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New Directions in Southern Studies
Memphis and the Paradox of Place: Globalization in the American South
Celebrated as the home of the blues and the birthplace of rock and roll, Memphis, Tennessee, is where Elvis Presley, B. B. King, Johnny Cash, and other musical legends got their starts. It is also a place of conflict and tragedy--the site of Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1968 assassination--and a city typically marginalized by scholars and underestimated by its own residents. Using this iconic southern city as a case study, Wanda Rushing explores the significance of place in a globalizing age.
Challenging the view that globalization renders place generic or insignificant, Rushing argues that cultural and economic distinctiveness persists in part because of global processes, not in spite of them. Rushing weaves her analysis into stories about the history and global impact of blues music, the social and racial complexities of Cotton Carnival, and the global rise of FedEx, headquartered in Memphis. She portrays Memphis as a site of cultural creativity and global industry--a city whose traditions, complex past, and specific character have had an influence on culture worldwide.
Challenging the view that globalization renders place generic or insignificant, Rushing argues that cultural and economic distinctiveness persists in part because of global processes, not in spite of them. Rushing weaves her analysis into stories about the history and global impact of blues music, the social and racial complexities of Cotton Carnival, and the global rise of FedEx, headquartered in Memphis. She portrays Memphis as a site of cultural creativity and global industry--a city whose traditions, complex past, and specific character have had an influence on culture worldwide.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 22, 2020
Dense material; the book read like a term paper, but with lots of interesting information about the history of Memphis within a global context. I have a good amount of food for thought to chew on.
February 17, 2021
If you teach any type of Social Studies in the Midsouth, you owe it to yourself and your students to not only read, but peruse MEMPHIS AND THE PARADOX OF PLACE.
May 20, 2016
Rushing takes a truly interdisciplinary approach to understanding how the global and local intersect in Memphis. The way she illustrates how a traditionally maligned Southern city like Memphis is the result of both insular attempts to resist external mediums of change and expansive attempts to introduce change to a struggling city is really refreshing. This intersection of local traditions and global trends is obvious when one thinks about any slightly urbanized city in the world. In the United States, even rural regions are feeling the effects of globalization through broad access to the internet, television, and other means of mass communication. Upon starting the book, I felt that she would be able to elucidate this modern phenomenon, providing commentary on what it might mean for global and local trends. But, though many examples are given to prove her point, she leaves many troubling aspects unexplained.
Memphis seems to be caught in an ebb and flow of globalization that will seemingly culminate in a loss of newly created culture, as well as rapid exploitation and commercialization of its past cultural exports. She illustrates this through the modern renovation (or some could argue reinvention) of Beale Street and other historical sites. Memphis is turning its musical history into a blues Disney World, but Rushing suggests that true creative culture could still exist through the works of filmmakers like Craig Brewer and rappers like Three 6 Mafia. She weakly suggests that local culture can still thrive under global pressure, which may have been true in the past, but there is little evidence, in Memphis or other cities, that this is possible in our modern global world. It seems even larger cities that traditionally have more space to fly under the cultural radar, like New York City and Los Angeles, are becoming ersatz versions of their former selves. All the creative arts move farther away from city centers as they’re gentrified and homogenized.
Rushing leans heavily on case histories to render the paradox of local and global flows creating a place. Her sources are interesting, albeit at some points redundant. Her theory that a sense of place has always taken into account local concerns for tradition and societal norms, in addition to global modernity and progress, is well supported by her case study of Memphis, but I would like to know how modern metropolitan centers can sustain a relevant form of local culture endangered by the homogenizing influences of modern globalization. Secondly, would we even want a perpetuation of certain local cultural traditions that run counter to global sensibilities? If Memphis had resisted globalization, the blues may have retained some authenticity, but segregation and other antiquated local norms would have been upheld until internal change was instigated. These complexities are left unexplored by Rushing, but that is not to discount the good work she did dispelling the myth of southern exceptionality.
Memphis and the Paradox of Place builds on themes from James Cobb’s work on the Delta’s interdependency with external forces, and it’s fitting that Memphis serves as the northern boundary to the Delta on the Mississippi River. Money from outside the Delta guided the culture within it, and in Memphis the same is true. When it was not seen as economically viable, places like Beale Street and Overton Park are left to local influence, but when a global tourism market or federal transportation funds are at stake, the local will almost inevitably clash with global trends. This book reinforces my belief that no place in the modern United States can evade the reach of globalization, and many places thought of as particularly resistant to global coercion have actually been under its influence for centuries.
Rushing writes that the “paradox of tourism is that it supposedly promotes opportunities for visitors to see something different; yet cities that re-create themselves to attract tourism seem to become more alike." Every major tourist attraction becomes a stop in our national Disney World of historical places. Cities like Clarksdale are just moving towards what Beale Street has become: a hyperbolized, inauthentic, overpriced commodity to be sold to those who want to see an idealized version of culture. Therefore, blues on Beale Street is $20 barbecue, $30 blues compilations, and tired musicians rehashing an electric version of the blues that was actually made popular in Chicago, not Memphis. No one wants to pay to see seedy bars, low income destitution, and debauchery, which are arguably more reflective of historical Beale Street.
Memphis seems to be caught in an ebb and flow of globalization that will seemingly culminate in a loss of newly created culture, as well as rapid exploitation and commercialization of its past cultural exports. She illustrates this through the modern renovation (or some could argue reinvention) of Beale Street and other historical sites. Memphis is turning its musical history into a blues Disney World, but Rushing suggests that true creative culture could still exist through the works of filmmakers like Craig Brewer and rappers like Three 6 Mafia. She weakly suggests that local culture can still thrive under global pressure, which may have been true in the past, but there is little evidence, in Memphis or other cities, that this is possible in our modern global world. It seems even larger cities that traditionally have more space to fly under the cultural radar, like New York City and Los Angeles, are becoming ersatz versions of their former selves. All the creative arts move farther away from city centers as they’re gentrified and homogenized.
Rushing leans heavily on case histories to render the paradox of local and global flows creating a place. Her sources are interesting, albeit at some points redundant. Her theory that a sense of place has always taken into account local concerns for tradition and societal norms, in addition to global modernity and progress, is well supported by her case study of Memphis, but I would like to know how modern metropolitan centers can sustain a relevant form of local culture endangered by the homogenizing influences of modern globalization. Secondly, would we even want a perpetuation of certain local cultural traditions that run counter to global sensibilities? If Memphis had resisted globalization, the blues may have retained some authenticity, but segregation and other antiquated local norms would have been upheld until internal change was instigated. These complexities are left unexplored by Rushing, but that is not to discount the good work she did dispelling the myth of southern exceptionality.
Memphis and the Paradox of Place builds on themes from James Cobb’s work on the Delta’s interdependency with external forces, and it’s fitting that Memphis serves as the northern boundary to the Delta on the Mississippi River. Money from outside the Delta guided the culture within it, and in Memphis the same is true. When it was not seen as economically viable, places like Beale Street and Overton Park are left to local influence, but when a global tourism market or federal transportation funds are at stake, the local will almost inevitably clash with global trends. This book reinforces my belief that no place in the modern United States can evade the reach of globalization, and many places thought of as particularly resistant to global coercion have actually been under its influence for centuries.
Rushing writes that the “paradox of tourism is that it supposedly promotes opportunities for visitors to see something different; yet cities that re-create themselves to attract tourism seem to become more alike." Every major tourist attraction becomes a stop in our national Disney World of historical places. Cities like Clarksdale are just moving towards what Beale Street has become: a hyperbolized, inauthentic, overpriced commodity to be sold to those who want to see an idealized version of culture. Therefore, blues on Beale Street is $20 barbecue, $30 blues compilations, and tired musicians rehashing an electric version of the blues that was actually made popular in Chicago, not Memphis. No one wants to pay to see seedy bars, low income destitution, and debauchery, which are arguably more reflective of historical Beale Street.
May 26, 2012
This book is a fantastic guide to Memphis past and present. By "fantastic" I do not mean thorough. She doesn't intend for it to be a comprehensive biography of the Bluff City. But as someone who has lived and worked in Memphis for many years - and someone who now also makes a living studying the city - I thought her carefully chosen case studies of Memphis' seemingly paradoxical culture were enormously effective at describing what I have struggled to name thus far in my dissertation. I am eternally grateful for a lot of her legwork that no doubt will carry my own work further. She hits several nails on their heads. (Except I am still not sure why she devoted an entire chapter to Carnival Memphis. Although richly symbolic, I was not convinced that it really "matters" today.)
However, from a theoretical standpoint, I think Rushing engages a theoretical discussion that in many ways has already proven to be a straw man: that globalization is a homogenizing force, obliterating the uniqueness of local "places." Maybe this debate rages on in sociology, but I feel like anthropologists have argued almost from day one that global flows mix with local climate in what is almost always unique and unpredictable ways. While Rushing makes this point, I do not think she made any new contributions to the way we think about globalization or localization.
However, from a theoretical standpoint, I think Rushing engages a theoretical discussion that in many ways has already proven to be a straw man: that globalization is a homogenizing force, obliterating the uniqueness of local "places." Maybe this debate rages on in sociology, but I feel like anthropologists have argued almost from day one that global flows mix with local climate in what is almost always unique and unpredictable ways. While Rushing makes this point, I do not think she made any new contributions to the way we think about globalization or localization.
September 24, 2016
This author gives a unique academic bent to telling the story of Memphis weaving in the sociological, historical, anthropological, and macroeconomical impact it has on its individual citizens and globalization.
August 19, 2009
Fantastic sociological book by my mother-in-law!
November 6, 2009
Wanda Rushing employs her sociological lens for a fascinating look at a unique and interesting city--Memphis. Find more about Rushing at www.wandarushing.com.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews