Globalization and the Youth Culture of Dakar as Related in a study by Essay

Globalization and the Youth Culture of Dakar as Related in a study by Scheld and Examined against Writing by Ong and Writing by Inda and Rosaldo - Essay Example In comparing her writing with that of Aihwa Ong, an emerging pattern of the influences of media on the nature of capitalism can be observed. When gauging that against the ideas of globalization as they are discussed by Inda and Rosaldo, the influences of cultures as they collide can be seen for how they are changing existing cultures, and reinventing through filters as they influence life across the world. The emergence of globalization has created a youth driven culture as the ways of the old are being shadowed by the influences of new cultures through media, consumerism, and the emergence of a capitalistic based world economy. According to Scheld, † In Dakar, youth are increasingly entrepreneurial individuals who base the authenticity of their cosmopolitan identity on an ability to buy and sell (trade) in the urban/global informal economy† (232). This might be seen as a Westernization of thought and identity that has embraced the nature of consumerism and shaped the way in which the youth are supporting their feelings of participation in a world that has grown large through globalization. The creation of clothing lines within the Dakar cosmopolitan has emerged through a sense of community; those involved using social terms of interaction in order to support what they are creating. While there is an undercurrent of dishonest behaviors, they are framed by social rules which include creative and competitive structures of behavior. Sheld states that â€Å"youth steer the economic cultural life of the city and keep it hooked in to the global economy† (232). Sheld’s research is based u pon a belief that â€Å"Dakarois youth use dress to shape the city and urban identity† (232). Sheld’s work examines â€Å"how clothing use and exchange shape cosmopolitan identities, the city, and global flows of people and goods in a West African metropolis† (232). The region of Dakar is economically depressed, the city a wash of deterioration and decay, but the young people of the region dress in ways that are both provocative and colorful, injecting into the economy a relationship between cultural expression and economic stimulation. Where most aspects of the economy are failing, the behaviors of the youth culture in creating their own sub-economy for the purpose of fashion creates an underbelly of motion in which the an informal economy is the basis of the emergence of culture within the city landscape. It seems to be a common element within a culture to see its youth as a driving force in creating economic flows based upon fashion and social identity. The w ays in which these â€Å"marginalized populations make sense of modernity, express their identities and shape their lifeworlds† (Sheld 233) is often through externalized expressions of their emotions, their choices placing them within a framework of social position that makes sense to them and to their peers. In creating â€Å"imagined memberships† within a specified world, the individual becomes a part of a world through mimicry and recreation of the world to form and identify with the ways in which they associate themselves in congruence with the ways in which the structure services their need for identity (Sheld 235). Globalization has become a driving force of youth culture, allowing for identification with groups from around the world where something of those social groups becomes an identifiable structure from which looks and behaviors are adapted. According