Pizza effect

In religious studies and sociology, the pizza effect is the phenomenon of elements of a nation's or people's culture being transformed or at least more fully embraced elsewhere, then re-exported to their culture of origin,^[1] or the way in which a community's self-understanding is influenced by (or imposed by, or imported from) foreign sources.^[2] Related phrases include "hermeneutical feedback loop", "re-enculturation", and "self-orientalization".

The term "pizza effect" was coined by the Austrian-born Hindu monk and professor of Anthropology at Syracuse University, Agehananda Bharati,^[2]^[3] who wrote the following in 1970,^[4] based on his analysis of this phenomenon.

The original pizza was a simple, hot-baked bread without any trimmings, the staple of the Calabrian and Sicilian contadini ["peasant-farmers"] from whom well over 90% of all Italo-Americans descend. After World War I, a highly elaborated dish, the U.S. pizza of many sizes, flavors, and hues, made its way back to Italy with visiting kinsfolk from America. The term and the object have acquired a new meaning and a new status, as well as many new tastes in the land of its origin, not only in the south, but throughout the length and width of Italy.^[4]^: 273
— Agehananda Bharati

Although Bharati's knowledge of pizza history and Italian American demographics was incorrect,^[5] the term pizza effect nonetheless stuck.

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^ See history of pizza for details

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[5] See history of pizza for details

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