(a) Critically examine Arjun Appadurai's conceptualization of global cultural economy. 20 (b) Describe the causes of structural…

(a) Critical examination of Appadurai's conceptualization of the global cultural economy

In "Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy" (1990) and Modernity at Large (1996), Arjun Appadurai argued that the global cultural economy is a complex, overlapping and disjunctive order that cannot be explained by centre–periphery models. He describes five "scapes", fluid and perspectival constructs seen differently by each actor:

• Ethnoscapes: flows of migrants, refugees, tourists and guest workers, for example the Indian diaspora.
• Technoscapes: movement of technology across boundaries, for example Indian IT services.
• Financescapes: rapid flows of capital through currency and stock markets.
• Mediascapes: production and spread of images and information, for example Bollywood and satellite television.
• Ideoscapes: chains of political images and ideas such as democracy, rights and welfare.

The scapes move at different speeds and are disjunctive. He rejects the homogenisation thesis (Americanisation), holding that global forces are indigenised, and introduces the "imagination" as a social practice and the nation-state's decline in a "postnational" world.

Critique: the model stresses fluidity, consumption and imagination while under-theorising capitalism, class and state power, and unequal access (who can move). Critics (Marxist) see it as descriptive and metropolitan, and note that the state remains strong, while the five scapes overlap and are not clearly separable.

(b) Causes of structural abnormalities of chromosomes, with examples

Types: deletion (loss of a segment), duplication (extra segment), inversion (a segment reversed, paracentric or pericentric), translocation (exchange between non-homologous chromosomes, reciprocal or Robertsonian), and ring chromosome or isochromosome.

Causes:

• Ionising radiation (X-rays, gamma rays) breaks chromosomes.
• Chemical clastogens: alkylating agents, benzene, some drugs and pesticides.
• Viruses such as rubella or HIV, which can break chromosomes.
• Errors in meiosis and repair: unequal crossing-over or faulty DNA repair, and ageing of the gametes with advanced parental age.
• Inherited chromosome fragility in disorders such as Fanconi anaemia and Bloom syndrome.

Examples: cri-du-chat syndrome is a deletion of the short arm of chromosome 5; Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease type 1A is a duplication of the PMP22 gene on 17p; the Philadelphia chromosome t(9;22) in chronic myeloid leukaemia is a translocation; Robertsonian translocation 14;21 causes familial Down syndrome.

(c) A.L. Kroeber's contribution to kinship studies

In "Classificatory Systems of Relationship" (1909), Kroeber, a Boasian, criticised L.H. Morgan's evolutionary view that classificatory terms reflect past group marriage or promiscuity. He argued that kinship terms are primarily linguistic and psychological, expressing how people classify relatives, and not social institutions. He identified eight principles behind all terminologies: generation, lineal versus collateral, age within a generation, sex of the relative, sex of the speaker, sex of the connecting relative, consanguinity versus affinity, and the condition (living or dead) of the connecting relative. He also showed that terminologies are found historically and spread by diffusion.

Criticism: Rivers, Radcliffe-Brown and Lowie showed that terms are tied to social rights and duties, marriage rules and descent, so Kroeber's psychological and linguistic view was too narrow. Later componential analysis and Lévi-Strauss' structural approach took his categories further, though.