Culture is transnational

Abstract

In this article, I ask that culture be properly recognized as transnational, with all the implications of transnationalism, including cultural mobility as well as cultural imperialism and colonial legacies. I first establish that we all have culture and that the culture we all have is always already transnational. In particular, I call for the contextual specificity of the dominant culture to be acknowledged and scrutinized, as well as for all cultures to be thought of as provisional assemblages of multiple and entangled scales that co-create each other. I then offer some methodological, ethical, and political propositions to advance a truly transnational cultural studies, including radically contextualizing culture, employing comparative research, and de-westernizing academia. In conclusion, I ask for a radical mainstreaming of transnationalism in cultural studies; a universal recognition of culture as transnational and a universal engagement with a transnational sense of place in the studies of culture.