"C'mon baby, do the glocamotion"

Reading Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett’s article 'World Heritage and Cultural Economics' and made me think about consumerism and commercialisation and how almost everything has a dollar value put on it nowadays. An issue raised in “The Corporation” a film by Mark Achbar, Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott based on the book 'The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power' by Joel Bakan. When economic feasibility is necessary for sustaining cultural heritage, I can’t help but feel that this somehow marginalises it. That culture should be sacrosanct. But is it?

Cultures change over time and as they develop a new expression the result, to my mind, can be an exciting fusion of influences. Local fusions of music, food, design and art that are then experienced worldwide. In Australia we can enjoy music from “Bonde do Roll” a local Brazillian Baille Funk band probably best known for “Marina Gasolina” which was briefly a Bonds underwear ad before they realised what the translation was.



Admittedly there is some turbulence - problems such as cultural dispositions towards individual as opposed to group rights (see Will Kymlicka’s work for an excellent discussion of these tensions). It is ignorance that breeds these tensions. We have more in common than is sometimes recognised. By producing culture that connects people we improve the understanding we have of each other. I'd like to see more cultural fusion put into motion. It displays the inherent beauty of culture, perhaps transformed, possibly for sale, and why not mutually, even universally, appreciated.