The "Nation" and Globalization

The writing encompassing the entire movie frame, some words are cut into halve as the frame ends and the unknown space begins. The Palestinian letter that forefront's Mona Hatoum’s movie serves several purposes to the topic of national identity and globalization.















The writing showcases a major component in the movie, by foregrounding the Palestinian letter over the images of her mother’s nude body. It roots the viewer into a specific cultural element from the beginning of the movie and serves continually to the end.



Isaiah Wells Migration and Visual Art Section 314 Instructor: Shelleen Greene Group Project: One Individual Essay 30 September 2009 The “Nation” and Globalization
Measure of Distance, by director Mona Hatoum emotionally references a Palestinian family separated by the 1981 war in the Middle East. However, the movie extends a specific example of national identity and globalization through Mona’s struggles with her ideas and feelings about her national and sexual identity due to globalization. Mona has become distanced from her family because of the war and forced into a new environment, but it is this new environment were she documents and displays the elusive product of national identity and globalization.
In our class lectures globalization was defined two ways: The first, an intensification of world wide social relations which link distinct localities in such a way that local happenings are shared. The second, a resent phenomena brought about by technological advances and economic policies of the post industrial era. A major point to note is that even though globalization has the ability to share local happening between two places, it does not make the two places alike. They both have individual cultural identities that in some instances can only be understood face to face, or in Mona’s circumstances, the feeling of lost identity can still take place even with means of communication. Mona Hatoum’s confusion and loss of identity could arguably be contingent on her new cultural environment that she is faced to understand. A. Aneesh writes an article, Virtual Migration that quotes, “There is something to be said about face-to-face communication, being in face-to-face communication and being part of the team physically is very different from being just online.” This quote reinforces Mona Hatoum’s feeling of lost identity and understanding because even though our world has become smaller with globalization; cultural identities can indeed become confused. The experience of living in one place compared to another can create a struggle to understand one’s personal identity.
The first sign of globalization and mixed national identity is displayed immediately in the beginning of Mona Hatoum’s movie. The movie slowly opens with the image of Palestinian writing encompassing the entire movie frame, some words are cut into halve as the frame ends and the unknown space begins. The Palestinian letter that forefront's Mona Hatoum’s movie serves several purposes to the topic of national identity and globalization. The first, it showcases a major component in the movie, by foregrounding the Palestinian letter over the images of her mother’s nude body. It roots the viewer into a specific cultural element from the beginning of the movie and serves continually to the end. The letter that comes between the viewer of the movie and the nude body of her silhouetted mother separates the viewer from a clear focus of her. However, it is the letters that join Mona and her mother, and the words that of it that donate the understanding to both us and Mona.
Once we hear Mona’s English speaking voice combine with the images of her mother and the subtle sounds of a Palestinian conversation in the background; it is made clear that Mona has now made an understanding of her new surroundings and her new identity is now a hybredization of the two places, and she showcase it to us via dvd.



Cite(s)
Hatoum, Mona , dir. Measure of Distance . Narr. Mona Hatoum . 1988. Web. 30 Sep. 2009 .

Aneesh, A. “Virtual Migration.” Virtual Migration:The Programming of Globalization. Durham and London:Duke University Press, 2006