Cultural Commodification InThey Are Taking Our Culture Away

In “The Ugly Tourist” by Jamaica Kincaid, tourism is thought as a disgusting and an extremely harmful industry. In her perspective, it allows first world citizens to escape and marvel at the simplest and most ordinary things. Although there is some truth in what Jamaica Kincaid describes to the reader, I believe there is a prejudiced view towards the tourist themselves. Kincaid’s essay about the ugliness and affects of being a tourist contrasts everything I’ve experienced being a tourist in Italy and Greece.

Christ Hedges, war correspondent and Pulitzer Prize winner, in a chapter titled “The Destruction of Culture” from the book War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, asserts that in war a state’s interest is in the extermination of discordant peacetime culture. Hedges asserts his claims that war transforms art, writing, and literature, that people, in disbelief of the consequences of war, favor a myth, and that the state manipulates education and media to reinforce their narrative. Meanwhile, he uses first-hand personal experiences and historical evidence to demonstrate these effects of war. Hedge’s goal is to expose that ugly nature of war in contrast to our natural glorification of it in our perceptions of history in order to propel the cause

The success of any manufacturing company is dependent on its manufacturing system design. The system design concept has been the basic force in manufacturing advancement. Without manufacturing design, all manufacturing would be stuck in the “square wheel” era. The first system design was the invention of the forerunner of the modern factory nearly 200 years ago. New design concepts are continually improving and impacting the worlds manufacturing.

The progression of technology and its presence in society has strongly molded the way people live their lives today, and the way they will continue to live their lives years from now. But with this advancement of science and increased order, there is a consequence that seems to be a heavy price to pay: the loss of human emotion and freewill, and the submission to organization and commands. The tourist industry is one such manufactured machine, so to speak, that influences people's views in certain aspects. One of these aspects, culture, is a main focus of post-modernist writer Bryan Turner, who believes that "tourism invents and demands empathy...makes cultures

Cleopatra VII: Daughter of the Nile written by Kristina Gregory, takes place in Egypt, 57 B.C. Cleopatra VII is the main character. The book opens with her at 12 years old. She is compassionate, mature, and linguistic. Her father has gone into hiding because there have been several rumors about the common people revolting and planning to assassinate the king. Her oldest sister Tryphaena is taking advantage of their father’s absence.

The students for a democratic society explain the changes took over the culture of America within the past few years. The government systems or organizations are manipulated and shows no interest towards people rather than “of, by, and for the people.” The threat of war, overpopulation and technology are testing the country’s commitment towards democracy and freedom. The fact is that each individual shows interest in his/her own progress and does not show any interest towards its own fellow people. The institutions and government organizations show a lot of interest towards their profit, but least interest towards the growth of the nation as a whole. Investors bought the skills and potentials of intelligent people for their own profit. There

Many people feel that the list encourages too many people to visit the sites and that the preservation of them is in danger because of it. It is said that the commodification of these sites hampers a visitor’s ability to have an authentic experience and truly understand the importance of where they are. Furthermore, commodification can also threaten indigenous culture by imposing modern concepts and establishments to deal with the amount of

On April 17, 1790 the late Benjamin Franklin passed away. In his lifetime he invented great inventions and wrote many works of literacy. Mr. Franklin was considered to be a well known man of his time. his live very eventful from when he left for Philadelphia to when he died.

In America, cultural appropriation has been a prominent topic in the media. From the afro in the 70’s and perms in the 80’s, some ethnic groups see some ethnic groups culture fashionable and “aesthetic.” Though not intended, those specific groups (mostly African American and Native American cultures) see this as a form of mockery and feel discredited when someone with power in the media takes a certain style and profits. I believe that if you take a specific item out of it’s original context it is cultural appropriation by using certain items in the media as everyday

To feel like we actually like we have had a life worth living we must have experienced consumerism. Splurged a little more on our self’s give us some luxury in our life. I would say yes I do live my life according to the effects consumerism has on American culture. Unfortunately, I cannot live like a monk or I find it very challenging top because, that would require me giving up the luxuries I was immersed to into thanks, consumerism at a young age. The benefits of consumerism are when I used to sell food in school thanks to all the advertising done for me by the companies I had little to no trouble selling food. Because at my school you had the option between the free food (you get what you pay for) or some fresh donuts I had just bought from

The tourist’s experience is “dominated by the spectacle of the Other” which results in changes in behaviour that most likely would not fit with social norms in their home countries. Palmer and Lester use the example of photography in the film, noting that tourists become like stalkers when attempting to capture evidence of the primitive. Photography is a focus in the film, as it serves as an “embodied performative act.” The tourists are not interested in creating meaningful relationships with locals. The social interactions seem ingenuous and largely commercial. A woman stages a photo with local children, exclaiming “aren’t they cute?” She doesn’t create any meaningful connection with them, however the photo was composed in a way that will appear that she has to family and friends back home. In most aspects of cultural tourism, there is an aspect of staged performance to fit the needs of the audience. There is a dependence on the local people to perform a role eg. Selling objects, doing dances in native costume or performing a role from another era of history. In Cannibal Tours, the objects being sold are not authentic however tourists still purchase them, adding to the commodification of the interactions between tourist and local. Locals are confused why tourists come to buy inauthentic items instead of engaging with local history and culture in meaningful ways.

Cultural appropriation defines as someone from one culture taking or borrowing aspects of another culture that is not their own. “Appropriation occurs when a style leads to the racial [assumptions and] generalizations…where it [may have stemmed from], but is deemed as high-fashion, cool, or funny when the privileged take it for themselves” (Stenburg). In spite of the slight confusion, cultural appropriation is far more than the idea of pizza merging from Italian immigrants, and eventually becoming a food many people label as American. Cultural appropriation does differ from cultural appropriation, there is a fine line between the two, but nonetheless, they are two different things.

Advertising is one of the most common types of social communication and an integral element of modern mass culture. It was the product of the development of market-oriented economic culture production methods, gradually, as the development of information technology in the process of historical evolution, becoming one of the most important social institutions of modern society.

Slum tourism is becoming an emerging trend now, especially in developing countries. In fact, it has become one of the fastest growing market in the tourism industry. One of the reasons for that is due to the expansion of slum in developing countries. Frenzel et al., (2015) argue that as the number of locations has increased in the past 20 years, so has the number of tourists participating in slum tourism. They then presented a graph on the rise of slum tourism and the estimated numbers of tourists per year. It all begins in the 90s, where South Africa and Brazil had first developed slum tourism. It then moves to North America, where Mexico was involved in around 1995. During the early 20s, the expansion of countries arrived in Asia. The number of slum tourist destinations has continued increased and has later transformed into a type of tourism. This indeed could generate income especially with developing countries that are heavily rely on tourism. As Frenzel (2013) states that slum tourism could contribute to development by creating a variety sources of income and non-material benefits. These benefits are not actually benefiting the community but acts as a form of exploitation instead. As a result, this paper argues how slum tourism is being portrayed as a form of exploitation through poverty, the ethics in participating in slum tourism and how it does not lead to economic development.

Globalisation is the process of interconnectedness and the integration of national and regional culture, economies, and society through the global network of communication, immigration, transportation and trade (Financial Times Lexicon, 2017). According to Reiche (2014), globalisation did not mean much in the past fifty years. It could be primarily focused on the trade and also foreign direct investment which are the economic side of the world but it has been expanded to a broader range which including media, culture, technology, trades and political factors nowadays. Although globalisation is considered as a wide range nowadays, it still can be classified as four main characteristics which are stretched social relations, intensification of flows, increasing interpenetration, and global infrastructure (Held, 2004). However, cultural imperialism has the most typical impacts on globalisation. This essay will define and explain cultural imperialism and its impact from the pessimistic globalist and transformationalist perspective.