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After reading the works of Rantanen (2005), I conducted an
interview with my mum, asking questions about how globalisation has changed her
way of living. Being fourty-six years old, her generation grew up with a certain
lack of technology or mediums unlike my generation. At first I asked her what
she thought the term ‘globalisation’ meant. Naturally, she had no idea. So to
help her understand the basis of the interview, I gave her my own definition. I
told her that globalisation is the movement and changes of people as well as
other factors such as technologies, culture, politics and economics, to name a
few. To be more specific, a common definition of globalisation is that it ‘refers
to the growing interconnections of different parts of the world, a process which
gives rise to complex forms of interactions and interdependency’ (Rantanen
2005, p.7). I then asked her what topics
amongst her and her friends were most influential on the personal choices they
made. She told me that fashion and music choices were top priority. Sounding like
titles coming under the ‘cultural flows’ heading, I asked my mum a few
questions to further test if cultural flows seemed to be the most influential
flow in her generation. Firstly, a cultural flow refers to exchange of matters
such as food,
religion, fashion, music and cinema across borders. So, question number three was ‘since you grew up
in the Greek community, was there a pressure to remain
the
Greek Orthodox religion and speak Greek, or did the other nationalities living in the neighbourhood
influence you to open up to different cultures?’. She told me that her Greek culture was
basically the only thing she followed. However, eventually cuisines, music,
even dance styles became an interest and naturally became part of her life. Curious
as to why it took so long for her to allow the influence of other cultures to
become part of her everyday life, I asked why that was so. She said that
because she was heavily influenced by her parents that were born and raised in
Greece, she never has much of an opportunity as a child to mingle with other cultures.
Although her parents knew that Australia was a multicultural country, they were
closed- minded and strict into allowing foreign cultures into her friendship
circle. I find it strange though that my grandparents worked in a factory which
no doubt shipped their goods around the world. But they had no idea about the
concept of globalisation and that they live in a world where most of the things
they are consuming or are involved with have in fact been spread across the
globe. At the end of the interview, I learned that no matter how hard you try, or
how sheltered your upbringing was, everything you consume is a global product.
Rantanen, T 2005, 'Theorizing media and globalization, '
Media and Globalisation', Sage Publications, London
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