An Inquiry: How do you paractice in anti-Cultural Imperiasm context?
反＝文化帝国主義を実践するとは？
An Inquiry: How do you paractice in anti-Cultural Imperiasm context?
以下の文章をよくよんで、文化帝国主義という言葉を 定義する「以前に」文化帝国主義ないしは反＝文化帝国主義を実践するとはどういうことか？について考えてみよう！
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"Consider this picture. It's really a very ordinary domestic scene, a family watching television - something millions of us do every evening. Yet there is clearly something extraordinary about the image, something that immediately strikes an exotic note. The family is watching in the open air; instead of armchairs, they are seated on blankets and oil-drums or on the desert sand. These people are obviously not Westerners, and the starkness of the setting seems to concentrate our attention on the Western technology that is absorbing them. The presence of the television is made strange in this context by the lack of the usual trappings of Western affluence. This is an extraordinary image of transported ordinariness."
"There
is a text
accompanying the photograph which tells us the family is part of an
aboriginal community, watching television in a remote part of Australia
on the edge of the Tanami desert. It also suggests that their culture
is under threat from what these people are doing, and notes that the
community have set up their own broadcasting organisation - the Walpiri
Media Association - 'to try to defend its unique culture from western
culture'. Knowing this, we will probably read the picture in a certain
way, inferring a domination from the image. The picture can thus
quickly be grasped as representing cultural imperialism.
"What follows is an attempt to understand what kind of domination is
registered in images like these."
"In fact, the picture invites us to see the television itself as the
focus of domination. Its baleful light dominates the scene; all (or
most) attention is fixed on it. The accompanying text speaks of 'Dallas
and Sale of the Century ... beamed to the Australian deserts by
satellite'. But is it what the people are seeing that threatens their
culture? Does imperialism lie in the contents of foreign programmes? If
so, how does this influence work? The screen appears to be blank; we
can't see what the people are watching. But doesn't this blankness also
signify our incapacity to know how alien texts are read, and the
cultural effects they may have? What are these people thinking as we
view them, as we might ourselves so easily be viewed, gazing at the
shining monster?"
"Or perhaps it is a question of what they are actually doing - sitting
and watching television, a practice linked to a technology which is in
a sense 'alien' to their culture? And if this is where the domination
lies, perhaps the television is merely emblematic of a wider cultural
imperialism - the spread of a certain Western-modern lifestyle? Why,
then, shouldn't we see the icebox on which it is standing as equally
indicative of cultural threat? And doesn't the obvious poverty of the
family have some connection with the idea of cultural imperialism? Is
this poverty itself a cultural question, or is there another distinct
form of imperialism at work? If there is, what is the relation between
these - economic and cultural - kinds of domination? And finally, what
could it mean to speak of a practice people seem to choose to engage in
- like watching television - as a form of domination?
These are some of the questions we will examine. But let us first stand
back from the image and try to see it in a certain context. When I
first saw this photograph, it had below it the caption: SEASON'S
GREETINGS. It was on a Christmas card sent out by a British television
company! The company actually supports the Walpiri Media Association as
part of its corporate charity funding. Now this context complicates the
signification of the image in a variety of ways, which I shall not try
to spell out here. But it is worth taking up the point that, in this
context, the picture is for Western consumption. The juxtaposition of
an image of cultural domination with such a strong marker of Western
culture as a Christmas greeting has a certain irony. But it also
illustrates a more general point - that the discourse we're concerned
with is inescapably lodged in the culture of the developed West. At
issue is a discourse about other cultures and their right to flourish,
but one that circulates primarily in the heart of the 'imperialist'
West. 'Cultural imperialism' is a critical discourse which operates by
representing the cultures whose autonomy it defends in its own
(dominant) Western cultural terms. It is a discourse caught up in
ironies that flow from its position of discursive power. This is, of
course, as true for this book as for any other text it will discuss."
Cited from John
Tomlinson's text "Cultural Imperialism," 1991, Pp.1-2.
トムリンソン，ジョン『文化帝国主義』の章立て
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