Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

New media technologies and their globalizing power have transformed development practices. Through a case study, I examine how local cultural practices such as traditional art forms – primarily non-monetary activities – in developing regions are brought into contemporary transactional domains through processes of digitization and integration into the Internet. These processes prompt us to consider culture as material capital, surplus value as an important marker of development, and the convergence of the concepts of labor and entrepreneurship. These considerations could challenge the assumption that global pressures are all powerful and set the agenda, and local entities are pliable, reactive, and powerless.

Keywords

developing economies ICTs digitization poverty reduction global markets cultural practices

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Akindola

R.B.

(2009). Towards a definition of poverty: Poor people’s perspectives and implications for poverty reduction. Journal of Developing Societies, 25(2), 121–150.

Appadurai

(1990). Technology and the reproduction of values in rural western India. In Marglin

Marglin

(Eds), Dominating knowledge: Development, culture, and resistance (pp. 185–216). Oxford: Clarendon.

Carr

Chen

M.A.

Tate

(2000). Globalization and home-based workers. Feminist Economics, 6(3), 123–142.

Gibson–Graham

J.K.

(2002). Beyond global vs. local: Economic politics outside the binary frame. In Herod

Herod

Wright

(Eds), Geographies of power: Placing scale (pp. 25–60). Blackwell: London.

Greenstar website. Retrieved February 10, 2012, from www.greenstar.org

Landes

D.S.

(2003). The unbound Prometheus: Technological change and industrial development in Western Europe from 1750 to the present (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Meehan

E.R.

Riordan

, (2002). Sex and money: Feminism and political economy in the media. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Milford-Lutzker

(1999). Intersections: Urban and village art in India. Art Journal, 58(3), 23–30.

Mosco

(2009). The political economy of communication. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: SAGE Publications.

10.

Staniland

Martin

(1985). What is political economy? A study of social theory and underdevelopment. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.

11.

Stein

(2002). Producer services, transaction activities, and cities: Rethinking occupational categories in economic geography. European Planning Studies, 10(6), 723–743.

Making Media Commodities from Cultural Practices

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References