The Urban Anthropology: Places and Markets - Essay Example

Case Study: Anthropology Student’s Name Instructor’s Name Course Code and Name University Date of Submission Case Study: Anthropology The urban anthropology has been transformed and challenged simultaneously by the forces of globalization. Globalization can be defined from various perspectives, including economic, social, political, as well as cultural terms, and has been theorized as de-territorializing numerous social trends and processes that were formally referred to as the social attributes of urban places. Based on the seemingly displaced city scape in regard to the global flows of commerce, capital, culture and commodities, this paper significantly assesses the cultural factors that are important in making the commodity valuable to people; how the fact that the commodities flow globally affects their value to people in different places, as well as the ways that global forms of circulation are modified, structured, and organised culturally. Traditionally, market and place have been tightly interwoven. In addition, markets were both symbolic threshold and literal places: culturally inscribed limit and socially constructed places, which nonetheless entailed crossing of boundaries through socially marginal traders and long distance trade. Also, markets were inextricably bound up with the local communities. Today, the forces of globalization have significantly altered and will progressively alter the role of urban places as central nodes in the organization of national regional, and trans- or international flows of materials, people, ideas, and power, among others (Bestor 2001, p. 77). Indeed, networks or commodity chains, as well as the markets they flow through, are inherently cultural in their processes and effects. Furthermore, places and markets no longer support each other (Dunn 2004, p. 69). If globalization literature is to be believed, global markets are literally utopian, which means that they are nowhere in specific and are everywhere all at once. Notably, globalization is a highly discussed concept, but yet it is usually poorly defined. The presumed globalization conditions include the increasing swiftness of capital movement (both cultural and economic), as well as the corresponding hastening of telecommunications and transportation, all stitching up together increasingly larger for exchanges across numerous dimensions. The factors that significantly facilitate the frequency and velocity of such exchanges include the relative density and dispersal of people that live outside the societies and cultures of their origins, as well as the increased potential which exist for multi or cross cultural and societal brokers and agents to effects linkages. The factors that accompany these changes is the swift cross arbitrage and fertilization of cultural capital across numerous disparate domains of belief, media, economic organization, and political action, among many others, often in unanticipated or unintended ways. Worth noting, these trends are increasingly experienced within arenas that are transnational or global as opposed to international (Bestor 2001, p. 78). This is specifically owing to the fact that these trends potentially diminish the state of a nation as the uncontested or primary organizing principle, conduit, arbiter, mediator, or framing institution for interactions and transactions across cultural and societal boundaries. Nevertheless, the most critical issues that anthropologists are significantly concerned with, particularly in respect to urban cities, is the extent on which the forces of globalization have actually altered and will progressively alter the role of urban places as central nodes in the organization of national regional, and trans- or international flows of materials, people, ideas, and power, among others. Throughout history, markets and cities have upheld each other, whereby the cities have provided sustenance, cultural verve and profits to the markets and at the same time markets have significantly provided demand, location, as well as social context to the cities. Many anthropological related studies regarding markets have primarily focused on the issue of decision making within them or on the institutional or organizational structures (Dunn 2004, p. 75). However, there are some few studies that relate to the operations of particular markets to their urban locale, as well as their wider socio-cultural milieu. Therefore, the interrelations among urban life and markets along both cultural and economic dimensions have considerably attracted increased attention from researchers. Most recently, the transnational social, political, and economic forces are seemingly eroding the distinction among societies and cultures. Examining the modern ebbs, as well as flow of cultures as techno-scape, ideo-scape, ethno-scape, media-scape, and economic-scape, these refers to the complex undertows and tides of people, capital, technology, political ideologies, and media representation that concurrently divide or link regions across the globe (Bestor 2001, p. 77). From the perspective of global integration or disintegration, it can be implied that the world is de-territorialized, whereby places matters little, but the what mainly matters are the loosely coupled scapes or domains across which the varied influences repertoire could travel swiftly in numerous directions almost simultaneously. Worth noting, this perspective does not give precedence to one particular scape over another. For instance, economics does not trump media, nor does cuisine subordinated to the ethnic identity. In addition, in the spate of increased global interactions, what could be the disseminator or centre of influence in one particular scape could also be simultaneously the recipient or periphery of influence towards another scape. Essentially, it is critical to note that the manner in which commodities flow globally affects their value to people in different places. However, globalization or the entire world culture is not a reflection of uniformity or standardization, but rather an organization of diversity, which is attributed to an increased interconnectedness of different local cultures. In this instance, the global organization of diversity significantly intertwines together various production modes in a multifaceted temporal scheme. Thus, this multifaceted temporal structure or scheme of the trade needs coordination of markets and producers, demand and supply, among many other irreconcilable factors, including time scape. Notably, there is the production time, which is mainly determined by the local conditions and seasons (Dunn 2004, p. 78). There is also the regulatory time, which is rather bureaucratic as opposed to the natural cycle. Also, there is the market time, which is the temporal logic coordinating far-flung activities that are carried out by distinct groups through the use of wildly varied technologies, and engaged in dissimilar production modes into a seemingly seamless and coherent master narrative of demand and supply. Globalization usually links these time scape together. However, not through enhancing a uniform logic on each particular place, but rather through filling up the gaps, twisting different perspectives on medley chips to make them appear well-fitted, and also coordinating activities at different locations. Furthermore, it is paramount to note that this does not only include organizing diversity, but also acting as arbitrageur through exploiting the minute variations in place and time so as to increasingly profit from the diversity globalization has exposed. Most importantly, the velocity of credit and money significantly transform the social relationships, as well as the relationships associated to the commodities (Bestor 2001, p. 92). Therefore, the conditions of globalization transform the relations among different parts of the world and rewire the capital flow circuits in all its distinguished manifestations. Nonetheless, time and money, which entails the velocity of capital, are essentially not the only factors at stake. The transformation of the meanings associated with commodities and relationships are equally paramount in the understanding of the cultural processes of commodity chains and global markets, global role of markets, as well as the ever shifting relationships among global stages and local actors. All these occurrences take place through the interactions of markets and places. Essentially, it is through such interactions, which are conceivably rearranged in space and time, but not primarily altered that the communities and places continue encountering the cultural and material means for their social reproduction. The cultural and material means could be new, transformed, or alien, but not less important for creating local social conditions and local meanings. Thus, it is through these interactions that the local commodity values can be found in the global arena (Dunn 2004, p. 83). In addition, the interactions of economic processes, cultural meanings, as well as social structural forms, along other multiple dimensions and perspectives, in diverse concurrences of local places, in hastening time, accomplish the diversity organization of globalization. Nevertheless, they do this through substantially urban means, including place, market, trade, linkage, and hierarchy. However, not all commodities are subjected to free movement, especially when it comes to health matters. For instance, organ transplantation mainly depends on a social trust, as well as social contract, on which their ground should be explicit. At minimal, this requires international guidelines and national laws outlining and shielding the rights of the organ donors, including the dead and living, and also the rights of the organ recipients. In addition, the organ transplantation needs a reasonably equitable and fair health care system. Also, it significantly requires a reasonably democratic nation whereby the basic human rights principles are guaranteed. This is mainly because of the fact that organ transplantation, regardless of knowledge and experience of physicians, which takes place in the existence of an authoritarian state, can result to gross human right abuses. On the same regard, where indications of debt peonage persevere and where race, class, as well as social groups ideologies cause certain types of people, whether street children, women, or common criminals, to be treated as wastes, such sentiment could ultimately corrupt medical practices in regard to organ harvesting and global distribution (Scheper-Hughes 2000, p. 209). Under these conditions, the most prone social groups will fight back, normally with the only resources under their disposal, such as gossip, rumours, intense resistance towards the modern laws, as well as urban legends. In this way, they are enhanced to act and react to their current state of emergency existing within them, particularly in these times of democratic and economic readjustments. On the same note, the increasingly express their consciousness in respect to social exclusions, and also articulate their own political and ethical categories in the context of the consuming demand that value their bodies highly when they can easily be claimed by a state as ordinances of spare parts. Essentially, while for the specialist of transplant, an organ is just a mere thing, a commodity that is better utilized than wasted; to substantial numerous people, an organ is something else very valuable (Diniz 2001, p. 217). Culturally, many people across the world consider an organ as a lively, spiritualized, and animate part of the self that most human beings would like to take along with them upon their death. In conclusion, this paper has established that the traditional market and place have been tightly interwoven. Also, markets have been both symbolic threshold and literal places: culturally inscribed limit and socially constructed places, which nonetheless entailed crossing of boundaries through socially marginal traders and long distance trade. More importantly, markets were inextricably bound up with the local communities. However, the forces of globalization today have significantly altered and will progressively alter the role of urban places as central nodes in the organization of national regional, and trans- or international flows of materials, people, ideas, and power, among others. Indeed, networks or commodity chains, as well as the markets they flow through, are inherently cultural in their processes and effects. It has also been noted that globalization or the entire world culture is not a reflection of uniformity or standardization, but rather an organization of diversity, which is attributed to an increased interconnectedness of different local cultures. Nevertheless, not all commodities are subjected to the forces of globalization. For instance, organ transplantation across the world mainly depends on a social trust and social contract, on which their ground should be explicit. At least, this requires international guidelines and national laws outlining and guarding the rights of the organ donors, and also the rights of the organ recipients. In addition, the organ transplantation needs a reasonably equitable and fair health care system. List of References Bestor, TC 2001, “Supply-Side Sushi: Commodity, Market, and the Global City”, American Anthropologist, Vol. 103, No. 1, p. 76-95.  Diniz, D 2001, “Frontiers of anthropological research: ethics, autonomy, and trafficking in human organs: A commentary on The Global Traffic in Human Organs, by Nancy Scheper-Hughes”, Cadernos de saude publica Ministerio da Saude Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz Escola Nacional de Saude Publica, Vol. 17, No. 1, p. 215-219. Dunn, EC 2004, ‘Niche marketing and the production of flexible bodies’, in Privatizing Poland: Baby food, big business, and the remaking of labor, Cornell University Press: Ithaca and London. p. 58-93. Scheper-Hughes, N 2000, “The Global Traffic in Human Organs”, Current Anthropology, Vol. 41, No. 2, p. 191-224.  Read More