Global Cultures in Transition

Global Cultures in Transition is a research initiative affiliated with the Center for Information Technology and Society at UCSB. Rather than assume that the globalization of information technologies “flattens” or equalizes socio-economic relations around the world, researchers in this initiative explore the differences and disparities across various societies and cultures. The group is comprised of scholars and graduate students in the humanities and social sciences who are working to develop multidisciplinary methods for studying and visualizing the emergence and impact of information technologies upon societies and cultures in different parts of the world.

The initiative brings together media scholars, anthropologists, sociologists, geographers, and digital artists in an effort to create new paradigms for researching the dynamic interplay of information technologies and global cultures. Members of the project explore the formation and study the effects of large-scale transnational infrastructures such as satellite, web, and wireless systems as well as localized uses of those systems within particular urban and rural environments. The group focuses especially on areas that have undergone major economic, technological, and cultural transformations in the wake of globalization and other historic events. Members of the group have conducted fieldwork in Central and South America, Europe, China, and Mongolia and will return to these and other regions as the initiative develops. Members of the project are committed to understanding and exposing differences across cultures rather than offering universal claims about the role of information technologies in the world.