HANNIGAN, J (2002) Culture, Globalization, and Social Cohesion: Towards a De-territorialized, Global Fluids Model. CANADIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 27(2). ABSTRACT: To conceptualize the interrelationship among culture, social cohesion, and globalization, this paper uses Urry's three "social topographies" of space: region, network, and fluids. Fluids describe the de-territorialized movement of people, information, objects, money, and images across regions in an undirected and non-linear fashion. They are characteristically emergent, hybridized, urban, and cosmopolitan. Drawing upon Appadurai's five dimensions of global cultural flows (ethnoscapes, technoscapes, finanscapes, mediascapes, ideoscapes) and using examples from Britain, the U.S., and Canada, the paper argues for greater research and policy attention to the processes whereby transnational and hybrid identities are forged in cities. It concludes by introducing some empirical indicators of cosmopolitanization that represent a starting point for further research into the linkages between global cultural fluids and social cohesion. |