Globalization – Thomas Eriksen
Introduction
- Globalization entails both the intensification of transnational connectedness and the
awareness of such an intensification.
- Globalization is largely driven by technological and economic processes, but it is
multidimensional and not unidirectional.
- Globalization entails both processes of homogenization and processes of
heterogenization: it makes us more similar and more different at the same time.
- Globalization is a wider concept that Westernization or neoimperialism and includes
processes that move from south to north as well as the opposite .
- Although globalization is old in the sense that transnational or even global systems
have existed for centuries-indeed for millennia-contemporary globalization has
distinctive traits due to enhanced communication technology and the global spread of
capitalism.
Chapter 1 (Disembedding)
- Disembedding can be defined as “the ‘lifting out’ of social relations from local
contexts of interaction and their restructuring across indefinite spans of time-space”.
- Disembedding refers to a main trajectory of globalization-namely, the increasingly
abstract character of communication and objects, whereby their origin becomes
obscured and their currency more and more widespread.
- Writing (often in the form of printing), money, clock time, and standardized
measurements are some of the most important disembedding mechanisms in modern
society.
- The disembedding mechanisms of contemporary global or transnational systems rely
on electronic information and communication technology (ICT) for their efficacy.
- Critics of contemporary disembedding see the “lifting out” of social relations as a
recipe for alienation and fragmentation.
Chapter 8 (Identity Politics)
- Identity politics-religious, nationalist, ethnic, or regional- is a typical form of
resistance to globalization, especially in its economic dimension.
- Paradoxically, identity politics insisting on the primacy of the local and unique tends
to draw on globalized resources, such as international NGOs and computer networks.
- Indigenous and migrant identity politics tend to pursue different goals: autonomy from
and recognition by greater society, respectively.
Chapter 6 (Mixing)
- The cultural mixing resulting from globalization takes many forms, usually indicating
power discrepancies between the groups involved.
- Mixing at the cultural level does not preclude strengthened group identification.
- Cultural mixing does not create homogeneity but new configurations of diversity.
- An important objection against theories of hybridity and creolization is that cultures
have never been pure and bounded.
- The cultural diffusion associated with globalization cannot simply be described as
Westernization but usually is better depicted as a form of cultural glocalization.
Introduction
- Globalization entails both the intensification of transnational connectedness and the
awareness of such an intensification.
- Globalization is largely driven by technological and economic processes, but it is
multidimensional and not unidirectional.
- Globalization entails both processes of homogenization and processes of
heterogenization: it makes us more similar and more different at the same time.
- Globalization is a wider concept that Westernization or neoimperialism and includes
processes that move from south to north as well as the opposite .
- Although globalization is old in the sense that transnational or even global systems
have existed for centuries-indeed for millennia-contemporary globalization has
distinctive traits due to enhanced communication technology and the global spread of
capitalism.
Chapter 1 (Disembedding)
- Disembedding can be defined as “the ‘lifting out’ of social relations from local
contexts of interaction and their restructuring across indefinite spans of time-space”.
- Disembedding refers to a main trajectory of globalization-namely, the increasingly
abstract character of communication and objects, whereby their origin becomes
obscured and their currency more and more widespread.
- Writing (often in the form of printing), money, clock time, and standardized
measurements are some of the most important disembedding mechanisms in modern
society.
- The disembedding mechanisms of contemporary global or transnational systems rely
on electronic information and communication technology (ICT) for their efficacy.
- Critics of contemporary disembedding see the “lifting out” of social relations as a
recipe for alienation and fragmentation.
Chapter 8 (Identity Politics)
- Identity politics-religious, nationalist, ethnic, or regional- is a typical form of
resistance to globalization, especially in its economic dimension.
- Paradoxically, identity politics insisting on the primacy of the local and unique tends
to draw on globalized resources, such as international NGOs and computer networks.
- Indigenous and migrant identity politics tend to pursue different goals: autonomy from
and recognition by greater society, respectively.
Chapter 6 (Mixing)
- The cultural mixing resulting from globalization takes many forms, usually indicating
power discrepancies between the groups involved.
- Mixing at the cultural level does not preclude strengthened group identification.
- Cultural mixing does not create homogeneity but new configurations of diversity.
- An important objection against theories of hybridity and creolization is that cultures
have never been pure and bounded.
- The cultural diffusion associated with globalization cannot simply be described as
Westernization but usually is better depicted as a form of cultural glocalization.
