"Self"

Both Thrift and Appadurai underscore second sight, a new way of envisioning the world, Thrift in a more literal sense as it relates to spatial configurations and technologies that address ambiguities previously unseen and Appadurai in his attempts to move the reader away from familiar models of Western political privilege/cultural imperialism. And while there is conscious effort in both texts to keep things perspectival, it seemed to me that these theories or alternatives came at the cost of “Self” (self-knowledge, self-thought, self-production).

In Movement-space we see that to favor the invisible calculations that computing/qualculation offer is to favor artificiality, which is at the cost of the natural. We stop asking questions, but instead assume answers, relying on “it is there because it is there” logic (584) as things are re-naturalized. The human self is compromised/at risk because the system has changed or the way we see the system has changed. (This interested in conjuction with labor – man-powered/made v. mechanical)

In Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy we see that Self is othered and subject to external definition on international scales. In the imaginary Appadurai describes, Self and Other are likened so much so that they become homogenous forces. He tries to suggest that global flows do not alienate or displace consumers and that relationships of power, tied to diasporic determinism, can construct cultural hybridity but there are still several moments of disjuncture in the text that counter Appadurai’s argument. This forced me to question further whether you can really simultaneously be homogenized and individualized.