GG102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Virtual Community, Core Countries
Document Summary
Gg102 lesson 6: lifestyle communities ensure that we encounter mainly those people who are similar to us: We spend a good part of our lives in the "university bubble", a subculture, or other real or virtual communities: master-planned developments minimize our need for contact with the "other": Gated communities, retirement communities, and all-inclusive holiday resorts are open to members only: even cars have morphed from a means of transport to an expression/extension of our personality: Suvs and minivans accomplish essentially the same in terms of what they can transport. Why we choose one over the other has more to do with whom we want (not) to be seen as. The last example returns us full cycle to the irony of globalization: although we use cars (or any other product) to express ourselves, we are essentially using globally produced and marketed products that are the same on every continent.
