SarahSlays, Appadurai

 

Sarah Hussey

Critical Frameworks Comment Blog on 12/1

 

 

Dear Blog, 

 

This is one of my last blog posts of the semester as we have wrapped the semester with Appadurai! Definitely one of the more challenges theorist I have dealt with. I really enjoyed the conversation I had with Avery regarding this theorist as I feel it made things make more sense for me. One section that stood out to be was the part about the Phillppines. Appadurai talked about how it relates to imagination as social practice which is a concept I find very interesting. I remember Avery mentioning a mini documentary series that focused on missionaries telling citizens that God would love them more and let them go to heaven if they gave their own money to the church rather than buying food and other utilities for their families. People wanted to live the American way. This connects with the term “Nostalgia without memory” in a sense that people believe they should have a life or miss a life they have never even had. In the modern day sense this is heavily present on social media apps We see content on what our lives should be like or at least that’s what we are told. Therefore, we feel that we deserve a certain lifestyle and feel that we are meant to have it. This connects to the idea of the American Dream and how it is an impossible lifestyle unless you were born on top. I feel these ideas only benefit those in power. This reminds me of the fact that those who control the material production control the intellectual production in a sense by Marx and Engels. Anyways, that’s all I have for today!

 

This class has been so fulfilling and engaging! I am glad I got to experience it with an amazing group of students and professor!

 

Signing off, 

SarahSlays