Cultural Socialization and Ethnic Consciousness

3 Cultural Socialization and Ethnic Consciousness Sara N. Amin Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Neoliberal Globalization and the Commodification of Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Social Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cross-References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 51 54 57 59 61 62 62 Abstract In this chapter, I argue that cultural socialization processes of ethnic consciousness need to be understood in the context of the contemporary global politicaleconomic order. To do so, I first discuss the commodification of culture under neoliberal globalization and its role in heightening ethnic consciousness. This discussion points to three spaces in which cultural encounters, cultural knowledge, and identity have been intensified in the Global South: tourism, development, and social media. The chapter explores what are some key characteristics of cultural socialization of ethnic consciousness in these three sites and their implications for heightening or diminishing ethnic consciousness. I suggest that with the commodification and globalization of “ethnicity” and “culture,” researchers looking into cultural socialization practices and what is heightening or diluting ethnic consciousness need to look beyond the social relations in the family, peers, education, and “traditional” media and examine the economy – S. N. Amin (*) School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Law and Education, The University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji Islands e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 S. Ratuva (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2898-5_3 49 50 S. N. Amin especially in the areas of tourism, the development industry, and the performance of identity in social media. Keywords Ethnic consciousness · Cultural socialization · Neoliberal globalization · Commodification of culture · Tourism · Development · Social media Introduction Ethnic consciousness has been conceptualized in different ways, including an awareness of membership in an ethnic group (Gold and Miller 2015), the extent to which one understands human social relations through notions of ethnicity (Banton 2014) and the degree to which awareness and understanding of ethnic identity shapes social and political action (Gibson and Gouws 2000). There have been at least two major concerns in relation to the study of ethnic consciousness: what produces (or diminishes) ethnic consciousness and what are the consequences of heightened/diminished ethnic consciousness (Vermeulen and Govers 1997). In an important way, answers to these questions vary by disciplinary focus. Psychological theorization of how ethnic consciousness is fostered in the individual has focused on the role of the family (see review by Hughes et al. 2006) or peers (Wang et al. 2015) and has identified four key sets of practices, which taken together can be understood as constituting ethnic socialization: cultural socialization, preparation for bias, promotion of mistrust, and promotion of egalitarianism and/or silence. Cultural socialization has usually been understood as a set of practices of social actors in fostering awareness of (and pride in) one’s ancestry, origin, and cultural heritage (Hughes et al. 2006). While preparation of bias includes teaching one how to cope with racialized/ethnic discrimination in society, promotion of mistrust involves practices that warn one to be cautious or suspicious of interracial/interethnic interactions (Hughes and Johnson 2001). The promotion of egalitarianism or silence about ethnic issues involves encouraging one to focus on individual/nonethnic characteristics of one self and others or “simply” not discussing ethnicity (Hughes et al. 2006). Researchers have explored the role of these four types of processes in impacting on aspects of self-esteem, as well as education, employment, and health outcomes. In their review of the research on ethnic socialization in the family, Hughes et al. (2006) state that unlike the evidence for preparation of bias, promotion of mistrust and egalitarianism, which is mixed and limited, there is clear evidence that cultural socialization practices of parents that nurture awareness and pride of cultural heritage and contribute to heightened ethnic consciousness have positive effects on youth’s social and well-being outcomes. Most of this line of work, like much of psychological research, has focused on ethnic and racialized minorities in the American context and has been characterized by a focus on the positive role cultural socialization practices by the family can have on integration processes and intergroup relations. In contrast, sociological and anthropological theorizations of the processes by which ethnic consciousness is fostered in groups in a given society have tended 3 Cultural Socialization and Ethnic Consciousness 51 to examine the sociopolitical and economic processes that impact on people’s consciousness of ethnic membership, the meanings attached to that membership, and the type of social and political actions that result from that consciousness. Central to sociological discussions of the formation of ethnic consciousness is the argument that ethnic consciousness is shaped in important ways by the extent to which distribution of resources, opportunities, belonging, and power are (primarily) organized along ethnic lines (Rex 2013; Banton 2014). One important implication of this is that there is a political economy of ancestry, origin, and cultural heritage, shaping the kinds of stories, symbols, and meanings that are mobilized to construct ethnic consciousness (Castells 2010; Tilly 2015). As such, cultural socialization practices and the impact of these practices on ethnic consciousness are contested, multiple, and context-specific. This body of work has been more global and comparative, but there has been a tendency to focus on the conflict-generating consequences of ethnic consciousness in relation to intergroup relations, examining the role of educational, media, social movement, and nation-building institutions of the state. Keeping in mind the insights in psychological, sociological, and anthropological research noted above, I suggest in this chapter that cultural socialization processes of ethnic consciousness need to be understood in the context of the contemporary global political-economic order. To do so, I first discuss the commodification of culture under neoliberal globalization and its role in heightening ethnic consciousness. This discussion points to three spaces in which cultural encounters, cultural knowledge, and identity have been intensified in the Global South: tourism, development, and social media. I then explore what are some key characteristics of cultural socialization of ethnic consciousness in these three sites and their implications for heightening or diminishing ethnic consciousness. Neoliberal Globalization and the Commodification of Culture While both neoliberalism and globalization remain contested concepts (Brenner et al. 2010; Bowles 2005; Castells 2010), it is possible to distinguish key features of the process of neoliberal globalization. Neoliberal globalization can be understood as the politically guided process of producing increased interconnection, time-space compression, deterritorialization of social action and processes, and intensified interdependence through the dominant logics of marketization, privatization, and deregulation. Neoliberal globalization involves the reconfiguration of the purpose and structure of state and government to facilitate greater free trade, expand the flow of goods and capital, and allow for the penetration of market logic and privatization processes across societal transactions (Brenner et al. 2010; Castells 2010). Neoliberal globalization also involves the creation of new forms of political subjects, where attachment to cultural identity has become important in surviving, resisting, succeeding, or transforming the sociopolitical and economic changes brought about by neoliberal globalization (Castells 2010). A major feature of contemporary neoliberal globalization in the late twentieth century and early 52 S. N. Amin twenty-first century is the significant expansion of global trade regimes into areas of knowledge, diversity, and information. This includes extending the enforcement of intellectual property (IP) rights into areas of genetic resources and the recognition of traditional knowledge. It has also included new protections for biological diversity and efforts to understand cultural knowledge as proprietary assets. Coombe (2016) argues that as a result of this expansion of neoliberal globalization into the realm of diversity and culture: Culture is reified and animated as an asset base that can be competitively leveraged by communities to market distinctive places, goods, and experiences. Appearing to possess cultural distinction also provides collateral for attracting developmental investment and attention, receipt of which provides further demands for making cultural goods legible to new publics and interlocutors . . . Efforts to expand market relations into culturally defined zones of life tend to incite new forms of struggle, knowledge mobilization and identity formation. I are witnessing a proliferation of reterritorialization that are legitimated on grounds of cultural difference and animated by global policy principles in which collective subjects become legible as “communities” holding distinguishing assets. (pp. 251–252) The commodification of culture produces contested cultural socialization practices, especially between state projects of mobilizing ethnic markers for profit (through tourism, service and performance industries, and export markets) and community-level or group projects of resisting state control/regulation/co-option of cultural identity or asserting autonomy. While contestations may revolve around what markers of identity should be suppressed, celebrated, or represented, the resulting consequence of such contestations is that ethnic consciousness is heightened and intensified overall in society. Moreover, the technologies of neoliberal globalization enable ethnically defined groups to reach out to non-state actors within and beyond state borders to either resist the commodification of cultural goods for profit, to claim ownership of such goods to demand the accrual of such profit to the group, or to leverage their market value for greater political power (Escobar 2010). However, the need for predictable and stable societies to allow for the dominance of market processes (as well as the continuation of state power) often requires the reigning in of such practices by the state of cultural groups while simultaneously profiting or marketing certain aspects of these groups’ ethnic identity. Writing about the impact of neoliberal economic policies on the Caribbean and cultural identity, Scher (2011, pp. 8–9) argues that: The structuring force of neoliberalism produces an emphasis on culture (a non-competitive market niche), yet also provides the hegemonic model of what counts as culture; that which is remembered and recalled by consumers as appropriate and legitimate to a region, is shaped by both global factors and local history or tradition. Cultural products then need to be recognizable to the target consumer. . .The result is a greater investment in managing cultural products and practices in order to preserve their economic potential and serve the expectations of consumers. This “culturalist market” (Scher 2011, p. 8) includes “ethnically marked” agricultural produce, spices, foods, drinks, fabrics, clothes, designs, and artisanal crafts, 3 Cultural Socialization and Ethnic Consciousness 53 as well as various “religious”/“traditional” rituals, practices, and artistic (oral, visual) performances. Bodies also become marked in this market, exoticized and ethnically marked for purposes of consumption in the entertainment, sports, fashion, or sex industries, locally and globally. DeHart (2010) illustrates how cultural knowledge and membership in an ethnic group have become new forms of “human” capital, producing ethnic entrepreneurs as key agents of economic development in Latin America. Debates about authenticity, appropriation, exploitation, and ownership ensue as contests between state, corporations, and the “marked” group, between groups and within groups, leading to persistent questions about who are we, who are they, and how do we (should we) relate to “others.” Consequently, there is a lot of “ethnicity” these days – “a lot of ethnic awareness, ethnic assertion, ethnic sentiment, ethno talk. . .it is increasingly the stuff of existential passion, of the self-conscious fashioning of meaningful, morally anchored selfhood. It is also more corporate, more commodified, more implicated than ever before in the economics of everyday life (Comaroff and Comaroff 2009, p. 1).” While these processes are not limited to any particular ethnically defined group, it is worth noting that a distinct feature of ethnic consciousness in the contemporary era is that indigenous communities and indigeneity as a type of ethnic marker have come under the spotlight (Comaroff and Comaroff 2009). Cansessa (2014) noted this dynamic in relation to the identity category of indigeneity and indigenous in claims-making in Bolivia, pointing to the conflict between a self-acclaimed indigenous state, its self-identified indigenous supporters, and its self-identified indigenous opposition. The resulting consequences of such contested claims-making around a given ethnic marker include an intensified rhetoric (and practice) around the indigeneity. Canessa (2014) suggests that we can distinguish between two types of claims around indigeneity in the Global South, one that aims to co-opt the state and one that seeks protection from the state. What is worth noting is that claims of indigeneity are increasing globally (Canessa 2014). Some have linked this to the expansion of international treaties and law which has given a means for some groups to make claims against the state (Holder and Corntassel 2002). Others have also noted that the commodification of culture, and especially of essentialist conceptualizations of indigeneity including ideas about relationship to land and environment have place a premium on indigenous knowledge and identity in development discourse (Chandler 2008). This is in contrast to a history of marginalization of indigenous identity in relation to development: for a long time, indigeneity was seen as equivalent to marginal, backward, left behind, and not productive; yet very recently, they are lauded for their relevance, potential, and importance in terms of economies and solving development issues (Smits 2014; Chandler 2008). In their important text Ethnicity, Inc., Comaroff and Comaroff (2009) provide a diverse range of examples on how indigenous culture is commodified and mobilized. They use these examples to make the argument that neoliberal globalization has produced Ethnicity, Inc. (the incorporation of identity and commodification of culture) and is linked to the current history of capital. In this, they point to the role of the “entrepreneurial (singular) and ethno-preneural (collective) subject 54 S. N. Amin (p. 141)”; the role of the intellectual property regime (as seen above) in reducing the “cultural being to inalienable rights, immaterial assets, private effects (p. 141)”; and to a global economy of difference and desire. Importantly, they highlight the consequences of this and the complicated nature of these consequences: On the one hand, these identity economies seem to have created important opportunities and possibilities for indigenous and cultural communities that have been historically marginalized and excluded. On the other hand, it is unclear to what extent these have the potential to improve the well-being of these communities and reduce power inequalities between these groups and long-standing relationships of power. With regard to the latter, they caution that culture as commodity usually means that the “big players from both inside and out” dominate and lead, creating new divisions and inequalities; and that it subjects cultural voice, meaning and belonging to “vagaries of commerce, which demands that the alienation of heritage ride a delicate balance between exoticism and banalization (p. 141).” They also point to the violent potential of all of this, through the processes that heighten politics, political organization, and political mobilization on the basis of ethnic identity and ethnic consciousness. At the same time, they underscore that these processes are not deterministic and singular – they have multiple potential trajectories and outcomes and that sometimes the “dissolution” of identity politics into commercial spaces can “turn carnage into commerce, perdition into patrimony” (p. 145). What is possible and what happens, they argue is dependent on historical contingency, including resources, geographic location, economic and political conditions that allow for greater or lesser capacity for transforming “ethnicity”/cultural material into capital (Comaroff and Comaroff 2009). In short, cultural socialization of ethnic consciousness is currently occurring in a context where cultural markers of ethnic identity are potentially available for commodification and are subject to political contests, economic appropriation, and globalizing processes. The historical contingency in which this is happening for a given ethnic/cultural group and its contemporary socio-political-economic context are crucial in understanding what kind of cultural material is available for producing ethnic consciousness, how it is being utilized and its potential consequences (Tsing 2011; Comaroff and Comaroff 2009; Castells 2010). Nevertheless, the commodification of culture, neoliberalism, and accelerated globalization have led to three sites in which cultural socialization processes of ethnic consciousness have heightened: tourism, development, and social media. I look next at the specific dynamics of cultural socialization and ethnic consciousness in these three sites. I conclude that the roles of the economy and social media have become major factors in how ethnic consciousness is being produced. Tourism Cultural socialization, as noted earlier, refers to a set of practices of social actors in fostering awareness of (and pride in) one’s ancestry, origin, and cultural heritage. While tourism can and often is linked to “natural” delights of land- and seascapes, it 3 Cultural Socialization and Ethnic Consciousness 55 is also an industry in which ancestry, origin, and cultural heritage are selectively (re) presented and consumed. Researchers have often focused on the political economy of tourism and its role in essentializing culture, ethnicity, and identity, as well as the objectifying gaze of tourism in which those providing the touristic experience are located in a subordinate position of power, relative to the tourist (Hannam 2002; Urry 1990). Postcolonial critiques also point to how performers, service providers, and even governments providing the touristic experience work to destabilize this apparent hierarchical power and assert their cultural identity on their own terms (Kanemasu 2013; Amoamo 2007; Hollinshead 1999). The impact of neoliberal globalization on tourism is multifold. Urry (1990) pointed out that new technologies of communication and mobility have facilitated the increase and diversification of tourists, which in turn has increased the revenue making potential in tourism. This potential along with the commodification of culture has expanded the market of tourism providers while increasing and intensifying competition. As a result, tourist providers and workers compete to provide a unique experience while at the same time making their culture accessible to larger numbers of diverse tourists. What are the consequences of all of this for cultural socialization and ethnic consciousness? On the one hand, there is greater flexibility in what ancestry, origin, and cultural heritage are mobilized, reproduced, and claimed. The search for providing a different experience often requires ethnic-preneurship, in which one is able to take cultural identity material and represent it as unique. This may mean that more narratives about what “makes us us (and them them)” (Comaroff and Comaroff 2009; Urry 1990). As such, the processes that normally produce dominant narratives about identity are in some ways destabilized and decentralized as a result, and the material for cultural socialization is thus shifted. An example of this is in the context of the indigenous peoples of Bangladesh, who self-identify as jumma, where we can identify the ways that even state-based tourism can unintentionally create empowering spaces for nationally marginalized groups. While any form of political resistance by jumma peoples is violently suppressed in Bangladesh (Chakma 2010), jumma culture (or certain aspects of its culture) have been amplified and mobilized by the state and the military (Ahmed 2017; Alamgir 2017). In particular, the national agenda of expanding the tourism industry, embodied in part in the “Beautiful Bangladesh” campaign launched in the context of the 2011 World Cup of the International Cricket Council, hosted in Bangladesh, centers and privileges the jumma people in billboards, advertisements, and the type of experiences one can have (Ahmed 2017). (The largest group of non-Bangla communities in Bangladesh live in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), one of the eight administrative divisions of Bangladesh and made up of three divisions: Khagrachhari, Bandarban, and Rangamati. These groups in the CHT self-identify as jumma and are constituted by the 11 different who have lived there for generations: Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Tanchangya, Chak, Pankhoya, Mro, Bawm, Lushai, Khyang, and Khumi.) Similarly, while the lack of assimilation of jumma people into mainstream Bengali culture is seen as cause of suspicion, threat, and even deserving violent regulation by ordinary Bengalis (Chowdhury 2016), aspects of jumma 56 S. N. Amin culture have also become the object of entertainment, pleasure, and desire. Jumma women in “traditional” clothing, jumma people in their “natural settings,” Buddhist temples in hills, “untouched hills and natural beauty” of the customary lands of the jumma peoples, jumma cultural artefacts, and jumma festivals are part of the experience package being sold by the state and the military for profit and consumed by the Bengali and foreign tourist to CHT (Ahmed 2017). Jumma cultural practices around dance, handicraft, fashion, and food are not only commodified for tourism and development in these processes; they become legitimate sites around which jumma pride can be constructed and where jumma identities can be celebrated. As such, cultural socialization processes of the jumma peoples find these practices as sites of building empowerment and confidence in their own community, especially since these can be shared with the dominant majority without threat of violence. Additionally, while unintended, the consumption of these cultural products by the Bengali majority and their use in nation branding tourism campaigns challenge the dominant Bengali-Muslim national narrative (Schendel 2001). It is important to underscore that we cannot minimize the powerful effect the lived everyday violence experienced by jumma peoples in CHT (and more broadly in Bangladesh) has on producing heighted ethnic consciousness around their cultural identities. This is particularly so when we recall the conceptualization of ethnic consciousness as constituting awareness of membership in an ethnic group (Gold and Miller 2015) and the degree to which awareness and understanding of ethnic identity shapes social and political action, including inter-ethnic relations (Gibson and Gouws 2000). However, the neoliberal globalization pressures that lead the state and military controlled tourism to make use of jumma culture creates unintended encounters, spaces, and opportunities to challenge both the narrowly defined Bengali-Muslim national identity and empower jumma identity. Another related consequence of the search for providing a competitive and unique tourist experience is that more and more aspects of people’s daily lives become identified through the lens of culture and ethnicity, heightening ethnic consciousness in the communities that become part of the touristic experience. As such, local coffee rituals (Lyon 2013), weddings (Toyota 2006), and village life become sites of tourism. Sometimes, these have taken more dramatic forms as noted in the works of Lennon and Foley (2000) on “dark tourism” and O’Rourke (1988) in “holidays from hell,” where jails, abandoned coal mines, and massacre trails become part of the tourist trail. All of these are potentially important in selecting what is “our” culture for the society and communities that enter the global tourism path, either as reactions against or in privileging these narratives, spaces, and practices further (Haldrup and Larsen 2010). On the other hand, the need to make culture accessible to the tourist has also meant that what is “ethnic” or “cultural” often starts to look similar across distinct spaces. Ancestry, origin, and heritage are remolded to ensure that the tourist can enjoy and digest identity quickly and easily. While this is done with the intention to place the tourist at ease, it has an important impact on the performing community as well: Over time with repeated performances, the performance becomes what is familiar and known to the community itself as its own, changing the material of 3 Cultural Socialization and Ethnic Consciousness 57 cultural socialization in the community itself and in some ways making its own identity more similar to other “ethnic” sites elsewhere. Thus, tourism in the context of neoliberal globalization produces both heightened ethnic consciousness but also makes “ethnicity” and how it is performed, socialized, and understood similar across different spaces (Urry 1990). As such, artisans in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, in Chiang Mai in Thailand, and in Bali in Indonesia are often in the process of producing weaves that are not specific to their own practices but that match some idea of ethnic handicrafts being circulated in the global tourist market. While some can critique this phenomenon in terms of how “authentic” practices are being lost, others have noted that the search for authentic itself is an elusive one and subject to who is evaluating what is authentic (Shepherd 2002). In addition, irrespective of the “origins” of a particular practice, it is possible that the “new” practice itself becomes thought of as one’s own and that is the knowledge that is passed on as “our culture.” Whether this is a loss to be grieved and resisted or not, what is important in the context of understanding how neoliberal globalization is impacting on cultural socialization is that a global tourism is leading to “culture” being commodified and performed in similar ways. Development While modernization theory tended to view Global South culture and ethnic identity as problems to be changed for development to occur, in the context of commodification of culture under neoliberal globalization, culture and ethnic identity have come to be seen as ways to support development (see examples in Chandler 2008), provide new solutions to developmental challenges (e.g., Boillat and Berkes 2013), or provide legitimacy to neoliberal strategies of development (e.g., Smits 2014). As such, ethnic identity and associated cultural material to foster that identity gain a premium, not only to create belonging, pride, and community but as a means to see how social problems can be addressed. Cultural knowledge as such has become an important competence in the development industry, and consequently, cultural socialization of such knowledge takes place in trainings, workplaces, and educational centers. In particular, the relevance of traditional and indigenous knowledge has increasingly gained ground in relation to issues of environmental justice, sustainability, and dealing with climate change (Nyong et al. 2007; Schlosberg and Carruthers 2010). This is not to suggest that such cultural socialization is thus necessarily appropriately contextualized, nuanced, or embedded in the communities in which the knowledge will be applied; power dynamics mediate what is defined, appropriated, and utilized as cultural knowledge (Briggs 2005). However, it does implicate cultural socialization of ethnic identity has become an important element of development work, and like in tourism, ethnicity, culture, and identity matter more, thus heightening ethnic consciousness. Another way that neoliberal globalization impacts on development with implications for cultural socialization and ethnic consciousness relates to the phenomena of nation branding as a means for economic development. Nation branding, an 58 S. N. Amin engine of neoliberal globalization, directly utilizes a reductive and essentialist logic, in which national identity is articulated through the logic of market relations (Jansen 2008). It is seen as a means to increase a country’s economic competitiveness and enhance solidarity in the country and the self-esteem of the nation and its citizens. Development, in a neoliberal globalized world, becomes a problem of “recognition, visibility and self-esteem,” ignoring all other socio-economic and political mechanisms that sustain poverty and (under)development (Browning 2016, p. 52). Scholarly literature on nation branding has examined the processes of branding that can increase a country’s competitive advantage (Moilanen and Rajnisto 2009), how branding impacts on a country’s soft power (van Ham 2008), and the relationship of nation branding to identity politics, citizenship, and social control of communities (Aronczyk 2008). Browning (2016) has also pointed out that nation branding has taken on a special role in development of countries in the Global South, where the reputation and image of developing countries as “problematic” leads to a lack of needed investment and, therefore, rebranding the nation would help to correct the issue. Browning (2016) criticizes this argument, highlighting that while national image may be some part of a developmental challenge, nation (re-)branding as a solution is disingenuous, playing to the needs of international branding consultants, as well as ignoring the fact that both the diagnosis and the prescription reinforce a neoliberal understanding of development. He further notes: . . .nation branding also contributes to the subordination of states to market logics, while simultaneously shifting responsibility for development onto the poor states themselves by emphasising their need to take ownership of their national brands. Beyond this, however, nation-branding practices can also be viewed as a neo-colonial governmental technology, which empowers (largely Western) experts in establishing what constitutes relevant knowledge in a globalising world, which subordinates questions of national identity to market preferences, and which extends governance responsibilities beyond the state through the expectation that civil society will become actively engaged in branding processes. (Browning 2016, p. 52) Despite these important critiques, nation branding is a growing phenomenon, with countries in the world creating branding commissions and hiring consultants. “Amazing Thailand,” “Incredible India,” and “Malaysia – Truly Asia” are all highly visible examples of this, with other less well-known ones including “Nigeria – Irrepressible Giant” and “Beautiful Bangladesh.” Nation branding is more than about just creating a name for (foreign investors). A type of commercial nationalism, nation-branding implicates its populace to live and perform the brand, with citizens being asked to live the brand responsibly (Volcic and Andrejevic 2011). Consider the online ad contest Get Wildly Creative About South Africa that the International Marketing Council of South Africa launched in 2010, as a part of a major nation branding research project. In the creative brief for the contest, they note that the nation brand’s should be able to: imprint on the minds of decision-makers, opinion leaders and trendsetters everywhere – the target audience – an image of South Africa as a desirable and distinctive place to visit, 3 Cultural Socialization and Ethnic Consciousness 59 conduct business, invest, source products, services and ideas, host gatherings and experience a unique, unrestrained blending of cultures and hospitable, friendly people. (Zooppa.com contest center) The discourse of nation-branding for development implicates both that the nation is constituted of a particular type of individual and that its citizens need to act like that, today and for the future. For the nation-brand to work, it needs to resonate, and it needs to be (re)produced. As such, nation branding becomes a major element of cultural socialization – the campaigns of nation-branding are not only for international relations and public management of the nation’s image but also to instill in its own citizenry a prescriptive identity and behavior. However, as Jansen (2008) has noted, it is both undemocratic and a “risky business,” since the process of nation branding is based on the “cultural knowledge” of select individuals and their “creative” understanding and articulation of that knowledge. What is important in our discussion of cultural socialization and ethnic consciousness is that this phenomenon of nation-branding to promote development in the Global South has become an important element of cultural socialization processes that need to be examined further. Nation branding seems to also be part and parcel of the dynamic of privileging cultural frames to understand problems and opportunities, thus playing to heightening ethnic consciousness. Relatedly, it is important to ask, in the context of ethnically diverse societies, how do marginalized or minority ethnic groups relate to national brands, especially in how cultural, ethnic, and national pride are fostered. Jansen (2008) points to Umberto’s concept of “semiotic guerrilla warfare” as a strategy of how branding can be both disrupted and made more democratic. Examining these kinds of discursive warfare of nation-branding at macro and micro levels would be an important site to understand how cultural socialization practices are being impacted in the context of neoliberal globalization and their consequences for ethnic consciousness in the contemporary era. Social Media The emergence of social media spaces including Facebook and Instagram are important sites in which cultural socialization processes play out that are both similar to “older” socialization processes by families, peers, schools, religious and community institutions, media, and the state. To the extent that these spaces replicate “real”life networks and ties, these spaces will be sites in which offline messages about “who one is” and “who we are” will be reinforced. However, social media spaces are also distinct in several ways. Firstly, their reach in terms of the networks and agents at play go beyond the territorially bounded nature of “traditional” social actors involved in cultural socialization processes. It becomes more possible for territorially dispersed communities to create a shared sense of ethnic identity and to maintain such identity. As such diaspora, (im)migrant, and minority identities are able to maintain, reproduce, and even expand themselves (Georgiou 2006). Examining the 60 S. N. Amin utilization of social media among Filipino and Polish migrants to Ireland, Komito (2011) argues that: If the first wave of Internet applications helped extend personal networks and building bridging capital, this second wave of social media applications is, in addition, enhancing and supporting communities by contributing to bonding capital. Migrants are able to maintain contact with those who live remotely. . .Migrants have the opportunity [through these spaces] have the opportunity to not be so much ‘connected migrants’ as ‘virtual migrants’: their physical locality can be irrelevant for their identity. (pp. 28–29) In a study on adolescent Russian immigrants to Israel, Elias and Lemish (2009) found that social media spaces were utilized simultaneously to learn about the new society but also to reinforce their ethnic identity and to actively claim their Russian identity, often in response to negative reactions in the host society. Social media spaces become a way to present one’s ethnic identity to others, learn more about it, and create emotional connections to the ethnic community. Secondly, the degree of control one experiences in the socialization process is expanded both in terms of externalized and internalized control. In particular, externalized control of what constitutes the narrative one is socialized in to is produced through algorithms that repeat and reinforce “more of the same,” while our ability to select what we see and don’t see allows us to exercise greater internalized control of the narrative as well. Relatedly, social media ICTs are unique in their ability to amplify or dilute socialization outcomes more intensively than “traditional” socializing agents because in these spaces one can actively choose to belong more tightly to one community or make it a space to escape one’s ethnic community. Castells (2010) noted how social media has become a major medium of “selective social interaction and symbolic belonging (p. 37).” Finally, recent discussions on how social media spaces are politicized and how they are potentially being utilized to amplify hate speech and impacting on election and collective violence indicate the degree to which social media spaces are playing a major role in the construction of ethnic consciousness. The most visible form of this has been in discussions on how Facebook was utilized in the most recent violence against the Rohingya population in Myanmar (Mozur 2018). In particular, to what extent do these materials in social media spaces that have been designed and crafted (“fake news,” photoshopped images, edited videos) become cultural material for the socialization of ethnicity in the future? Cultural socialization material and ethnic identity have always relied on myths, where “truth” is of less importance. Social media spaces seem to have intensified how much “truth” can be brushed aside and how new realities can be created with very real consequences. The more tightly bound people’s social networks in social media spaces are, these tendencies can be manipulated with dangerous consequences for how ethnic consciousness works. At the same time, researchers have noted that indigenous and other marginalized cultural groups have found social media as empowering spaces, in which “lost” traditions, stories, and communities can be reclaimed, performed, and built (Carlson 2013; Srinivasan 2006). 3 Cultural Socialization and Ethnic Consciousness 61 To what extent does the neoliberal globalization context impact on these aspects of social media’s role in cultural socialization of ethnic consciousness? One way to consider this is in the rise of “influencers”: The commodification of culture combined with individualization dynamics implicated by both neoliberal globalization and the functioning of social media spaces means have meant that “producing” and “performing” culture is an important way one can make a lifestyle and opinion profitable. Becoming an “influencer” on Instagram or Facebook can become a career, but it requires creative selection of “cultural materials” that are simultaneously personalized yet accessible. Consider Nas Daily (Nuseir Yassin), an ArabIsraeli vlogger who travels across the world not only “educating” his audience about “cultures” in 1-min clips but has also become an icon of what kind of positive relationships may be possible between Arabs and Israelis. His narratives and his own perspectives are followed by over six million people on Facebook and are potentially becoming part of the cultural material utilized to create a sense of pride and tell heritage stories among both Arab and Jewish Israelis. Cultural socialization material has always included heroes, leaders, other important people and their lives, actions, and ideas as part of what makes a community who they are. What is happening in the contemporary era in social media spaces is that “ordinary” (albeit often still from privileged backgrounds) individuals can become part of that cultural material now through how they can amplify their voices through social media spaces. As such, future research needs to investigate to what extent these influencers in social media spaces are becoming part of both the content of cultural socialization and shaping how “pride,” “heritage,” and identity conversations are occurring in communities. Conclusion In the above discussion, I have pointed to how cultural socialization and ethnic consciousness are being impacted in tourism, development, and social media spaces in the context of neoliberal globalization. Several processes seem to be occurring simultaneously, where culture and ethnic identity have greater value to be leveraged for economic and political gains, more and more of social and economic life are viewed through a cultural or ethnic lens, and where the disruptive power of culture/ ethnicity seem to be heightened in some contexts and diluted in others. Neoliberal globalization seems to thus produce both reductive, essentialist, and violent tendencies in cultural material and ethnic consciousness and expansive, diversified, and empowering potentials of ethnic belonging. Related to Gidden’s argument about how in the post-traditional context, self-identity is reflexive (Giddens 1991), neoliberal globalization seems to have created a context in which one is apparently free to choose, not only one’s own self-identity but what cultural material one can utilize and how one interprets it to be who they want to be and who they choose to identify with; in fact, it seems to become almost necessary to be entrepreneurial with one’s cultural heritage. How do these entrepreneurial choices of culture impact on both the content and the process of how cultural socialization of ethnicity occurs among our contemporaries and future generations? I would suggest that with the 62 S. N. 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