Synopsis:
In this 2010 Ted Talk “Globalizing the Local, Localizing the Global,” Sheika Al Mayassa speaks about the importance of cultural institutions and cultural development in an increasingly globalized world. Al Mayassa was involved in opening the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar and helped found the Doha Film Institute which at the time of her Ted Talk had trained over 66 Qatari women in filmmaking to tell their own stories. Al Mayassa wants to uplift local culture while connecting people on a global scale and rather than “build bridges” to achieve this, she asserts that we should “break the walls of ignorance” between the East and West. Rather than being culturally homogenized by globalization, we can bring local knowledge and culture to light within it and through that better understand each other.
Rationale:
Sheika Al Mayassa’s Ted Talk touches on several topics relevant to transnational feminism: globalization, our understandings of cultures across borders, and women’s roles in cultural transmission. She accurately points out how we in the West have many misunderstandings and blind spots around Eastern and in particular Arab culture. She says that “familiarity destroys and trumps fear.” While it would be an oversimplification to say that transnational cultural understanding would solve all the problems of globalization, increasing understanding of each other across borders is certainly a powerful way to make our transnational feminist efforts more meaningful and effective.
I think it is really important that Al Mayassa mentions that most people in the Arab world leading cultural initiatives are women. I believe it could be argued that most people leading cultural initiatives all around the world are women. In other Gender Studies courses I have learned about some of the ways women historically and presently have been associated with a group’s culture and charged with maintaining and transmitting culture. Some of this has been negative, for example the ways white women were expected to transmit and keep “pure” European culture during colonization. However, there are also many positive ways in which women and feminized people are associated with cultural transmission as they are positioned as mothers and caregivers.
This is something that is often dismissed by neoliberal Western feminism. The neoliberal conception of feminism is for women to strive for equality with men by doing what men are doing. Get the job, make money, become a CEO, then we will be equal. Western feminism devalues traditional “feminine” activities like raising children, because they are not “productive” in a financial way. But true equality isn’t everyone doing the same things; it is an equal valuing of “men’s work” and “women’s work.” Al Mayassa says one might assume women are taking part in cultural initiatives because it is “the soft option, we have nothing else to do,” but really these initiatives are powerful transnational activism that is mistaken for “soft” because it is read as feminine.
URL/Link:https://www.ted.com/talks/sheikha_al_mayassa_globalizing_the_local_localizing_the_global/transcript
Keywords: Qatar, culture, art, globalization
Author: Seymour Butts
Comments