Publications by Author: Watson%2C%20James%20L.

Unlike our historian friends, anthropologists do not have the luxury of drawing a line in the sands of time and declaring a closure date for our research. Ethnography never ends. Even the demise of the original field–worker does not conclude the enterprise, given the inevitability of re–studies (usually conducted by younger scholars eager to overthrow past paradigms). This article is a product of contemporary ethnography; it describes a project that has a beginning but no clear end. At some point during the 1990s, the research took on a life of its own and, if anyone is in charge, it is certainly not the ethnographer. In many respects, therefore, the project parallels the digital revolution: decentered, unpredictable, and "out of control."

My address focuses on the long–term consequences of international migration and the historical dynamics of diaspora formation. The research is longitudinal in the sense that it tracks a single, tightly bound kinship group during thirty–five years of field research. From its inception, this has been what anthropologists refer to as a multisited ethnography, even though that term had not been invented when the research began (see Marcus 1995). The project started in 1969 as a "typical" (for that era) village study, focusing on a Cantonese community of two thousand people.

Globalization is the process by which the experience of everyday life, marked by the diffusion of commodities and ideas, is becoming standardized around the world. Extreme views of this process stress the destruction of local cultures and the homogenization of life styles, caused by the spread of American and Japanese popular culture. This article reviews arguments for and against the cultural imperialism hypothesis, and concludes that globalization is in the eyes of the beholder. An anthropological approach to these issues hinges upon the distinction between form and content (or outward appearance versus internal meaning). Does the appearance of a McDonald's restaurant necessarily imply that local consumers are being Americanized? Many commentators, notably journalists and politicians, confuse form with content and do not look closely at the ways ordinary people incorporate global influences into their everyday lives. This article examines several cultural systems that are said to foster globalization: fast food, film, television, style, pop music, and the internet.

Nixon was not the only one who went to China; Ronald McDonald is there now, too. McDonald's triumphed — in a cultural zone where many adults think fried beef patties taste bizarre — by catering to China's pampered only children, the so–called little emperors and empresses. The "Golden Arches" have become part of the landscape of Beijing and Hong Kong. But is McDonald's trampling local culture in the name of a bland, homogeneous world order? Not really. Global capitalism pushes one way, and local consumers push right back. Herewith, a parable of globalization.

Published in Foreign Affairs 79, no. 3 (May/June 2000).