Overview

Given the sometimes extraordinary politicization of culture, it is surprising that Sesame Street has gained acceptance and legitimacy in more than fifty countries. Sesame Street's global success raises two questions. First, how does a US icon like Sesame Street spread around the world, gaining acceptance as a local cultural product? Second, how does the nonprofit that created it, Sesame Workshop, and its partners around the world navigate cultural differences, manage conflicts, and construct shared collective representations to create Sesame Street programs that resonate with local audiences? Tamara Kay answers these questions using data from seven years of ethnographic fieldwork and 200 in-depth interviews with Sesame Workshop staff and international partners from seventeen countries. Kay argues that Sesame Workshop's secret is its engagement in coproduction, meaning it works with partners as a transnational team to create local Sesame Street programs. She traces the processes of coproduction, beginning with the imagination of the cultural product, to its disassembly, reconstitution, and dissemination. The Sesame Street case grapples with and illuminates culture in transnational interaction, providing insight into a range of other transnational organizational partnerships and different kinds of hybrid cultural products.

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Tamara Kay is the Andrew W. Mellon Chair and Professor of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. She works on issues of trade, labor, social movements, globalization, culture, organizations, and global health, including reproductive health and rights. Aasne Vigesaa is a stage actor, audiobook narrator, theater director, and yoga instructor. She lives in Illinois with her husband and three dogs.

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