AmalgaNations

The world is becoming multipolar, multicultural and mono-cultural all at the same time. Flows of culture are intensifying - not just from West to the rest, but in all directions. What effect does the rush of culture and information via the internet, never-before-seen, mean for our times? And what does it mean for the lives of people in societies where globalisation has taken over? To find out, Doug Hendrie travelled across Asia, Oceania and Africa: To Papua New Guinea, which has no roads between its two largest cities but where mobile phones are forging an unlikely nation out of disparate tribes. To Ghana, where start-up filmmakers have trumped serious cinema with a potent cocktail of battles between witchcraft and the Christian god. To South Korea, where the world's top professional videogamers have perfected an American game, live in dorms, train like athletes and can earn upwards of $200,000 a year. To Indonesia, where punk, once the music of angry whites, has earned a second life as the music of the poor, the persecuted, and the wealthy pretenders. And back home to Australia, where African-Australians are turning to rap to make sense of feeling black for the first time. Everywhere, Hendrie found people were adapting or repurposing 'global' cultures for their own use. Where the word multi-cultural is obsolete, and the reality is an endlessly more fascinating world. Accessible, funny and intelligent, AmalgaNations is a look at the modern world in a new light, investigating what culture means and the myriad ways that humans are able to adapt it, and to it.