Unpacking cultural divides

This text is based on an introductory Keynote delivered by the author for a Plenary panel of Nordic researchers that took place during the 2008 'Media and Global Divides' conference. Designed to provide an international stage-setting context for a range of Nordic perspectives, the text first deconstructs the notions of 'global' and 'divide'. It then takes up 'global divides' that are cultural in nature, referring principally to 'divide'-related notions analyzed by various contributors to the two published volumes of the Cultures and Globalization Series, of which the author is co-editor. Finally, it seeks to displace the 'divide' metaphor, by attending to the complex relations of competition and collaboration that link different centres of cultural production, e.g., the spatial dynamics of film and television production as explored by Michael Curtin in the recently published second volume of the Series entitled The Cultural Economy.