William Mazzarella’s review article targets mediation and globalization as it intersects with culture and anthropological theory. His review focuses on a number of propositions and aims to understand the process of mediation in an increasingly globalized world. He defines mediation as the “…processes by which a given social dispensation produced and reproduces itself in and through a particular set of media”. Mediation allows us to represent ourselves to others and also in turn reflect on this representation. As presented by the article, mediation exists between systems, as a third item for analysis and interpretation, which he believes has become increasingly important to study due to globalization. Prior, cultures could only reflect on themselves, however with globalization different cultures can reflect on others mediations which may in turn allow for a certain relativism. In turn, we may also contemplate our own cultural representations, question who we are, and how others perceive us. What is of interest to him in his studies is the ambiguity surrounding media representation, a condition that he notes that globalization has made particularly evident. We can also examine how these representations have changed over time and how they will continue to evolve over time revealing the many complex and dynamic forms of mediation.
Theater and ritual are provided as examples of forms of mediation in the article, as ways of reflecting the image of societies back to the society itself. To illustrate, potlatch for some aboriginal groups of the Northwest Coast reveals an interesting form of ritual in which key cultural values such as reciprocity and prestige are revealed through an exchange of gifts, dance, decorated items and feast. This in turn provides individuals participating in these rituals a mediated form of presenting key cultural values while also presenting these values to other cultures through the process of globalization. This may occur when others from outside the community come to view the potlatch, or if perhaps the potlatch event was recorded by video or even written about in books others can come to learn about the potlatch and reflect on the event and interpret it. Thus the potlatch as form of mediation has become increasingly complex due to globalization and accompanying technological developments.
