Unit 1 - Introduction To The Study Of Globalization PDF

Unit 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF GLOBALIZATION LESSON 1: THE STUDY OF GLOBALIZATION At the end of the lesson, the students must have: 1. identified personal experiences of globalization; 2. cited the importance on the study of globalization; and, 3. appre...

Unit 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF GLOBALIZATION LESSON 1: THE STUDY OF GLOBALIZATION At the end of the lesson, the students must have: 1. identified personal experiences of globalization; 2. cited the importance on the study of globalization; and, 3. appreciated the importance of studying globalization. You may not remember when was the first time you heard or encountered the word globalization; but, for sure, you have discussed it in your high school classes. What is it? How did it affect and influence your life? How should we view globalization? Your background knowledge will greatly help you value this course. Today, you will be asked to look into your personal experiences of globalization. You, as the starting point of our journey towards understanding and appreciating the study of globalization. A Globalized Me! Identify facets of globalization in the areas assigned to you. Make 3-5 sentences from the lists below. 1: A globalized family 2: A globalized group/team 3: A globalized classroom 4: A globalized barangay 5: A globalized workplace Based on the activity above, answer the following questions: 1. What influences of globalization were commonly presented by the individual? 2. If you are to add more influences of globalization to the above mentioned experiences of each individual, what would it be? “No man is an island.” This cliché suggests that for man to survive, he needs others. In the contemporary world, however, “others” refers and extends to the “global world” where what separate us from each other is only time and human interactions are not confined by territorial means. Because human spaces and spheres of relationships are changing as brought about by our virtualized connections in a globalized village, there is a need to enhance our understanding and analysis of the phenomenon and process causing this situation- globalization. The demand for the integration of the study of globalization, both in formal and informal platforms, has been increasing. Many universities are now incorporating globalization related studies as a part of education to increase intercultural understanding through the processes of organizational change and innovations. In the Philippines, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), in its revised curriculum, included a course which introduces the students to the contemporary world by examining the multifaceted phenomenon of globalization. It examines the economic, social, political, technological and other transformations that have created an increasing awareness of the interconnectedness of peoples and places around the globe. It includes various debates in global governance, development and sustainability. It seeks to inculcate a sense of global citizenship and global ethical responsibility. Claudio & Abinales (2018), in their Introductory Note to the Students on the textbook, The Contemporary World, enumerated the relevance of the course on globalization. First, studying the outside world is a cure to parochialism or an outlook that is limited to one’s immediate community by stretching the limit of one’s imagination and outlook, and expanding one’s ethical horizons. Secondly, it can teach more about one self through appreciation and comparison of contents and contexts. Lastly, because you will be interacting with it; that you will confront it and will be confronted by it. But we can add another one to this! Why study globalization? Education provides us a tool to benefit from its complexities, and protection from its unwarranted impacts into our lives. This is beautifully captured in an excerpt of a post from a Blogspot: Given these facts, we can conclude that globalization is indeed an inescapable process and that there is a need for us to be aware on the said topic so that we would know where we stand. We cannot allow ourselves to get left behind on international issues especially when it comes to matters as economic survival, global politics, environmental concerns, etc. because who knows, other countries might already be exploiting us because of our ignorance. The only way that we can prepare ourselves with the age of globalization is to equip ourselves with necessary knowledge and skills and continuous study of the world around us. (http://globdev101.blogspot.com/2010/02/importance-of-studying globalization.html) There is a need for each one of us to grapple with the contemporary world- the better to see, hear, taste, touch, smell it, and correspondingly embrace, repudiate, reshape or capture parts of the whole of it. At the end of the day, the causes and effects, the collaboration and resistance will be played by us all in the sphere of everyday life (Frago, Quinsaat & Viajar, 2004).  Explore the ideas of Claudio & Abinales (2018) on the importance of studying globalization. How will you relate this to your life? What idea can you add as reason of integrating this course to the new curriculum implemented by the CHED? How will you value this course in your life? Limit your answer to 100- 150 words only. LESSON 2: DEFINITIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES OF GLOBALIZATION  At the end of the lesson, the students must have: 1. enumerated some definitions of globalization; 2. differentiated the competing conceptions of globalization; and, 3. identified philosophies underlying the concepts of globalization. What is globalization? The word itself has generated a reputation, a set of associations and ideological baggage. Inevitably, images that the term “globalization” evokes can also tend to obscure its meaning. For many critics in developing countries, for example, globalization means environmental degradation, exploitation of developing countries by multinational corporations and loss of domestic sovereignty. For its advocates, it means progress, development, growth, alleviation of poverty and more productive lives. But this stereotyping conceptualization has forced the notion of globalization into a box. Globalization conjures up diverse images and understandings for different individuals, scholars, groups and countries; and the discourse on globalization is characterized by competing normative frameworks and political contestation. As such, globalization should be understood in its various and distinctive respects, depending largely on the disciplinary perspectives that are employed (Frago, Quinsaat & Viajar, 2004). How Much Do I Know You (Globalization)? This activity aims to check your knowledge about globalization. The following pictures provide hints on what is globalization all about. Choose a picture and share your idea to the class: How does the picture represent the idea of globalization?  Let us analyze the pictures by answering the following questions: 1. What commonalities have you seen in the pictures and heard from the sharing of your classmates? On the board, write the keywords that captured the answer. 2. How do the pictures differ from each other? How about the sharing of your classmates? Defining Globalization Sharon Quisaat (2004), in her article, Globalization and Governance, situates the progress of the development of the concept globalization: “Globalization is a heavily contested concept in terms of its meaning, form, and implication despite of a burgeoning literature. It connotes different things to different people simply because it is not amenable to a precise definition. The thought above on globalization suggests what Held et al. (1999) have noted: “Globalization is in danger of becoming, if it has not already become, the cliché of our times: the big idea which encompasses everything but which delivers little substantive insight into the contemporary human condition.” Thus, without a thorough study of it, globalization will not benefit us in understanding the present world. The term” globalization” is derived from the word” globalize”, which refers to the emergence of an international network of economic and social systems. One of the earliest known usages of the term was in a 1930 publication entitled Towards New Education, where the term globalization denoted a holistic view of human experience in education. Roland Robertson (1992), a professor of sociology at the University of Aberden, refers globalization to the processes whereby the world is moving toward "unicity" or "global unicity", the growing "oneness" of the world as a single, socio-cultural place. In moving toward unicity, the significance of territorial boundaries declines, a profound change because territoriality had been a basic strategy of geographic control for much of human history. The movement toward unicity refers to two features of the human condition for Robertson, rising connectivity across the world and global consciousness. He adds that the analysis of globalization has often focused on rapid growth of transworld connections but paid less attention to the increasingly common phenomenon of people seeing the world as one place. But global unicity does not mean that the world is moving toward a single culture. To the contrary, Robertson stresses that consciousness of differences among people are, if anything, sharpened with the intensification of globalization. In a more detailed examination of what globalization means, Barnet and Cavanagh (1993) presented four ‘emerging institutions’ that make-up globalization. First, they point out the rise of a global, perpetual financial network that allows (electronic) trading. Second, Barnet and Cavanagh describe what they term a ‘global cultural bazaar’ of commercialization of cultures via an international communications network and the export and import of cultural products such as movies. Third, products from far-flung locations are increasingly available in the markets of developed countries. The final feature presented by Barnet and Cavanagh (1993) is the ‘global factory [which]is a network of plants, contract, offices, and communications links for the production of goods, the processing of information, and performance of services of every description’. Tilly (1995) declares that globalization ‘means an increase in the geographic range of locally consequential social interactions. He proposes a measure of globalization based on measuring social interactions. He concludes, however, that scholars ‘remain a long way from the evidence for such a measure.” Cerny (1995) defines globalization ‘as a set of economic and political structures and processes deriving from the changing character of the goods and assets that comprise the base of the international economy’. Yet even focus on ostensibly economic factors seems to inevitably turn to political and social issues. In a popular book, Holm and Sorensen (1995) define globalization as ‘the intensification of economic, political, social, and cultural relations across [national] borders. Exactly what they mean by ‘intensification’ remains unclear. Woyach (1996) defines globalization as ‘a process of long-term, structural, and normative change’. Globalization in this sense is not exclusively economic and it remains unclear whether economic integration drives political and social globalization or if these elements can even be meaningfully separated. In his paper, The Consequences of Modernity, Anthony Giddens (1991) defined globalization as “the intensification of social relations throughout the world, linking distant localities in such a way that local happenings are formed as a result of events that occur many miles away and vice versa”. In his paper, Global Transformations, David Held (1999) studies the definition of globalization and says, "although in a simplistic sense, globalization refers to a rapid global interconnection, deep and on large scale, such definition but requires now a more complex research". The Swedish journalist Thomas Larsson (2014) in his book, The Race to the Top: The Real Story of Globalization”, says that globalization is “the process of the shrinking of the world, the shortening of distances, and the closeness of things. It allows the increased interaction of any person on one part of the world to someone found on the other side of the world, in order to benefit". Thomas Larsson (2014) said globalization is “the process of world shrinkage, of distances getting shorter, things moving closer. It pertains to the increasing ease with which somebody on one side of the world can interact, to mutual benefit, with somebody on the other side of the world.” Paul James (2005) defines globalization with a more direct and historically contextualized emphasis. Globalization is the extension of social relations across world-space, defining that world-space in terms of the historically variable ways that it has been practiced and socially understood through changing world-time. Manfred Steger (2017) provides a more recent description of globalization as “a set of social processes that appear to transform our present social condition of weakening nationality into one of globality.” Globalization is not a single process but a set of processes that operate simultaneously and unevenly on several levels and in various dimensions. As a process, it involves expansion and intensification of social relations and consciousness across world-time and across world space. Expansion, as explained by Claudio and Abenalis (2018) refers to “both the creation of new social networks and the multiplications of existing connections that cut across traditional political, economic, cultural and geographical boundaries.” Intensification, on one hand, refers to the expansion, stretching and acceleration of these networks. Not only are global connections multiplying, but they are also becoming more closely-knit and expanding their reach. Along with this, the world becomes more integrated. Finally, Steger notes that “globalization processes do not occur at an objective, material level but they also involve the subjective plane of human consciousness.” This implies that the world has become a smaller place and distance has collapsed from thousands of miles to just a mouse-click away. Philosophies Underlying the Concepts of Globalization The topic on philosophies of globalization will include discussions on: 1) ideas underlying the different definitions of globalization and 2) ideologies of globalization. Ideas Underlying the Concepts of Globalization Compressed’ World This idea suggests that due to technological progress there is a ‘compression’ of time and space, which lies at the core of globalization (Harvey 1989). We mean here not the absolute geographical distance between countries, which, surely, has remained stable (setting aside the cases of border changes), but the ‘relative distance’, as due to the modern technology, people, goods, capital, ideas and knowledge nowadays are able to overcome distances much faster and cheaper (though we need to emphasize here that the cost and the speed decreased unevenly around the world). Having introduced the notion of ‘timeless time’, Manuel Castells “The Rise of the Network Society” (1996) claimed that the global society's independence from time is accelerated by new information technology. Therefore, the global economy (primarily, global capital markets) can function as a single organism, as a whole system in real time. According to Castells, further technological development can lead to the full independence of capital and culture from time. The then-chief editor of The Economist, Francis Cairncross, presents an extreme point of view on ‘the death of distance’, claiming that ‘the distance will no longer determine the cost of electronic communication. Once investment in a communication network (purchase of a computer or phone, or creation of a web site) is made – an additional cost of sending or receiving any information almost equals to zero. ‘Borderless’ World The idea of ‘vanishing borders and barriers’ is closely connected with the ideas of partial loss/limitation of national sovereignty of states through the expanding influence of global governance institutions, international law, and transnational economic actors, such as TNCs and global capital markets. Equal to the reduced role of distances, the decreased role of national borders, and the growth of cross-border flows, connections and interactions are often attributed to the spread of modern technologies, first and foremost the Internet. In its extreme form, the idea of ‘vanishing borders’ means that the world (especially the global economic space) becomes ‘a single, seamless unity’ without any barriers. Interconnected World and Global Networks This idea proceeds logically from the abovementioned increase in cross-border linkages and flows, and the declining role of borders and barriers. Some definitions of globalization suggest that its essence consists in the increased connectivity of the global world, in strengthening global networks of relationships, flows and interactions. According to Castells (1996), society, in other words the social space, is being formed around flows of capital, information, technology, organizational interaction, images, sounds and symbols. ‘Space of flows’ reflects the processes prevailing in the economic, political and cultural life of society, and produces the structure of this society. At the same time, elites of a network society are not tied to a particular geographic area, but to this very ‘space of flows’. Ideologies of Globalization For the discussion on the ideologies of globalization, Steger and James (2013) provide us insightful discussion on globalism, the ideologies that endow the concept of globalization with particular values and meanings. Steger and James (2013) identified four types of globalism: Market globalism constitutes today's dominant ideology. It asserts that, notwithstanding the cyclical downturns of the world economy, the global integration of markets along laissez-faire lines is not only a fundamentally good thing, but also represents the given outcome and natural progression of the human condition. This claim is built around a number of interrelated central claims: that globalization is about the liberalization and worldwide integration of markets (neoliberalism); that it is powered by neutral techno-economic forces; that the process is inexorable; that the process is leaderless and anonymous; that everyone will be better off in the long run, and that globalization furthers the spread of democracy in the world. Justice globalism can be defined by its emphasis on equity, rights, sustainability, and diversity. It articulates a very different set of claims suggesting that the process of globalization is powered by corporate interests; that the democracy carried by global processes tends to be thin and procedural; and that "globalization-from-above" or "corporate globalization" is associated with increasing inequities within and between nation-states, greater environmental destruction and a marginalization of the poor. The third constellation includes various religious globalisms. One of the defining features of religious globalisms is that they draw on the intersection of two formations—the modern and the traditional. It has been thiscontradictory intersection of grounding forms that has given religious ideologies their extreme intensity. The fourth is imperial globalismwhich is considered as the publicly weakest of the ideological clusters. Imperial globalism still operates as a powerful background force to the extent that its central claim—that global peace depends upon the global economic reach and military assertiveness of an informal American Empire or NATO-based zone of extension—is still taken for granted within many governing and elite circles. Directions: Write a 2-paragraph/essay by answering the question: How does globalization affect the lives of Filipinos? LESSON 3: APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF GLOBALIZATION  At the end of this lesson, the students must have: 1. identified the different approaches to the study of globalization; 2. discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches in the study of globalization; and, 3. analyzed human experience of globalization from various approaches. Globalization still remains among the most challenging phenomenon. Taking into account the complexity of the phenomenon itself, it is not surprising that scientific and popular scientific literature has been flooded with hundreds of different definitions of globalization (Andreev, Ilyin and Zinkina, 2009). In this lesson, you will be introduced to various perspectives in understanding globalization. With these different perspectives, you are more likely to see the complexities of the study of globalization, but on one hand, you will be provided lenses on looking at it from different stand-points. Directions: Study the picture below. Describe what you see. Are you familiar with the story depicted in the picture? Let’s listen to the story. (Have those students who knew tell the story).  THE SIX BLIND MEN (https://www.jainworld.com/literature/story25.htm) Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, "Hey, there is an elephant in the village today." They had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, "Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway." All of them went where the elephant was. Every one of them touched the elephant. "Hey, the elephant is a pillar," said the first man who touched his leg. "Oh, no!it is like a rope," said the second man who touched the tail. "Oh, no!it is like a thick branch of a tree," said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant. "It is like a big hand fan" said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant. "It is like a huge wall," said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant. "It is like a solid pipe," said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant. They began to argue about the elephant and every one of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, "What is the matter?" They said, "We cannot agree to what the elephant is like." Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise man calmly explained to them, "All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched the different parts of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features that you all said." "Oh!" everyone said. There was no more fight. They felt happy that they were all right. 1. Steger compares the current study of globalization to the ancient Buddhist parable of blind scholars and their first encounter with an elephant. How will you relate the story to the study of globalization? 2. Similar to the blind scholars, some globalization scholars are too focused on compacting  globalization into a singular process and clashes over “which aspect of social life constitutes its primary domain” prevail. How will this affect our understanding of globalization? In its description of the course, The Contemporary World, the Commission on Higher Education recognized globalization as a multifaceted phenomenon, thereby demonstrating that globalization lends itself to multifaceted interpretations (Perlas, 1998). For this reason, we may ask: “So, how should we approach the study of globalization?” A. Historical Approach This approach suggests that the study of globalization can be done by examining the phenomenon in its full historical context. Its main goal is to analyze processes and scales of global integration in a historical perspective. Editors Sheffield, Korotayey and Grinin (2011) posed that to a certain extent World History can be regarded as a movement toward increasingly large social systems, their integration, and, thus, as a history of globalization. It is no coincidence that growing interest in globalization has increased awareness of the trend often described as the “historical dimension of globalization”. As an effect, in history and sociology the investigation is broadening with respect to the historical development of globalization processes (Grinin, 2011). B. Dimensional Approach Another approach to the study of globalization is by dissecting its dimension. The number and as to what dimensions to include greatly varied from one author to another. This approach is very friendly especially for those who are neophyte in the study of globalization. Steger’s Globalization: A Very Short Introduction (4th Edition) provided us four main dimensions, namely, economic, politics, cultural and ecological, with ideological aspects of each category. (See https://aallspectrum.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/ globalization-a-very-short introduction-second-edition-by-manfred-b-steger/ for a detailed review for each dimension). Held's Global Transformation is organized around the same dimensions as that of Steger though the ecological is not listed in the title. Alexandru A. Popovici, Ph.D. of Romanian-American University proposed the seven dimension model which include ecological, technological, economic, social, political-military and cultural. Appadurai’s Modernity at Large points that “there has been a dramatic shift in modernity and the movements of people, media, technology, capital, and ideologies that have always been present in the world have suddenly increased to a rapid pace with the advent of the Industrial Revolution and Enlightenment thought. The disjuncture between the five “-scapes” is the key to understanding the complexities of globalization. Each of the -scapes informs the others and all are present to varying degrees in almost any instance of interaction between parties, regardless of how global or widespread the phenomenon. Appadurai’s signature terminology follows “(a) ethnoscapes, (b)mediascapes, (c) technoscapes, (d) financescapes, and (e) ideoscapes”. Each term is responsible for describing a certain dimension that is manifest in global cultural forces. Taken as a whole, Appadurai’s five flows of globalization act as the building blocks how individuals and groups of people construct a conception of their own movements within a global context. C. Interdisciplinary and Multidisciplinary Approaches Appropriating the description of open.edu on interdisciplinary approach in the context of studying globalization, this approach “involves studies of globalization across different disciplinary boundaries by applying the knowledge gained in one discipline to another different discipline as a way to deepen it.” One who studies globalization using this approach maximized their knowledge on different disciplines or subject areas. Multidisciplinary approach, on one hand, encourages making connections and interactions with fellow students, experts, and the likes. Such interaction is in support of the constructivist paradigm which allows for new knowledge construction and a deeper understanding of ideas than disciplinary study, that is, viewing globalization from one discipline (open.edu). D. Issue-based Approach Issue-based approach focuses and puts emphasis on the different issues that affect various spheres of life on earth. According to Pieterse (2007), “globalization is like a prism in which major disputes over the collective human conditions are now refracted: questions of capitalism, inequality, power, development, ecology, culture, gender, identity, population, all come back in a landscape where globalization did it.” Directions: Look for an article, research or study about globalization. Complete the table below by providing the necessary information. Questions Answers 1. Title of Article, Research or Study 2. What approach was used in understanding globalization? 3. How was the article, research or study deepened through the use of this approach? 4. How would this study be improved through the use of other approaches?