Easternization: Encroachments in the West

Abstract

The notion of ‘flows’ as a concept has been used by anthropologists such as Frederick L. Dunn (1970)and Arjun Appadurai (1990, 1996). Dunn refers to the transmission of cultural features from one generation to the next within a definite cultural environment. Appadurai argues persuasively for global flows that create network landscapes and identifies five global flows together with their disjunctures, namely, ‘ethnoscapes’, ‘mediascapes’, ‘technoscapes’, ‘finanscapes’ and ‘ideoscapes’. Hence, the term ‘flows’ can be used as a cover term to refer to ideas and information, institutions and practices carried by technology, the media and human beings (through migration, tourism, war and/or trade) and retailed goods and services. Amartya Sen (2005, p. 345) observes that it is through the global movements of ideas, people, goods and technology that different regions of the world have tended, in general, to benefit from the progress and development in other regions and that it would be ‘a serious error’ to ‘identify the phenomenon of the global spread of ideas with an ideological imperialism’ (p. 346). Latouche (1996) and Campbell (2007) attest that the global flows of cultural influences crossover and pull in different directions as Westernization or Easternization. It is also quite apparent that Chinese exports are flooding Western markets today as an invasive form of economic Easternization. The world appears to have become economically swamped by ‘Made in China’ products (Bongiorni, 2007).