Transnationalism

What exactly is transnationalism? From what I have been led to believe, transnationalism is the blending of cultures brought about by the migration of people from one region to another. When people migrate, they bring some of their culture with them, and the more people, the more the effect on the region their migrating to. This is not a one-way flow; the new immigrants will also take some of the culture from the region they are visiting and add it to their own culture, thus creating a hybrid culture. Migrants may also develop more of an emotional attachment to the region they are now living in, creating a new homeland for themselves.

This is a constantly evolving process where nothing is static. I like to think of it as a ripple effect, where you drop a stone into a pool and the ripples spread out and come back on themselves. So culture now seems to be a moving entity, far more mobile than it was in the past. Culture’s increased mobility is due in part to advances in technology. With faster travel and quicker communications, cultures literally fly around the globe in very little time. However, we are a fickle race it seems, and culture can change quickly, something that is trendy and hip last summer is now old news; kind of like the words trendy and hip actually.
Music is highly influential when it comes to cultural changes, and music tends to be a reflection of the culture that bred it. The music, like other cultural art forms, goes from one region into another, but it changes in the process. It changes because the artists producing the music are in a new environment, and so the form of music they make has changed to match it, often unintentionally.

With transnationalism, what we once considered nations and national culture are being slowly changed and hybridized, and in time all nations will be a blend of different cultures, changed beyond all recognition. Not only will they continue to change, nor will they just become so hybridized that they run out of ideas and everything will stay the same, sterile and boring. Time will tell.
PAE.