Globalisation and cultural change

The goal of the event was to consider and debate the need for a 5th World Conference of Women 2022 by United Nations. A goal that was not achieved, despite the fact that they all agreed on their need, they get lost in terms of agenda, positions, and vision. Only good intentions are not enough to address gender equality from an International Conference, in addition, to be hosted by United Nations. An extremely politicized process in a historical momentum in which there is no clear commitment towards gender equality and to United Nations. That is the case of US and Israel withdrawing from UNESCO or the growing extremism in Middle East that marks an inflection point for women.

The current complex geopolitical map has boosted a wave of libertarian feeling, as a logical consequence for the loss of State leadership in which the private sector is taking the lead. It is quite clear in the humanitarian aid sector; institutions that are failing in their main goal: delivering aid and are going through serious financial troubles as donors are seeing new perspectives for their contributions. The same donors that have historically trusted on institutions are now diverting to a direct shape of aid. In addition, development cooperation originally associated with a public sector “dominion” is now part of private initiatives, although within a no coordinated action.

The purpose of this working paper is twofold: to consider whether and how the European Union (EU) play a major role in global cultural politics and economy (taking as case study the film sector) and to analyze whether the United States keep playing a key role in global cultural flows or their dominance is challenged by other countries - such as China - or by main digital players. Thus, the article offers a first investigation in order to understand the influence of the EU in global governance of trade and culture, paying special attention to the nexus between culture and digital platforms and to analyse whether this influence is translated into a change of balance of power in the global cultural economy.

Minimalisme, minimale, minimiste. Atonie, léthargie, asthénie. En architecture, linguistique et religion, partout les mêmes répercussions, le même silence, le même vide et la même absence.
Comme une peste noire. Il n'y a plus rien. Rien ne bouge et l'hypertrophie du rien fait que rien n'est encore trop.
Le drame en architecture se concrétise d'abord et avant tout par le refus des signes. Nous avons le sentiment que la discipline a horreur des signes.
En effet, la conception architecturale est trop souvent encore assimilée à une simple traduction du programme dans l’espace. Cependant, il faudrait étudier le rapport de signification : le problème de la lecture des formes architecturales. Il est question de rétroaction des formes en tant que signes sur leurs contextes.

¿Cuáles son los principales retos a los que se enfrenta el mundo con-temporáneo? Si juzgamos la historia reciente a la luz de las metas, los valores y el programa político occidental moderno, terminaríamos enumerando una serie de resistencias de orden cultural y político que habría que vencer para que la marcha del desarrollo prosiga feliz-mente su cauce. Sin embargo, y he ahí el problema, quizá lo que valga la pena sea más bien enfocar nuestra atención en esas resistencias, no como obstáculos en un supuesto camino válido por sí mismo y que nadie cuestiona, sino como síntomas de necesidades de fondo, de orden social, político, cultural y hasta existencial, que los procesos de globalización han desatado y puesto en evidencia. Fenómenos que aparentemente son consecuencias negativas de la globalización o que invitan a juzgar sus procesos negativamente, pero que no se habrían articulado tan claramente y no tendrían tanta fuerza si no fuera por la globalización misma, que la constituyen y hacen que tengamos un concepto histórico y filosófico cada vez más profundo de lo que la globalización significa como experiencia histórica humana transcivilizacional.

The article analyses the evolution of the Soviet heritage-making policy in late socialism. Based on archival sources and interviews with former key experts from the Soviet ICOMOS committee, as well as other activists in conservation and heritage protection in former Soviet republics, the article explores the multi-faceted nature of the construction of heritage in the Soviet context that involved a complex interplay between local and international agencies, mediated by Soviet cultural institutions. It shows that rapid development of conservation activity in the USSR along with officially backed public engagement in heritage protection in the late 1960s and 1970s manifested a ‘historical turn’ that reflected a demand on the rationalized past in the socialist modernization project similar to that seen in many western countries. The article contributes to the discussion on the role of cultural heritage in the ideological construction of Soviet society and to the growing literature on socialist cultural engagement with the outside world by examining the role of heritage as a global cultural form.

Auf der Basis einer ethnografischen Lokalstudie zur Aneignung von "Italienischem" erörtert der Aufsatz Grundfragen und zentrale Konzepte zum Verständnis von Kulturtransfers unter Bedingungen der Globalisierung. Einerseits wird in vielen Formen Hybridisierung und kreative Anpassung des "Italienischen" praktiziert, andererseits ist eine demonstrative Italianisierung des Lebensstils zu Distinktionszwecken verbunden. Abwertung "der Italiener" deutscherseits verbindet sich mit Hochschätzung ihrer Fähigkeiten zu Leichtigkeit, Eleganz und Genuss des Lebens.

Los eventos de la última década muestran que, aunque la libertad y la democracia son aspiraciones universales, no son prioridad cuando las personas crecen sintiendo que la supervivencia es incierta. Se observa que cuando las necesidades físicas y psicológicas básicas son satisfechas, el énfasis creciente que las personas ponen en los valores autoexpresivos hace más probable que la democracia emerja y se consolide. En 38 años de la encuesta se ve esa correlación entre la autoexpresión y el desarrollo de instituciones genuinamente democráticas.

The events of the last decade show that, although freedom and democracy are universal aspirations, they are not a priority when people grow up feeling that survival is uncertain. It is observed that when the basic physical and psychological needs are satisfied, the increasing emphasis that people put on self-expressive values makes democracy more likely to emerge and consolidate. In 38 years of the survey, this correlation is seen between self-expression and the development of genuinely democratic institutions.

Building peace is about trying not consolidating, is about exchange, not privileged relations, is about acceptance of new working codes, not traditional codes applying new technology, is about slow and open processes in which more than ever human resources become a precious source for changing and not the institutions in itself.

Do not think yourself as a Peacebuilder but an active citizen in action that try to build peace within a chaotic framework of manipulation, confrontation and distrust.

Today, a small number of capitalist elite, with their limitless power and huge capital, make an effort to dominate the World economy and politics , and control over natural sources. In order to reach their aim, they have a project which they own its design patent: Globalization. They committed themselves to enforce this project of globalization through neoliberal politics and various concepts that they emptied of its true content, such as liberal free economy, free market, democracy , individual freedom, and human rights. However, the implementation of these concepts outside the borders of the West is quite different from those written on paper. The notion that the use of such concepts, in fact, is the trap of wild capitalism hidden behind globalization is gradually gaining ground. Within the same context, the idea that they are also used as tools of oppression , invasion, war and exploitation by the tyrants and imperialist elites is also expressed more loudly among the prominent experts of politics and economics. They are of the opinion that globalizatin, on the one hand, feathers elites' nest who pursue limitless profit and gain, and on the other hand, it also widens the gap between the poor and the rich. Politics also took over responsibility in implementing the globalization project. This responsibility is rather implemented through wars and invasions. Afghan and Iraq wars are typical examples of such implementation among many others. Thanks to the wars spurred by globalization, the destruction, devastation, persecution, exploitation, injustice and iniquity are gradually becoming chronic. As a result, arbitrary wars of globalization also destroyed the foundations and reasons of the Just War Theory of the Christian theology.

For centuries diplomats and merchants served as intermediaries in Europe and the Mediterranean basin, forging intercultural contaminations. Focusing on the early modern “global turn”, the paper investigates Venetian patronage of architecture as an attempt, promoted by a part of the political elite, to preserve a legacy endangered by globalisation.
The topic is explored concentrating on the travels and ambassadorial assignments of a key political figure of late sixteenth-century Venice, Leonardo Donà dalle Rose (1536–1612), who became doge at the end of his career.
He had a unique role in the building of Venice, actively participating in all the commissions responsible for the city’s major architectural works of the period (Redentore, Fondamenta Nuove, Procuratie Nuove, Rialto Bridge, San Giorgio Maggiore, Palmanova, in addition to his own palace and tomb). But to what degree did he determine the built aspect of Venice?
To reply to this question, it became fruitful investigating what he had possibly retained of his life of diplomatic practice and cross-cultural exchange.
In spite of the fact that it was intensely international (he went on the Adriatic costs, Cyprus, Spain, Rome, Istanbul, Vienna) and culturally open (he was in contact with leading minds such as Bruno, Galilei, and Sarpi), one can argue that, in searching for the creation a true “venetian architecture” tied to ancient civic traditions, Donà was trying to maintain an independent culture in a changing world.

BACKGROUND
In an increasingly interconnected world, understanding the formation of transnational orientations is of great importance. Attitudes toward transnational intermarriage tell of people’s view of the transnational world and their perception of the social distance between countries and regions.

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this research is to identify the holistic formations of Chinese people’s transnational orientations in relation to distinct countries and regions, and examine the individual- and province-level correlates of the distinctive profiles of transnational orientations in order to test theories of transnational convergence, transnational distinction, and individualized transnationalization.

METHODS
This research draws on individual-level data from the China General Social Survey (N = 3,000) and province-level data from the China Statistics Yearbook. Latent class analysis and multilevel multinomial random-intercept models are used to analyze the data.

RESULTS
A fourfold typology of attitudes toward transnational intermarriage is identified, namely cosmopolitan, pro-West, pro-East Asia, and anti-transnational. The results support the theory of transnational distinction rather than transnational convergence, as macro-level difference ‒ instead of convergence in the level of transnational activity and, particularly, socioeconomic development between countries ‒ fosters support for intermarriage. The thesis of individualized transnationalization is also supported, as individuals’ region-specific cultural consumption positively predicts their exclusive support for intermarriage with people from these regions.

CONCLUSIONS
The findings reveal the ways in which uneven socioeconomic development, globalization, and individualization configure people’s transnational orientations in a development context.

Today, the world is in an evident disarray; many things seem to have gone wrong at once. Various topics: terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, black accounts; financial crises, income distribution, global coordination; or the social angriness and growing anti-migration —nationalistic-protectionist— sentiments and policies, show that something has changed for the worse. As we will see, all these events have a common deep cause that we must first understand, in order to be able to cope with its consequences. We are living a technological revolution that, in many ways, surpasses the so-called Industrial Revolutions, particularly because of the speed at which it is bringing change.
In these pages, we defend that institutions have not yet adapted to the new world that this technological revolution has brought about. Today’s inadequate institutional arrangements are sustained by old concepts or economic theories and ideas that no longer work as they did before. This mismatch between the new technological world and the old institutions explains most of today’s world economic problems.

One of the possible solutions to partially address the negative aspects of economic globalisation and the disruptive effects of mass-migrations (including ghettoisation, diminished home affordability, urban anomie) on both diasporic communities and receiving societies is to envisage new housing complexes meant as poly- functional hubs of mutual hospitality. This article puts forward the suggestion to rediscover — in its rather idealised form — the socio-cultural concept, symbolic role, and translational practices of the caravanserai, the place which, in late antiquity, lodged nomads and allowed people on the move to meet and interact with members of sedentary communities. Contemporary architects and designers have already started re-envisioning the role of the caravanserai as a transcultural ‘third space’ that courageously cuts across ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious borders. The 21st century development of the urban caravanserai may also be understood as a model for highly inclusive low-rise, high density urban housing complexes. This model — the transcultural Commons — contemplates a mix of residential units, commercial, and trades activities, craftsman workshops, arts studios, educational enterprises, and public spaces for active fruition. By blurring the boundaries between residential, commercial, social, and creative spaces, it reinstates the productive use of property and the residents’ engagement with the Commons.1

When the only advice on offer is unhelpful, a potential missionary might need to be advised to seek for an alternative. Jesus, we take it, was not building a worldly-empire (John 18:36). Christian mission has become associated with colonialism. Dominant advice often pushes Western missionaries to positions of strength. In order to be vulnerable, one needs an alternative to such advice. Economic domination of Africa by the West makes it hard to know when Africa’s people, long engrossed in patron / client relationships, are not talking for power. Use of English to describe Africa leads to massive false imputing of Western histories onto African societies.  A little linguistic wisdom exposes the naivety of many contemporary understandings of the acumen of translation.

Comparative study of contemporary art in Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia showing the impact of local conditions on emerging contemporary art. The paper counters assumptions that contemporary art in Southeast Asia, and specifically in Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia, obligatorily looked to Euramerican art for contemporary modes. The paper argues the importance of tense local conditions in the wake of globalisation, for the  development of Southeast Asian contemporary art.

This volume aims above all to problematize the concept and practice of translation in an interconnected world in which English, despite its hegemonic status, can no longer be considered a coherent unified entity but rather a mobile negotiated resource (Blommaert 2010) subject to various kinds of hybridization. Drawing upon recent work in the domains of translation studies (e.g. Klinger 2015, Meylaerts 2006, Batchelor 2009), literary studies (Apter 2006, 2013), and (socio-)linguistics (Canagarajah 2013, Pennycook 2007, Blommaert 2010), it explores the centrality of translation as both a trope for the analysis of contemporary transcultural dynamics and as a concrete communication practice in the globalized world. 
The first section looks at the role played by translation in the construction of contemporary identities, both horizontally (through translingual processes) and vertically (through temporal transposition). In a world characterised by physical migrations and instantaneous data transmission, identity is increasingly hybrid and translingual, forged at the interface of cultures through an effort of will and memory. Whether English is experienced as an oppressive or liberating force, as a mediator between localized realities, or as a rich resource to be drawn upon at will, the variety used is likely to be tinged with the sounds and forms of other linguistic realities and punctuated with nodes of untranslatability. Indeed, exploring just what may or may not be rendered in English in this process of self-translation constitutes one of the central aims of this section.
Hybrid identities continue to play an important role in the second section, but now the attention shifts to translation in the classic sense, namely, the difficulties faced by translators in their attempts to render the miscegenated discourse of translinguals in a third language. The issue is discussed both in broad terms, with reference to the ongoing debate about world literature and (un-)translatability, and also more specifically, in relation to concrete problems arising in particular texts. One innovative feature is the attention given to the role of the multilingual reader, whose communicative needs may differ considerably from those of the usual target reader of translations as conventionally conceived.
The final section draws together these different understandings of ‘translation’ to explore the implications of it for language change in different cultural settings. The evidence suggests that the process is by no means unidirectional: for although English, as the prestige vehicle of global communication, undoubtedly leaves its mark upon all the languages with which it comes into contact, it is also being influenced by them too. The extent to which this may ultimately result in the breakdown of English into mutually unintelligible varieties, and the implications of such a development for the translation economy, particularly in the light of the new nationalisms of the Brexit/Trump era, form the subject of the book’s conclusion.