Geographically borderless culture

Duc Le September 2, 2015 IS111-02

As the world we are living in is becoming smaller, and easier than ever in term of travelling, an
interesting question raised along with that movement will be How we can define the
geographical border of a culture in this globalized world?. Is there such a thing named
limitation of culture about its location and its homeland? In my opinion, the official answer for
this question should be No one knows. However, James Cliffords essay, Traveling Culture,
can be a good kick off to start discussing this necessary topic.
First of all, James Clifford in his essay pointed out his clear points of view about how the
anthropology and ethnography were different from what it had been in the past. Like what he
said, Why not focus on any cultures farthest range of travel while also looking at its center, its
village.... In the past few decades, the world has changed so fast that we cannot evaluate and
investigate anything, for instance, culture, in particular. There are its connections to the rest of
the world. And at the same time, we have to admit that different cultures are expanding to the
entire globe, based on our traveling world. Just some years ago, and ethnographer has to come to
a specific location to study and fully understand a local culture, because its localization.
However, with the same purpose nowadays, anthropologists can simply investigate a culture in
the middle of a far city that has almost no relation to the its homeland but people, the informant.
The traveling world is creating traveling culture, and the question we are asking ourselves
through Jamess essay is that whether it is a right way to look at a culture in a far range just like
what we do in its village.
In addition, the essay demonstrates his opinion by his interesting style of using metaphor. The
traveler, the informant bringing their culture to all over the globe, is traveling while dwelling.
They are doing practically their local works while approaching to the big world. But is it all
the same for everyone? The answer in the this given speech is not. This matter of travel is
strongly influenced and ruled by gender, race, class, and even the culture itself. Different gender
will carry a different way how they bring their culture to the mobile world while they are playing
different roles, as well as how people will look at the race of an informant to accept or deny his
culture in a certain way, and also how that culture itself can adapt to the world. Those elements
bring the whole different aspect about how the ethnography and anthropology work out to this
new environment, where the geographical border has been erased but the political and social
view have turned to be the new obstacles for the study.
Meanwhile, the argument between how one can maintain a culture away from its village and how
a culture can be constructed accurately in a distant area is also controversal. As we can see, there
are definitely many instances for the point of dwelling while traveling, as James listed some in
his essay. But, we also can see the question that whether those culture is authentic, and how it
can be if there are certainly impacts from outside as it is traveling. Also, how people travel and
how they are defined as informant can be floating also, where we can see clearly the examples of
people who has come and stayed in many places but has no appearance of a traveling culture
with them and people who are non-mobile and localized but actually do have the way to be an
informant without traveling.
To clarify our discussion in a better understanding, let look at something that we are all familiar
with by a new way that James has developed in his essay. As we all know, Chinese culture is a

diverse culture, and also really localized culture too. It is really hard to understand fully and
completely Chinese traditions and customs if you are not in China, or at least now what does it
mean in the homeland. However, that is what we have to do in the past. For now, the
anthropologist and ethnographer do not need to come to China to fully investigate this culture.
Instead, they can come to a China town, which definitely can be found everywhere in the world.
In this particular place, people can experience the authentic Chinese culture in a distance that
half way of the Earth to the homeland. It is not the Chinese governments action or historical
reason. In short, it is Chinese travelers who became an informant to deliver their culture to the
world. But, we can also ask this question: Why Chinese community in those area can maintain
their culture instead of losing it? And why other communities cannot do a strong movement like
that?. In my opinion, based on the work of James in his essay, it is all because they are Chinese.
It sounds like really problematic, but that is the simplest answer. In James way, we can have a
brief explanation.
First, they are the race that account for about one over seven the population of the world. Even
we want to admit it or not, they are the majority that can easily to find their folks everywhere and
build a community quicker than anyone else. Therefore, a Chinese traveler, an informant, will
not have a difficulty in maintain his culture, since he can easily access the help from his people
anywhere anytime. In addition to that, their culture is a part of many cultures in history, so they
can simply find the pattern in the new place that they travel to and become familiar with it. So,
the traveling culture can be motivated even quicker for them and they do not hesitate to take risk
to reach to new places.
On the other hand, the spreading of Chinese culture based on the China town as we are
discussing is sample of mobile culture that anthropologist can look at, about seeing and
investigating a culture in a far distance but also see its center. It used to be a hard work for
Western people to get into China in the past, as a part of the political view and the protection for
culture. As a result, there was a geographical border for Chinese culture with the rest of the
world and vice versa. Today, there is no such a clear border like that. The China towns around
the globe make researchers has the chance to understand the culture better, and even joining it
without seeing the original village. But at the same time, there are more and more people come
to China from the outside, lead to the thing that China is Westernizing itself too. Chinese
people know more about the world that they barely know before, by the informants/travelers that
come to the country. It is a both sides process that strong prove for an idea about traveling
culture.
Although there will be no accurate answer for the question and argument that James Clifford
raised up in his essay, that was a marvelous speech in term of investigating and giving the
opinion about the changing world we are living in. His essay surely did a great work in putting
on the table a valuable question and way of thinking for us to consider about world while
globalization and international culture is developing rapidly. How we can look at the world from
now and how we need to analyze, study about it in the new era is what we will have to wonder
ourselves after the great piece that James Clifford has offered us. There is no time to for us to
stand still and understand about this world, because as he concluded in his speech, the translation
now is enough for you to begin to know what youre missing.
In my conclusion, the essay Traveling Culture did an undeniable wonderful work to show the
idea and opinion of the importance in changing the way we are doing international studies as the
world is moving towards daily. As we all noticed, the traveling culture is appearing around us

and knowing the way we should look at it, as well as appreciate it in the right position, is the first
thing that we should consider to begin our understanding for this energetic world.