Globalization

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Globalization is a contested term with many aspects. However, there is something of a consensus accreting around a conception of globalization that describes "the ways in which the world is being knitted together." One example we are all probably familiar with is "economic globalization," "the increasingly free flows of goods and money" that move around the globe every minute of every day. But there are other important aspects of globalization. Globalization also refers to the "images, ideas, tourists, migrants, values, fashions, and music [that] increasingly flow along global pathways," as well as shared global problems, responsibilities, and sensibilities.

In Global Sociology, the text liberally quoted above, Cohen and Kennedy list several features of globalization that should make the term more clear:
- changing concepts of space and time
- an increasing volume of cultural interactions
- the commonality of problems facing all the world's inhabitants
- growing interconnections and interdependencies
- a network of increasingly powerful transnational actors and organizations
- the synchronization of all the dimensions involved in globalization

Below are some quotes on globalization that may further clarify our understanding:

Globalization refers to those processes, operating on a global scale, which cut across national boundaries, integrating and connecting communities and organizations in new space-time combinations, making the world in reality and in experience more interconnected.
-- Stuart Hall, "The global, the local, and the return of ethnicity"

The primary factors of production and exchange-money, technology, people, and goods-move with increasing ease across national boundaries; hence the nation-state has less and less power to regulate these flows and impose its authority over the economy.
-- Hardt & Negri, Empire

Nations and ethnic formations continue to exist. For the majorities, however, they are less and less important as determinants of social cohesion. We need not fear that these forms of identity will be eradicated by globalization; rather, ethnic, regional, and national identities are being reconstructed in relation to globalized processes of intercultural segmentation and hybridization.
-- Nestor Garcia Canclini, Consumers and Citizens

A modern citizen[ship] education, conscious of the interdependence of nations, the diversity of societies, and the necessarily global nature of the world's problems, would eschew the narrow cultural chauvinism which has characterized much of what has passed for national education. But equally, recognizing the importance of cohesion and solidarity in modern societies, it would seek to promote new and more inclusive forms of national identity.
-- Andy Green, Education, Globalization, and the Nation State

For an extended discussion of globalization, go to http://globalpolicy.igc.org/globaliz/define/2004/04heldinterview.htmand read an interview with David Held, one of the world's foremost authorities on the subject. This interview is located in the "Globalization" section of the Global Policy Forum's website http://www.globalpolicy.org/. By all means, hunt around this site and get a sense of the range of issues related to globalization.

 

References:

Canclini, N. G. (2001). Consumers and citizens: Globalization and multicultural conflicts. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Cohen, R. & Kennedy, P. (2000). Global sociology. New York: New York University Press.

Green, A. (1997). Education, Globalization, and the Nation State. London: Macmillian Press LTD.

Hall, S. (1999). The global, the local, and the return of ethnicity. In C. Lemert (Ed.), Social theory: The multicultural and classical readings. Boulder CO: Westview Press.

Hardt, M. & Negri, A. (2001). Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

 

Contributed by Jason Sparks