Culture And Global Change

Investigations into cultural aspects of ways of life can be crucial in making valuable assessments of processes of change. Understanding culture in a broad conceptual framework helps us interpret what things mean to different people in different cultures and places.

Culture and Global Change presents twenty-five chapters which each offer their own particular take on 'culture', provoking new debate, opening up new areas of research, and questioning conventional assumptions. Multiple meanings of culture - culture as representation, as discourse, as practice, as product, as action, as explanation - are represented here in this unique collection of contributions from leading writers in the field.

The book is divided into eight parts: Culture and Development; Questioning Cultural Assumptions; Representations and Cultural Commodification; Culture as Explanation; Culture and Resistance; Culture and Human Rights; Religion, Culture and Politics; and Culture as Product and Pleasure. The editors guide readers through the debates, themes and places covered within individual chapters, ranging across topics which include: cricket in the Caribbean; Indian cinema and Hollywood; sex tourism in Thailand and the Philippines; London's representation through the Evening Standard; the Japanese economic miracle and workplace; street children in Brazil; Mexican-US and Latin America-UK migration; female circumcision in Sudan; women and New Hinduism; and film in Soviet and Russian society.

Exploring the significance and meaning of cultural issues for different people in different parts of the contemporary world, this book highlights the dangers of using reductive models of culture and of adoptingculturally deterministic positions. The book stresses that we have to understand social action within the context of cultural change and both recognise and respect the diversity, dynamism and relevance of cultures. With chapters dealing with the importance of 'Third World' cultures and also with change in Russia, Japan, the USA and the UK, this book considers the relationship between culture and development at a sophisticated level and within a truly global context.

"Culture and Global Change" presents a comprehensive introduction to the cultural aspects of third world development. It contains 25 chapters from leading writers in the field which each offer thier own particular take on 'culture' and explore the significance and meaning of cultural issues for different people in different parts of the contemporary world. With chapters dealing with the importance of 'Third World' cultures but also with changes in Russia, Japan, the USA and the UK, this book considers the relationship between culture and development within a truly global context.