Citation

Darling‐Wolf F. Commun. Theory 2008; 18(2): 187-209.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, International Communication Association, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1468-2885.2008.00319.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Keeping in mind the political nature of academic endeavors “where intellectual discourses are never insulated from the national and global environment in which they develop” (M. Kraidy, 2005, p. 17), this essay addresses the politics of representation of globalization in American intellectual discourse through a critical analysis of some of the common axes on which much academic work is organized. Employing a brief analysis of the development of French rap as an example, it illustrates how American academic conceptualization of the world along East–West or North–South lines fail to fully address the complexity of transcultural influence and leaves significant power relations unexplored. As an alternative to such conceptualizations, this essay proposes the concept of “mondialisation” adopted by francophone scholars as a strategic translation of the term “globalization.” It concludes that because of its greater focus on the socially constructed and potentially fragmentary nature of global influence, mondialisation might be better suited for the development of a theoretically sophisticated, empirically grounded, and truly “translocal” approach.