These principles embedded within the system are efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. In fact, the McDonald formula is a success for the reason that it is efficient, quick and inexpensive, predictable and effective in controlling both labor and its customers.
Most important to the origins of McDonalization is the interaction between culture and economics. Although Ritzer , like Robertson recognize economic factor as forces of McDonaldization, the authors emphasize the importance to consider cultural factors. For instance, examining the fit between a culture that values efficiency and accepts a McDonalized system is vital for companies planning to take their businesses global.
In this regard, Weber maintained that the West has been characterized by an increasing tendency towards the predominance of formally rational systems. Further, McDonalization refers to the far-reaching process of social change Ritzer and Malone, It impacts social structures and institutions in its country of origin, as well as, in other developed and developing countries around the world.
Ritzer and Malone contend that organizations in foreign markets that adopt the basic principles of the model are to an extent undergoing the process of McDonaldization. In other words, the latter is actively exporting the materialization and embodiment of that process. It seems that the McDonalization model has transformed the nature of consumer consumption by encouraging and compelling individuals to consume infinite amounts of goods and services.
Due to the fact that McDonaldized systems are robust entities imposing themselves on local markets in other societies, these systems are drastically transforming economies and cultures along the process Ritzer and Malone, The phenomenon of being McDonaldized has transformed the many aspects of the cultures within those societies, particularly, the way people live in their environments. It should be noted that while businesses may slightly adapt to local realities, the fact is that the basic items available for customers are generally the same worldwide Ritzer and Malone, Even more importantly is the fact that the core operating procedures remain similar in every outlet around the globe.
Thus, the most important aspect of the McDonalized systems is in how local and global businesses operate using their standardized principles. What is actually being sold in not as relevant as the activities related to how things are organized, delivered and sold to customers; it is these steps that must abide to similar sets of principles for the business to be successful in its new global context.
Despite the contribution of the McDonaldization theory in explaining implications of globalization, Pieterse stresses that fast food outlets like McDonalds and the sort are not at all culturally homogenized but rather characterized by differences that reflect culturally mixed social forms. In fact, McDonaldized systems have had to adapt in order to succeed overseas. Organizations once imported, serve different social, economic and cultural functions that all need to be custom-tailored to local conditions.
In fact, every point substantiated by the theory turned out to have different outcomes in Moscow. For instance, the fast food outlet appeared to function inefficiently with customers waiting for hours in extensive long line-ups to get their meals served. Talbott observed that, in opposition to what the McDonaldization theory holds about predictability, the main attraction for the Russian customer is in the diversified and unique lines of products that the chain offers not the standard menu items that one thinks they may find in Russia.
The latter are not even available for the Russian customer. Further, control of the labor force is not as standardized and unvarying as presented by the theory. This flexibility is also extended to Russian customers that spend hours on end socializing and chatting over teas and coffees. This would be unconceivable in a North American fast food outlet as these sorts of customer practices would be strongly discouraged by the business.
Similarly, American adaptations of the fast food principles have been observed in China, south-east Asia and India. The Big Mac is most probably not a standard menu item in Delhi.
Another important point to mention is the fact that these sorts of fast food outlets in these countries are not considered as junk food eateries but in fact cater to an upper middle class.
The latter seek to explore new modern tastes of the fusion of food variations whether it is the mixed tastes of Chinese and American menu items or Japanese and American. These customers are far from adhering to the principle of uniformity. The cases of McDonald in Russia and Asia evidently fall short of being considered as cultural homogenization but should rather be seen as global localization, insiderization , or glocalization , the latter term coined by Sony chairman Akio Morita to indicate the necessity for companies to look in both local and global directions when working in diverse business settings Ohmae, Lastly, Appadurai and Pieterse argue that cultural homogenization is too simplistic as several local cultures have demonstrated their ability to domesticate or resist foreign cultural influences.
Therefore, interactions between cultures favor cultural hybridity rather than a monolithic cultural homogenization. In doing so, globalization leads to the creative amalgamations of global and local cultural traits.
It is needless to mention that growing awareness of cultural differences and globalization are interdependent as awareness becomes a function of globalization Pieterse, In fact, with the advent of international workforce mobility, cross-cultural communications, migration, international trade, tourism, and global investments, awareness of cultural differences is inevitable and of vital necessity in the current global context.
The process of translocal fusion and cultural mixing or hybridization is another model that touches on interactions between globalization and culture. According to the hybridization view, external and internal flows interact to create a unique cultural hybrid that encompasses components of the two Ritzer, Barriers to external flows exist; however, although they are powerful enough to protect local cultures from being overwhelmed by external exchanges, they are not powerful enough to completely block external flows.
The main thesis of cultural hybridization is the continuous process of mixing or blending cultures. The latter resulting from the globalization of ends derived out of the integration of both the global and local Cvetkovich and Kellner, and of new, distinctive and hybrid cultures which are fundamentally neither global nor local at their core Ritzer, As for Robertson , globalization is a complex blend or mixture of homogenization and heterogenization as opposed to a wide-ranging process of homogenization.
The latter standpoint opposes the doctrines of racial purity and integration of the 19 th century because, according to the father of racial demography, de Gobineau, and other scholars, the idea of race-mixing with what they considered lower elements of society would eventually elevate the former in the dominant role. Based on these premises, the regions of central Asia, south and Eastern Europe, and the Middle East and North African regions are mixed racial demographic areas.
Merging the races would inevitably cast doubt on pillars of the purity creeds, as for instance with those that relate purity with strength and sanctity. Hybridization takes the experiences that are marginalized and considered taboo and merges them with principles of nationalism, challenging the latter by taking matters beyond national borders.
Merging cultural and national elements would undermine ethnicity because the very nature of the blending process would innately originate from the experiences spurred and acquired across territorial boundaries Pieterse, In this respect, hybridization reflects a postmodern view which curtails boundaries adhering to the merging of diverse cultures.
Proponents of the tenets of modernity stand for a culture of order rooted within an unambiguous separation of national boundaries. Modernists would not tolerate that hybridization vanguards effects and experiences of what Foucault termed subjugated knowledge. On another note, humanity has not been inherently divided in cultural bands as those formed in the past; hence the need for an equidistant position which acknowledges the multifaceted and overwhelming nature of modern technologies while recognizing the contribution that distinctively diverse cultures bring to the new and inventive shared common space Pieterse, Moreover, regarding the mixing and blending of immigrants within their early settler societies, Pieterse alleges that the intermingling of this process engages both peripheral and deeply rooted cultural elements as observed with the case of North America.
The author maintains that the appeal of American popular culture is defined by its mixed and nomadic characteristics, its light-hearted resilience, and its disconnection from its unequal and hostile past.
Both marginal and peripheral cultural elements intermingled with deeply rooted facets of diverse cultures blending and merging in newly varied intercultural landscapes. This eclectic blending may be the source of the subliminal and subconscious magnetism towards American pop music, film, television, and fashion.
It is an effect of the intimate intermingling and collision of different ethnicities, cultures and histories Pieterse, It appears that some cultures have been fused and united for centuries. And thus, the mixture of cultures should be part of a world narrative. Pieterse questions whether the distinction between what has been referred to as cultural grammars as a metaphor for inherent and deep-rooted cultural elements and cultural languages which are the peripheral or marginal elements of a culture can be looked at as divergences between surface and depth at all.
The author infers that to address the issues raised by the hybridization theory requires a decolonization of the imagination and the need to reassess how we examined culture in terms of territory and space in the past and how we view culture in its varied global landscapes in the present and future. Hybridization in cultural studies has also been associated with the notions of creolization and glocalization Hannerz, Further, glocalization, which is at the heart of hybridization, refers to the interpretation of the global and local producing unique outcomes in different geographic regions Giulianotti and Robertson, Glocalization is reflected by the fact that the world is growing pluralistic with individuals and communities becoming innovative agents that have a tremendous power to adapt and innovate within their newly glocalized world Robertson, On another note, in tune with the hybridization view, Appadurai argues that globalization represents a process of both differentiation and interconnection.
Therefore, the world should not be labeled as a monolithic network spreading worldwide but, rather, as a collection of partially overlapping socio-techno-cultural landscapes Appadurai, The latter can be global and regional in nature, and marked by a particular speed of growth and direction of movement. These landscapes, which serve to examine disjunctures between economy, culture and politics, constitute diverse layers of globalization or dimensions of cultural flows.
Mediascapes are about the flows of image and communication. Ethnoscapes are concerned with the flows of individuals around the world. Ideoscapes deal with exchanges of ideas and ideologies. Technoscapes refer to flows of technology and skills to create linkages between organizations around the world.
Financescapes relate to the interactions associated with money and capital. These landscapes are independent of any given nation-state and differently affect various territories Ritzer, The process of hybridization is distinguished from the McDonalization theory in part due to the fact that it is not derived from pre-established theorem but has ventured into a divergent unexplored and unmarked path. While homogenization in general and McDonaldization in particular evoke a victorious Americanism, hybridization is indefinite and open-ended in reference to practical experience and from a theoretical perspective Pieterse, The theory does not correspond to an established theoretical matrix or paradigm but it conjectures a shift by virtue of its nature.
The hybridization thesis stands for cultural convergence and assimilation. The McDonaldization thesis may be interpreted as a policy of closure and apartheid Pieterse, as outsiders are encouraged to engage in the global arena but are kept at a peripheral distance by the most dominant force in the game.
In terms of limitations, the hybridization thesis may conceal the unevenness in the process of mixing and distinctions need to be made between the different types and styles of mixing as the latter may undergo different evaluation processes in diverse cultural settings Pieterse, Especially relevant to the topic of this article, some authors have argued that belonging to an ethnic minority and being disabled does not necessarily constitute double oppression.
Stuart , Fuentes presented a literature review of some of the research contributions on this topic in a Nordic context. He pointed out that a large majority of studies on disability and ethnicity have concerned questions on how disability is understood as a phenomenon in different ethnic minority groups. There are also some studies analysing the everyday experiences and challenges that a disabled person of ethnic minority background faces when dealing with culturally insensitive public services Calbucura , in Fuentes According to Fuentes , when studying everyday experiences of disabled people of an ethnic minority background, there are two different perspectives that are equally applicable whilst also being important to distinguish between.
The first is a structural perspective, focusing on processes of marginalisation that result from belonging to two different subordinate positions. The other is an actor-centred perspective, whereby concepts like identity and belonging are viewed as central to the analysis. De los Reyes and Mulinari argued that gender, social class, and ethnicity should be regarded as socio-material dimensions, whilst categories like sexual identity, disability, and age are better understood as cultural dimensions that are shaped through discursive stigmatisation in modern societies.
In Norway, both the indigenous Sami people Minde and disabled people have a history of marginalisation Owren In recent years, ethnicity has gained more attention in disability research. A literature review of research on the situation for ethnic minorities with disabilities reveals some common findings. Several studies have found that disabled persons of minority background experience the disability differently from that of disabled persons with a majority background.
For example, they have inadequate access to service provisions due to welfare services that are standardised and tailored to the needs of the majority, which do not take cultural diversity into account Ali et al.
In recent years, there has been growing attention to the situation of indigenous people with disabilities. In , there was a UN special meeting on indigenous people with disabilities in Geneva, and some research studies have gradually addressed this group. Some of this research has focused on methodological aspects Gilroy et al. It may be argued that, although Sami people have the status of being indigenous, their experiences in dealing with the majority society may, nonetheless, have similar characteristics to those of ethnic minorities in Norway.
Due to the fact that research on disability and Sami background is lacking, we, therefore, draw on research surrounding disability and ethnic minorities Byrd and Rothberg Fuentes showed that people belonging to both categories ethnic minority and disability are at risk of experiencing two different marginalisation processes, particularly when dealing with welfare services. Sami people are the indigenous population of Norway.
They have a different historical and contemporary status than ethnic minorities, especially as they are not defined as an ethnic minority. This article builds on data from a qualitative study exploring the everyday life of disabled Sami people in Norway. The group consisted of researchers both with and without Sami background. Performing research with Sami people is complicated, as there is no common definition of Sami identity Lund et al.
Consequently, when conducting research, Sami identity is determined in different ways, for example, using language or geographic residence as markers for Sami affiliation Brustad et al. The inclusion criteria for informants in our study were that the participants perceived themselves as Sami and had one or more Sami-speaking ancestors.
The disabled Sami participants ranged from seven to 88 years of age, mainly adults. We did not plan such a gender imbalance, as this was a consequence of recruitment through snowball sampling; this method refers to a strategy where one involves existing study subjects in recruiting future subjects from their acquaintances, possessing the same characteristics from which they themselves were recruited Thagaard The participants had either physical, sensory, mental, or cognitive impairments.
The broad heterogeneity in type of impairment had implications on how we carried out the study. For example, when interviewing participants with intellectual disabilities, a simplified version of the interview guide with simpler language was used to make the questions easier to understand. The study was conducted from April to December We recruited participants from the North, Lule, and South Sami language areas.
Consequently, we provided all information about the study in these three Sami languages, in addition to an easy-to-read version in a simplified Sami language. The latter was provided such that Sami people with intellectual disabilities could also read the invitation to participate in the study or have it read to them.
We recruited participants through a number of channels: health and social services and the media, as well as Sami and disability organisations and networks. During the interviews, we applied a semi-structured interview guide consisting of open questions and the opportunity to tell stories about their lives.
We recorded and transcribed all of the interviews except one. The interviews were analysed using what Kvale described as meaning structuring through narratives. The three stories were selected because they illuminate the theme of this article in interesting and particular ways: how indigenous people with impairments may have distinctively different experiences of oppression than other ethnic minorities.
As this is a qualitative study with few informants, statistic generalisation of our findings is not possible. However, analytical generalisation is possible.
According to Thagaard , in qualitative studies, interpretation sometimes makes it possible for transferability to be connected to recognition. Recognition in this context means that arguments developed from particular stories and contexts might be experienced as relevant for other stories in other contexts.
As the participants are Sami with impairments, they could be perceived as members of two marginalised groups. Applying for collective consents might be done differently in indigenous settings other than Sami Gilroy et al. The Sami Parliament approved the study and their suggestions for improvements were taken into account, for example, including individuals from Lule, Southern, and Northern Sami areas as participants.
Moreover, we established a reference group consisting of representatives from Sami and disability organisations who advised us in the research process, and we presented the results and discussed them with Sami representatives at some of the Sami language and cultural centres. We anonymised the participants, for example, by giving them pseudonyms and not revealing their exact type of impairment. Participation in the study was voluntary.
To clarify how indigenous people with impairments may have distinctly different experiences of oppression than other ethnic minorities, we will present three stories. From an intersectional perspective, it may seem strange that all three stories refer to male subjects. However, there was an overrepresentation of men in our study 22 men and 9 women , and the interviews with males happened to provide stories that reflected experiences unique to indigenous people.
Whether this was coincidental is difficult to assess. In analysing the stories, we looked for experiences that may be parallel to those of ethnic minorities. Per is a young Sami man who lives with his family in Sapmi. As a young boy starting school with a hearing impairment that he had since birth, his teachers felt it would be too difficult for Per to become bilingual and decided that he should only learn Norwegian. According to Per, this professional decision has had considerable negative consequences throughout his life.
Per has felt left out of the Sami society and is terribly saddened to never be included due to his lack of skills with the language.
He stated that information should either be given in both Sami and Norwegian or only in Norwegian but not just in Sami, so that everybody can have the chance to understand. Johan is in his 60s and has a physical impairment. He comes from a reindeer-herding family.
When leaving school, a counsellor advised him not to even think about going into reindeer herding, but rather to plan on getting an office job because of his impairment. However, despite this advice, Johan decided to take up reindeer herding and has been working with it ever since. Johan described several advantages with this type of work. One is the experience of freedom and flexibility; working with reindeer herding, he is independent of time and date and does not have to plan his work.
Another advantage Johan mentioned is that there are several families jointly engaged in the work. When cooperating together, they can work shifts and do not have to be continually available.
This also bears some advantages in relation to his impairment: The other reindeer herders relieve him of work tasks if his impairment hinders him. However, according to Johan, the Norwegian public bureaucracy is gradually limiting the flexibility that has made it possible for him to work with reindeer herding up until now, despite his impairment. He elaborated on how those in the reindeer-herding community have gradually been forced to set aside traditional Sami ways of thinking, where weather conditions, for instance, have been decisive in choosing when to gather and butcher the reindeer.
Instead, they have had to adhere to deadlines determined by the Norwegian public administration. According to Johan, these changes make his work much harder and more stressful in addition to involving more health risks.
In this way, the Sami cultural adjustment to the rules of the majority society is reducing the flexibility that has contributed to inclusive employment in a traditional Sami way of living. Furthermore, Johan also stressed the mental strains connected to constantly having to defend reindeer herding in various majority public arenas.
He realises that the bureaucracy of Norwegian policy sets limits that make reindeer husbandry life more complicated. Additionally, he pointed out that people with a Sami background still have to argue and fight for their rights. Knut is a teenage boy from a reindeer-herding family who has been diagnosed with ADHD. She pointed to how they experience this phenomenon particularly considering the upbringing of children in some Norwegian versus Sami contexts, such as at school.
However, she feels that medicating him to go to school creates a considerable paradox. Moreover, she stressed how Sami upbringing is very practical: It is characterised by letting children take part in activities such as husbandry, picking and using plants from nature, and Duodji Sami handicraft. The three stories highlight different aspects of relations or crossings between disability and Sami background. However, such homogenisation processes may be experienced differently by people with a Sami background than by ethnic minorities.
As the following exploration of the described homogenisation processes illustrates, such processes seem to lead to experiences unique to indigenous people, differing from those of ethnic minorities Fuentes Having a hearing impairment, Per is pre-defined as belonging to a certain category with specific and inherent treatment measures.
Professionals supposed that his hearing impairment would make it impossible for him to become bilingual. Others of various ethnic minority groups Imperatori ; Ostad ; Stienstra , share such experiences. However, whilst other ethnic minorities with impairments may have difficulties learning the language of the country where they have relocated Statskontoret , in Norway, the Sami language has a different status than the native languages of immigrants. Today, according to the Sami Act , Sami and Norwegian are languages of equal worth, and, according to the Education Act , Sami children have the right to receive instruction in Sami.
According to Kramvig , identity is created and sustained through social practices. Thus, a relevant question is what social practices Per and other Sami with impairments, who are denied access to the Sami language, are given the chance to take part in. If, like Per, their lack of skills in Sami excludes them from social settings with family and friends and activities in the general society, such as political and organisational work, their participation in Sami culture is probably not extensive.
Gaski argued that, following the assimilation process in Norway, Sami politicians created a Sami-Norwegian dichotomy in the construction of Sami identity. Limited access to Sami language and culture will, thus, probably complicate the construction of a Sami identity for people of a Sami background who have impairments. This attitude was based on research that showed that monolinguals did better than bilinguals on intelligence tests.
Critics of cultural homogenization theory point out that as different cultures mix, homogenization is less about the spread of a single culture as about the mixture of different cultures, as people become aware of other cultures and adopt their elements. Examples of non-American culture affecting the West include world music and the popularization of non-American television Latin American telenovelas, Japanese anime, Indian Bollywood , religion Islam, Buddhism , food, and clothing in the West, though in most cases insignificant in comparison to the Western influence in other countries.
The process of adoption of elements of global culture to local cultures is known as glocalization or. Some scholars like Arjun Appadurai note that "the central problem of today's global interaction [is] the tension between cultural homogenization and cultural heterogenization". The Arab's World was found to be uncomfortable with the former as many of them perceived it as either a real or potential threat to their political, economic, and cultural independence.
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