related with economy,politics and culture. It is different with world system theory and it hasn't apparent,homomorphic center and division of edge. Arjun Appadurai invented a new word scape to distinguish five scapes, that is ethnoscapes,mediascapes,technoscapes,finascapes and ideoscapes. He discussed the five scapes to learn globalization. And the world which is sketched by these scapes, Appadurai called it imagined worlds. With the entire care, Appadurai tried to reveal the essence of phenomena of contemporary social life from the interaction at the background of globalization. Of course, his main theory aim is to reveal the basic essences and problems of contemporary imagined world. He criticized the commercialization because of the work of imagination. As the as the interaction of electronic media and mass migration, the world has been narrowed, and the consumption has been influenced by many parts and translated into a type of symbol. It is not only expressed as the mirage by Jean Baudrillard which can only be close to a true social subject but also expressed it has concealed the real place of the construction of subjects. Because the construction of subjects is decided by all kinds of power of people and Composition of products not the consumers. In all, Appadurai's main view is that contemporary global culture is in the process of taking form. And the process has been emerged complicated scapes by many kinds of power which is full of disjuncture. At the background of globalization,he discussed his conception of the future society and he gived the concept of locality. He denied nation—state and he thought patriotism's future is boundless. He supported a kind of small communities. He emphatically discussed the impossibility and existence of locality under the background of globalization.My paper is mainly discussed Appadurai's globalization theory. He is fond of studying the interest stories and phenomena in ethnography to researah the development of globalization. His discussion has both the meaning of culture anthropology and the spirit of social critics. His discussion is on the center of non--European countries and he is on a developing country's stance to research globalization. He offered us a new way to study globalization theory. What's more, he also offered us the basic of globalization theory and experience for modernity and globalization of our own country.