Culture and Economy: Towards an Agenda for Further Research: Towards an agenda for further research

Culture has been described as the pattern of meanings embedded in symbolic forms, including actions, utterances and meaningful objects of various kinds, by virtue of which individuals communicate with one another and share their experiences, conceptions, and beliefs. Investment in the stock market may be perceived as the very antithesis of traditional' economic activity, even though as the structure of the global economy changes, it is rapidly becoming just such an activity. Transculturation creates hybrids, a fusing of cultural forms, which is not simply the 'impregnating of one culture with the contents of another', but 'involves an ambivalence about both of the original cultures', creating a sense of freedom, nomadism, even opportunism. The Commission on Intercultural Communication of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore is breaking new ground, opening up this field for more broadly based interdisciplinary inquiry. Effective networks enable a flow of products from the local to the national and to the international.