notions of power often borrowed from tantric types of Buddhism practiced in Tibet,
and animistic folk beliefs in spirits (Baker and Phongpaichit 2005 : 9). This sort of
hybridization is a result of culture change in many phases of globalization in
Thailand.
1.2 Thai Buddhism in the Phases of Globalization...............
According to Appadurai ( 2001 : 17), globalization is an interactive process in which
“locality”and“globality”interact via the shrinking of space-time in the world
system. Not only can globality influence locality, but the latter can also induce
changes in the global arena and this process is called globalization from below,
local globalization or grassroots globalization. Locals get influenced by the culture
of globals and become, therefore,“homogenized,”Friedman ( 1994 : 210) argues.
What happens within the locality is the logical connection process between the
decentralization and fragmentation of identities. That creates a new process he
refers to as creolization (see also Hannerz 1987 ). Pieterse ( 2004 ) refers to the same
process as hybridization. Hawkins ( 2006 : 14) supports this view by stating glob-
alization is multiple and hybrid. However, according to Stuart Hall’s work, as
studied by Proctor ( 2004 : 27) and Featherstone ( 1996 : 47), globalization concerns
both homogenization and hybridization/creolization. As a consequence, each
locality is not being hybridized at the same time, speed, or geographical space. This
is what Appadurai ( 1966 : 5) refers to as the disparity or disjuncture of globalization,
meaning some parts of the world can be more globalized than others. The differ-
ences between localities are no longer vertical. Rather, they are horizontal in terms
of cultural spaces or nodes connected by crisscrossingflows of people, goods, and
messages (Racelis 2006 : 55).
Interestingly, globalization is not the same as Westernization. Dicken ( 2004 : 17)
states it is not planned;flows happen in many directions and with different degrees,
and a globalized locality is not necessarily a Westernized (or Americanized)
society. It can lead to some other form of hybridized society. Cohen ( 1991 : 63)
states clearly that Thailand did not develop in a Western direction but has fused its
own culture with Western forms. Other societies, which have become modern
without becoming very Western, are Singapore, Taiwan, and Iran (Nisbett2003:
224 ).
According to Hopkins ( 2002 :1–10), globalization denotes the following
ongoing historical process:first, archaic globalization; second, proto-globalization;
third, globalization; and fourth, postcolonial globalization. Hopkins explains further
that archaic globalization occurred from Byzantium and Tang to the renewed
expansionism of Islamic and Christian power after the 1500s. He identified
proto-globalization with the political and economic developments that became
especially prominent between about 1600 and 1800 in Europe, Asia, and parts of
Africa. The third historical process, globalization, he refers to as the colonial period
from the 1760s onwards. Globalization that can be related to modernity started from
2 1 Thai Buddhism, the Mass Media, and Culture Change in Thailand