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Globalisation of the World

Introduction

After the fall of state socialism, the cultural ideology was challenged with the

consolidation of capitalism. The rise of a set of beliefs and values which are commonly shared

across the world is Cultural globalization (Castells, 2009, p. 117). Today a key field of research

is globalization in the realm of social sciences. There is no single definition of the term

'globalization', just as with all the main concepts of social sciences. David Held and Anthony

McGrew defined globalization as something which refers the increasing scale, expanding

magnitude, boosting and consolidating impact of transcontinental flows and social and cultural

interaction patterns (2002, p.1). Roland Robertson (1992) is one of the founders of the concept of

globalization. According to him globalization can be defined as the coming together of the world

and the heightening of consciousness of the world (p. 8). He also explains that the reason of

interest in globalization is the result of a division between sociology and culture that dealt the

societies interactively.

A useful framework is also provided by Held and McGrew (1999) for the analysis of

globalization. Three schools of thought in globalization are discussed by them, the hyper

globalists, the skeptics and the transformationalists. Hyperglobalists argue that we live in an

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increasingly global world. Globalisation is a direct threat to the nation state, which diminishes in

power as the global marketplace comes to rule.

This study discusses the theoretical underpinnings of the nature, forms and dimensions of

globalization and the relationship between them. Through a world-system perspective and an

alternate view on globalization as social reproduction, it explores how people get disenfranchised

by exposing the relationship between psychosocial expression and socio political structures.

Disenfranchisement is regarded on a deeper ontological level than mere loss of the possibility to

affect outcomes. It deals with lived realities and perception of the social world. My perspective is

fundamentally cultural, therefore I chose to acknowledge the role of literature, in the, most of the

times, uneasy balance between national, regional, cultural identity and the inevitable

phenomenon of Globalisation.

Identity

The concept of identity is multidimensional in many ways: on the one side, in order to

define someone’s identity it is necessary to consider a whole diversity of factors (for example,

name, age, place of birth, mother language, occupation, etc.); on the other side, this concept

comprehends a variety of typologies that goes from the individual, to the regional and the

national. To define one’s identity is to consider the originality of the object; it is to find the

elements that make objects different from each other; in other words, what makes them unique.

In any case, identity always consists in a set of elements, thus it is a complex concept: for

example in order to define a nation’s identity, it is imperative to assemble diverse factors that

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considered together make that nation unique, such as territory, State, Constitution, official

language, religion, art, history, myths, ethnicity, among any possible others.

Therefore, identity implies not only the object in itself, but also the awareness of the

differences between the object and other similar objects; so identity implies alterity, the

confrontation with the other, as we can see in the words of William Connolly: “An identity is

established in relation to a series of differences that have become socially recognized. These

differences are essential to its being. If they did not coexist as differences, it would not exist in

its distinctness and solidarity... Identity requires difference in order to be, and it converts

difference into otherness in order to secure its own self-certainty”1.

So it can be concluded that the contact with the other is essential to self-knowledge.

Identity is thus a dialectical concept that implies the confrontation with the difference to reach

the essence of being. When trying to know the other, re-elaborating the image of one's own self

is crucial to develop self-knowledge in order to explore the essence of the other.

The cultural relativism

Modernity and Post-modernity share the thematic of the quest of the lost unity by the

divided self and this explains the central place identity occupies in our times. In contemporary

societies, this quest for identity has to involve the awareness that there is a multiciply of groups

which are apart and distinct from the mainstream: ethnic, religious, sexual minorities that claim

equal treatment and respect for their cultural specificities. This is the root of multiculturalism.

The cultural relativism (a concept developed in the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th

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century by anthropologists such as Edward Burnett Tylor and Franz Boas) reinforced this new

perspective by defending the equality between different cultures: according to these intellectuals,

the hierarchy between cultures is abolished, there are no inferior or superior cultures; each

culture has its own value, its own traditions, its own way of life, be it more or less complex, be it

more or less sophisticated. The frontier between culture and civilization is often blurred and this

confusion leads to a reductive dichotomy between civilized people and “barbarians”. Culture is a

whole way of life, it deals with the essence of characters; civilization includes the means man

has to dominate his surroundings. It has to do with material comfort, with sophistication, with

scientific and technological development, with computers, microwaves, CD’s and spaceships.

Culture involves a way of looking to the world, a cosmovision. A remote tribe in the Amazon

has certainly a less sophisticated life than most of us: they have no computers, no fridges, no

microwaves, but they have their own view of life, their own religious beliefs, their own way of

living that have to be respected by other cultures.

Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism is not a recent phenomenon. IT can be found in the remote eras of

Hellenic and Roman Antiquity, where the mingling of cultures was a reality2: as ancient authors

testimony, hegemonic cultures provoked claims of power by periferic cultures and oppressed

minorities (women, black people, slaves), as the example of the persecutions the Romans made

to the Christians. Then, what is new in 20th and 21th century’s version of multiculturalism? The

novelty is mainly political and institutional: nowadays there is in many countries official political

recognition of cultural diversity and national institutions promote equal treatment of the various

cultural groups, some of them minorities groups. This politics of equality is visible in education

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(for example, school curricula include not only the history of the hegemonical group but also that

of the so-called fringes of society: black people, immigrants, etc.) and in employment

(guarantees of equal access to available jobs). Instead of trying to erase differences, this

multiculturalist politics allows the thriving of cultural diversities and it makes possible the

recognition of the so-called “subcultures” (racial, ethnic, sexual, etc.).

Globalization

Globalization is frequently felt as a menace to strong national and cultural identities. One

fears its tendency to homogenize different cultural realities, by annihilating every single mark of

singularity. On the other hand, globalization is considered the antidote to the negative aspects

many intellectuals find in multiculturalism, namely artificiality and fragmentation, as Denys

Cuche explains it3. According to these critical positions, multiculturalism can create artificial

differences by maintaining and reinforcing the existence of separate social groups with strong

cultural identities. This phenomenon can result in an inevitable and unsolved fragmentation of

society which can lead to several kinds of separatisms and to the weakness of national unity.

Therefore, globalization seems to reunite societies under the same objectives and realities. As I

see it, multiculturalism does not have to imply neither artificiality, nor fragmentation. In an ethic

basis, it comprehends, on the one hand, diverse group identities to which individuals belong (age,

gender, social class, occupation) and, on the other hand, it stimulates cultural changes between

groups, as well as a deep respect for each other, reconciling universal values and particularisms.

It is an undeniable fact that contemporary societies deal with major problems that are not

a region’s or a nation’s exclusive, as it is the case of terrorism, ecological catastrophes, financial

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crisis, etc. These problems demand a global response and very hardly a sole nation or region

could find a satisfactory solution for them. The crisis of culture and identity is linked with

processes that may result in (or prevent) identity and emotions anchored in community and self-

esteem being thwarted or threatened in ways that create alienation, fragmentation and violence.

For example, xenophobic tendencies tend to be boosted by economic uncertainty; and the

mobility of people, leading to new frictions in the realm of culture and identity, is directly

connected to environmental deterioration as well as economic processes.

The Impact

The local impact of global economic transformations is, likewise, the subject of a

considerable literature, not least in anthropology (e.g. Ferguson 2006, Friedman 1994, Sting

2005), as are the key elements of the global economic crisis (e.g. Reinsert 2006, Hart et al.

2010). Environmental change and, more specifically, climate change is also the subject of a rich

academic literature ranging from biology to law (e.g. Johansen 2006, Crate and Nuttall 2009,

Adger et al. 2009, Edie et al. 2011), and so are the conflicts and tensions resulting from the

transnational character of contemporary cultural and religious differences. Of the

aforementioned, Beck and Friedman, in particular, have to some extent sought to relate the crises

to each other.

First, the social science literature on economic, technological, political and cultural

globalisation, ranging from Wolf (1982) and Castells (1996–8) to Appadurai (1996) and Held et

al. (1999), gives empirically grounded descriptions of the growth of the contemporary

networked, interconnected world. Second, the literature on social capital, social relationships and

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the conditions of trust (Putnam 2000, Fukuyama 1995, Kohn 2009, Granovetter1973, Eriksen

2006) gives a methodology for studying the substantial social and cultural content of the

networks enhanced by processes of globalisation.

Conclusion

A note on the concept of macro anthropology may be appropriate. In the 20th century,

anthropology was dominated by single-‐society studies based on ‘ethnographic snapshots’ of a

particular social environment or cultural field. Towards the end of the century (and at the

beginning of the 21st), anthropologists increasingly began to study transnational or non-localised

phenomena (such as migration and human rights discourses), and the need to contextualize the

‘nitty-gritty’ of ethnographic detail in its embeddedness in encompassing processes became ever

more apparent in the same period. Pioneering work in this regard was undertaken by Wolf (1982,

1999), Friedman (1994) and Hannerz (1992, 1996), and their approaches have been refined and

built upon by scholars such as Tsing (2005), Ong (1999), Gingrich and Fox (2002), Escobar

(2008), Vertovec (2009) and many others.

When different cultural groups come together, there is always a need for the cultural

groups to have a common focus such as, working together for the development of the economy.

And this focus can only be achieved through the process of cultural integration. This thesis has

sought to demonstrate that these positions represent a uni-directional mode of analysis, and has

rather argued for a focus on the mutual relationship between globalization and human rights.

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Works Cited

Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell. (1998) End of

Millennium. Oxford: Blackwell

Eriksen, T.H. (2001) Tyranny of the Moment: Fast and Slow Time in the Information Age.

London:

Escobar, A. (2008) Territories of Difference: Place, Movement, Life, redes. Durham, NC: Duke

University Press.

Fukuyama, F. (1995) Trust. New York: The Free Press.

Friedman, J. (1994) Cultural Identity and Global Process. London: Sage.

Gingrich, A. and R. Fox, eds. (2002) Anthropology, by Comparison. London:Routledge

Granovetter, M. (1973) The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology 78 (6): 1360-‐1380.

Hannerz, U. (1992) Cultural Complexity. New York: Columbia University Press.— (1996)

Transnational Connections. London: Routledge.

Held, D. et al. (1999) Global Transformations. Cambridge: Polity

Kohn, M. (2009) Trust: Self-Interest and the Common Good. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ong, A. (1999) Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality.Durham, NC:

Duke University Press

Putnam, R.D. (2000) Bowling Alone. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Robertson, R. (1994) Globalization. London: Sage.

Tsing, A. (2005) Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton: Princeton

University Press.

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Vertovec, S. (2009) Transnationalism. London: Routledge.

Wolf, E. (2010 [1982]) Europe and the People without History, with a foreword by Thomas

Hylland Eriksen. Berkeley: University of California Press.