Globalization Flashcards
Is globalization something new?
no- but it has changed, the intensity, scale and impact
David Harvey- it is the compression of social time-space through economic activity that is the driving force behind globalization
Theory 1: Homogenization.
Marshall McLuhan theory of globalization
The world becomes a global village due to advancing information technologies
Critique:
too superficial
ignores local meaning, differences and initiatives
empirically problematic
Theory 2: Victory of liberal democracy
Samuel P Huntington’s theory of globalization.
Rise after the cold war. Claims that identification will cease to be defined by the nation state but by civilizations.
Start to be defined by cultural and religious grounds, and economic and ideological processes will play minor role
Critique
Celebrates liberal democracy for being “neutral” from religion, monarchies and other cultural factors, but it is ultimately also ideological just as other ways of governance.
Ethnocentric,(US-Centric)
Ideological discourse.
critique of clash of civilization (caused by liberal democracy)
-difference between culture -and religion is problematic
-conflicts within are often more intense than between ‘civilizations’
-reification and simplification: assumes a very limited number of homogeneous cultures (because no political-ideological and economic differentiation)
-ethnocentric legitimization of US power
Theory 3: Global flows and interconnection
Appadurai and Castells’ theory of globalization,
De-terrorialization: the state will lose ground and be replaced by:
1) networks (heterogenization, creolization, hybridization, fragmentation of culture and identity) 2) identity formation through consumption
Arjan Appadurai
how the IMAGINATION works as a social force in today’s world, providing new resources for identity and energies.
Sees imagination as a social practice. You start from an idea, a desire, which leads to practice - how you achieve your idea or goal. Can also be nationalist thinking and pursue conflict.
disenchantment
Max Weber, the effect of that demystification was that the world was leached of mystery and richness, the disenchantment of the world is the alienating and undesirable flip side of scientific progress. Basically going back from the idea that anything “superficial” can exist because man can learn the world through reason - enlightenment thinking. Rational over “enchantment”. Western-centric
Appadurai on global cultural economy is an order composed by flows of
1) ethno-scapes; the migration across cultures and borders
2) media-scapes; the variety of media that shape the way we understand the world
3) techno-scapes; the scope and movement of technology around the world
4) finance-scapes; the worldwide fluc of money and capital
5) ideo-scapes; the global flow of ideas and ideologies (such as human rights)
criticizing global flows theory
- seems to limit ‘world citizens’ that is cosmopolitans: depending on economic and cultural capital (remember Bourdieu)
- not sufficiently taking economic differences within and between societies into considerations
- risking ‘socio-centrism’: social scientists tend to take personal experiences as the benchmark for globalization
Theory 4: Glocalization
theory of globalization, ethnic and cultural fragmentation (local) and modernist homogenization (global) on two ways:
1) adapting non-local cultural phenomena: often as counter-culture
2) emphasizing ‘own’ cultural/ethnic identity
cultural appropriation
Appiah: resist to use the term, all cultural practices and objects are mobile. where is it first made?
Max Weber
Talks of
1) Rationalization
2) Secularization
3) Disenchantment
which are all vehicles in the rise of capitalism and modernity
Growing resistance to globalization
Four grounds:
1) Ideological
2) Religious
3) Ecological
4) Cultural
