Are We Creating a Global Monoculture? No. Why Not?

The surprising ways digital technologies from smartphones to social media, are preserving cultural diversity globally.

Photo by Javier Cañada on Unsplash

Nguyet, grandma to Linh, was teaching her ancient family recipe to Linh. She was using the smartphone Linh had given her, speaking in Vietnamese with English subtitles, all while wearing her traditional áo dài and Nike sneakers. Within days bloggers in São Paolo and teens in Detroit were trying out her recipe. All of them debating the spices, making alterations, chatting about them on social media, sharing their own videos.

Here’s the paradox. A 73-year-old woman in Vietnam using a smartphone to share a deeply traditional dish, but rather than creating cultural homogenisation, it resulted in an explosion of local variations around the world and inspiring others to share their traditional dishes.

People often comment to me and I hear and see it in my travels. A fear, or concern, that we are creating some sort of global monoculture. That we’re losing our various customs and traditions, flattening into some sort of monochrome beigeness.

As an anthropologist, I’d argue this isn’t the case at all. That in fact, this connectedness via digital technologies is helping us discover that rather than…