Defining Globalization

• Challenges of teaching and learning globalization include preconceived notions of scholarship and capturing its complexity in an approachable way

Defining Globalization

• Globalization's reality and omnipresence make us feel part of the "global age"
• Globalization encompasses economic, political, and cultural processes
• Social structures are directly affected by globalization
• Some view globalization positively as world shrinkage and increasing ease of interaction
• Others view globalization negatively as occurring through regression, colonialism, and destabilization
• Martin Khor regarded globalization as colonization in the mid-1990s

The Task of Defining Globalization

• Definitions can be broad/inclusive or narrow/exclusive
• Broad definitions can include a variety of issues but may lack implications
• Narrow definitions are justified but can be limiting
• Globalization is complex and multifaceted, dealing with economic, political, or social dimensions
• The debate about globalization and what can be done about it are similar
• Globalization involves increasing liquidity and multidirectional flows of people, objects, places, and information
• Globalization could bring either or both integration and/or fragmentation
• Hindrances or structural blocks can slow down one's activity in another country
• The perspective of the person who defines globalization shapes its definition
• Globalization has different speeds, axes, points of origin and termination
• One's definition and perspective could determine concrete steps in addressing globalization issues
• Globalization is a reality that is changing as human society develops
• Globalization is complex, multifaceted, and can be influenced by the people who define it

Metaphors of Globalization

• Metaphors can help us better understand the concept of globalization utilizing states of matter - solid and liquid
• Other related concepts included in the definition are structures and flows
• The epochs that preceded today's globalization paved the way for people, things, information, and places to harden over time, limiting mobility
• Solidity refers to barriers that prevent or make difficult the movement of things
• Solids can be natural (landforms, bodies of water) or man-made (e.g. Great Wall of China, Berlin Wall, nine-dash line)
• Liquidity refers to the increasing ease of movement of people, things, information, and places in the contemporary world
• Today's liquid phenomena change quickly and their aspects, spatial and temporal, are in continuous fluctuation
• Liquid phenomena's movement is difficult to stop e.g. viral videos
• Liquid forces made political boundaries more permeable to the flow of people and things
• Liquidity tends to melt whatever stands in its path (especially solids)
• Nation-state decline as a result of liquidity
• Liquidity and solidity are in constant interaction, with liquidity increasing today
• Liquids flow, and the idea of flow will be focus of discussion
• Flows are the movement of people, things, places, and information brought by the growing porosity of global limitations
• Examples of flows include foreign cuisines being consumed by Filipinos or Global financial crises
• A financial crisis in a given country can bring ramifications to other regions of the world
• Other kinds of flows include:
  • Poor illegal migrants flooding many parts of the world
  • Virtual flow of legal and illegal information
  • Immigrants recreating ethnic enclaves in host countries

Globalization Theories

• Globalization theories analyze globalization culturally, economically, and politically
• These theories see globalization as a process that increases either homogeneity or heterogeneity
• Homogeneity refers to increasing sameness as societies expand to create common practices, economies, and governments
• Homogeneity in culture is often linked to cultural imperialism
• Americanization: import of products, images, technologies, practices, and behavior closely associated with America/Americans
• Economy: recognition of neoliberalism, capitalism, and the market economy in the world
• Global economic crises are also products of homogeneity in economic globalization
• Politics: Emerging similar models of governance in the world
• The global flow of media is often characterized as media imperialism which can undermine the existence of alternative global media originating from developing countries
• Cultural imperialism denies the agency of viewers, but people often interpret the same medium in significantly different ways
• Global media is dominated by a small number of large corporations
• The contemporary world is undergoing the process of McDonaldization, by which Western societies are dominated by the principles of fast-food restaurants involving global spread of rational systems
• Grobalization is a process wherein nations, corporations, etc. impose themselves on geographic areas in order to gain profits, and power
• Globalization can also be seen as a flow of "nothing" as opposed to "something," involving the spread of non-places, non-things, non-people, and non-services
• Heterogeneity pertains to the creation of various cultural practices, new economies, and political groups because of the interaction of elements from different societies in the world
• Heterogeneity refers to differences because of either lasting differences or hybrids, or combinations of cultures that can be produced through the different transplanetary processes
• A more specific concept than cultural imperialism, heterogeneity in culture is associated with cultural hybridization- "glocalization"
• Cultural Hybridization: As global forces interact with local factors or a specific geographic area, the "glocal" is being produced.
• Economic: The commodification of cultures and "glocal" markets are examples of differentiation happening around the world
• Political: The alternate of "McWorld" is the "Jihad," referring to the political groups that are engaged in an intensification of nationalism that leads to greater political heterogeneity throughout the world

Dynamics of Local and Global Culture

• There are three perspectives on global cultural flows: differentialism, hybridization, and convergence
• Differentialism emphasizes that cultures are essentially different and only superficially affected by global flows suggesting potential for "catastrophic collision"
• Samuel Huntington's clash of civilizations exemplifies this approach suggesting increasing interaction among different "civilizations" would lead to intense clashes
• The hybridization approach emphasizes the integration of local and global cultures, globalization is considered a creative process which gives rise to hybrid entities that are not reducible to either the global or the local
• Key concepts are glocalization (interpenetration resulting in unique outcomes) and Appadurai's "scapes" regarding global flows and the creation of cultural hybrids
• Cultural Convergence: stresses homogeneity introduced by globalization
• Cultures deemed to be radically altered by strong flows, while cultural imperialism happens when one culture imposes itself on and tends to destroy the other's culture -
• One critique of cultural imperialism is John Tomlinson's idea of deterritorialization: much more difficult to tie culture to a specific geographic point of origin

The Globalization of Religion

• Globalization provides religions with a fertile milieu to spread and thrive
• Globalization has enabled co-religionists across the planet to have greater direct contact with one another
• Globalization transforms the generic "religion" into a world-system of competing and conflicting religions

Globalization and Regionalization

• The processes of globalization and regionalization reemerged during the 1980s and heightened after the end of the Cold War in the 1990s
• It seems that these two processes are contradicting-the very nature of globalization is, by definition, global while regionalization is naturally regional
• Regionalization of the world system and economic activity undermines the potential benefits coming out from a liberalized global economy
• The new regionalism is not a barrier to political globalization but, on the contrary, is entirely compatible with it if not an indirect encouragement

Origins and History of Globalization

• Hardwired View: According to Nayan Chanda (2007), because of our basic human need to make our lives better that made globalization possible
• Chanda traces the beginning of globalization from our ancestors in Africa and the hardwired human urges to migrate
• Cycles view: globalization is a long-term cyclical process
• Epoch view: The six great epochs - globalization of religion, European colonial conquests, Intra-European wars, Heyday of European imperialism, Post-World War II period, Post-Cold War Period

Global Demography

• Demographic transition is a singular historical period during which mortality and fertility rates decline from high to low levels in a particular country or region
• Shift in Global Population Shares:
  • Europe and the West in the nineteenth century had an increased share in the world's population,
  • Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania had high levels of population growth rates in the twentieth century.
• Projections indicate future population growth will be primarily in Africa
• Nuances of population movement
  • Vagabonds are refugees forced due to safety concerns while tourists move due to their desire and being able to afford it
  • Push factors include political persecution, economic depression, war, and famine while pull factors are favorable immigration policy, a labor shortage, and a similarity of language and culture in the country of destination
• Tighter borders against illegal immigration can also have the effect of "locking in" people who might otherwise have left the country

Economic Globalization and Global Trade

• Economic globalization refers to the increasing interdependence of world economies (Shangquan, 2000)
• There are two different types of economies associated with economic globalization-protectionism and trade liberalization
• Protectionism involves systematic government intervention in foreign trade with the object of encouraging domestic production by discriminating against foreign competitors", usually in the form of quotas or tariffs

Sustainable Development

• Arguments against economic globalization are its lack of sustainability that is, preserving earth’s resources for the future
• Economic development, was hastened by the Industrial Revolution, also harms the planet in a number of ways. For instance, the earth's atmosphere is damaged by more carbon emissions from factories around the world
• The demand for food will be 60% greater than it is today and challenge of food security requires the world to feed 9 billion people by 2050 (Breene, 2016)

Economic Globalization, Poverty, and Inequality

• Many economists believe that the world's poorest people gained something from globalization. The rich, on the other hand, earned a lot more
• Skill-based technological change and access to technology also contributed to worldwide income inequality: Modernized economies have jobs that are more technology-based, and those who are more educated and more skilled would thrive in these jobs receiving higher wages

What about wealth levels or inequality? There is a divide between 1st and 3rd world countries

• The terms "First World" and "Third World" can be seen as outdated and inaccurate ways of talking about global stratification
• New and simpler classification, North-South, was created as Second World countries joined either the First World or the Third World

The Global City

• Globalization has deeply altered North-South relations in agriculture
• The relations of agricultural production have been altered due to the rise of global agribusiness and factory farms
• A significant environmental issue: farmers are producing non-traditional products for export rather than producing food for local populations

Theories of Global Stratification

• Two theories explain stratification: modernization and dependency
• Modernization Theory: Frames global stratification as a function of technological and cultural-differences between nations
• Dependency theory focuses on how poor countries have been wronged by richer countries
• World systems theory, under Wallerstein, identifies nations as the core, semi-periphery, or periphery based on their place in the flow of wealth

The World's Economic Wealth Inequitable

• The richest earn more while the poorest don't generate enough wealth to make a living.
• Access to technology also contributed to worldwide income inequality.