Readings Week 12- The Role of the Media in Religious Transnationalism

By Laura Green

In this article, Marie Gillespie discusses the effect that globalization has had upon peoples perception of their culture, ethnicity and religion. Globalization has caused much of the worlds, particularly the Western world’s, culture to become Americanised and commodotised. Gillespie illustrates that different groups respond to globalization differently. Some become more devoted to their traditional faiths or cultural beliefs, whereas, others explore new ideas and beliefs and see their identity as a transformative process. These are not two distinct categories though, as many people tend to bounce back and forth between both reactions.

Gillespie uses the example of Sikh and Hindu populations in Southall, England to illustrate this. She suggests that it is often the older generations who favour maintaining their Indian culture as “un-tarnished” by the Western world. These people are often first generation migrants who view Western media suspiciously. However, they do desire depictions of their homeland from the media and even if these depictions are not real, they often become a substitute homeland. According to Gillespie, younger generations often go against this trend and do not want to territorialize their homeland like their parents, but be open and flexible towards other cultures. This process often comes under the title of “cosmopolitanism”. She illustrates this growing trend of cosmopolitainism through the story of an Indian school performing dirty dancing for a school performance for the Diwali festival. The performance was highly controversial to the older head teacher, however, it was still a great success, particularly with the student population, which highlights this group of youths acceptance of Westernised media infiltrating into their identity.

However, Gillespie also illustrates that young Hindu’s in Southall are still very observant of their culture. She shows this through her observations of an Indian family viewing a Western television production of the Mahabharata. She states that it was not only the mother, but also the children who found the Western depiction offensive and lacking the right cultural knowledge.  This highlights that the younger generations may be more open to other cultural experiences, but this does not cause them to completely lose their cultural and ethnic ties.

References:

M. Gillespie, “The Role of Media in Religious Transnationalism,” in G. Lynch, J. Mitchell & A. Strhan, eds., Religion, Media and Culture: A Reader, (London: Routledge, 2012): 98-110.