29 Globalization Theories

Rajnikant Pandey

Contents

Introduction

1.  Globalization: Definition

2.  Theories Of Globalization

2.1 Economic Globalization

2.3 Political Globalization

2.3 Cultural Globalization

3. Anthropology and Globalization Theory Summary

LEARNING OUTCOME

• understand the theoretical perspective on globalization
• use globalization as theoretical construct shaping the human socio-cultural life
• differentiate between globalization as idea and practice
• assess the impact of globalization theories on ethnographic research
• investigate the role of anthropologist in understanding globalization as process
• investigate the role of anthropologist in understanding globalization as idea
• define globalization for anthropological purpose
• challenge the notion of local global divide

Globalization is a buzzword today. There is extraordinary interest and concern over the globalization in academics. David Harvey claims that the word globalization was ‘entirely unknown before the mid-1970s’ and then it ‘spread like wildfire’. Globalization has attracted the attention of the mass media and general public as well and everyone is trying to grasp and define the phenomena in their own possible ways. Given the complexity of the topic, it is no wonder that there are plenty of controversies on what “globalization” means, and on the theoretical and methodological approaches for studying it.

Globalization as a socio-cultural phenomenon has been investigated by several disciplines and has attracted attention of anthropologist as well. Anthropologists have inquired the impact of globalization on the subject of their inquiry and its relation to traditional anthropological topics. And at the same time anthropologists have formulated theories of globalization which can inform the ethnographic practices and understanding of the socio-cultural life of humanity across the world.

The globalization as a process has influenced the lived reality of world today and subsequently changed the ideas about living in such a global world. These changes in ideas have taken shape in the form of theories of globalization which is highly interdisciplinary in nature. This chapter focuses on the formulation and discussion of anthropological definitions, modes of theorizing, and research methodologies in the field of globalization as well the emerging synthesis in the form of globalizing theories which has potential to influence ethnographic research in the world today.

1.   GLOBALIZATION: DEFINITION

During 1990s the term gained utmost prominence and there were hardly any social science talk and texts without mention of globalization. Anthropologists were also influenced by this dramatic upsurge of globalization as idea and practices in academic world. The anthropologist started to engage with globalization in two ways:

a) Understanding globalization as process and its impact on socio-cultural life

b) Understanding globalization as an idea and its theoretical propositions

The books and journals started to appear in mainstream anthropology to capture the nuances of globalization. Mike Featherstone edited a significant book titled Global Culture (1990) to set the agenda for Globalization studies in anthropology. The most prominent works which followed were Ulf Hannerz’s Cultural Complexity (1992), Jonathan Friedman’s Global Identity and Cultural Processes (1994) and Arjun Appadurai’s Modernity at Large (1996).

George Ritzer who is authority on theories of globalization define “globalization as a transplanetary process or set of processes involving increasing liquidity and the growing multidirectional flows of people, objects, places and information as well as the structures they encounter and create that are barriers to, or expedite, those flows ”.

Ted C. Lewellen in his book The Anthropology of Globalization (2002) define “contemporary globalization as the increasing flow of trade, finance, culture, ideas, and people brought about by the sophisticated technology of communications and travel and by the worldwide spread of neoliberal capitalism, and it is the local and regional adaptations to and resistances against these flows”.

Both the definitions are similar and prioritize the flows and connections of different kind and at the same time barriers and resistance which exist at global scale to counter these flows. The later aspect has been emphasized by anthropologist to understand globalization as a process leading towards disconnection, dispossessions, exclusions, and marginalization for many in the world.

Globalization old or new

The most contested issues in theorizing globalization is whether it is old or new process. The people who think that globalization is new emphasize the pace and nature of global connection which exists today is unprecedented and has never been seen in the human past. The supporters of old globalization have provided evidences of global network of trade commerce, pilgrimage and migration in at least 5000 year human history. Some even suggest that first human being walking out of Africa was first step towards globalization. The historical evidences suggest that human being have maintained strong network of places and people in the past as well and which have only intensified in the present time. Many suggest that globalization can be thought of as the outcome of imperialism, colonization, development and subsequent westernization and Americanization of world set in motion in recent past.

2.   THEORIES OF GLOBALIZATION

The globalization studies have emphasized the importance of role of free market and transnational capitalism in global changes. However there are clear depictions of legal, political, social and cultural aspect of human life being influenced by global economic flows. There is prominence of theories which give significance to techno-economic understanding of globalization and other aspect of globalization as extension of economic sphere. For the purpose of our understanding we are following George Ritzer (2011) who has discussed the theories of globalization in following headings to understand it separately. But there is always overlap between one and other processes of globalization and they cannot be separated as neatly as it seems in the following discussions.

2.1 Economic Globalization

The global markets of money, labour, capital, goods and services are basic features of globalization theories.

Most of the economic theories of globalization are neo-liberal and neo-Marxian in its approach.

Neo-liberalism: Neo –liberal theories which emerged in 1930s to put forth the ides of free operation of market, opposition to state interventions and individual liberty shaped the processes of economic globalization and thinking about it. Milton Friedman and set of Chicago economists are major economists who gave neo-liberalism an ideological face. William Easterly and others favors the free market and market fundamentalism as basic virtue of economic success. There is strong faith in global expansion of capitalist system and its inherent virtue to trickle down to all participants. Deregulation, privatization and free trade are basic necessity. Spending on welfare by state should be curbed and limited government intervention is required for global outreach of capital.

Neo-Marxian: Leslie Sklair takes a new Marxian approach to the understanding of globalization. He proposes that there are two kinds of globalization 1) capitalist globalization and 2) socialist globalization. The spread of transnational capitalism is an important factor behind capitalist globalization. In capitalist globalization transnational capitalist class made up of four set of capitalists. The socialist globalization is coming forward as resistance to these different set of capitalists.

Another very important theoretical approach was developed by neo-Marxists Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s in their work Empire (2000) and Multitude (2004). They use the metaphor of empire to present a postmodern Marxian understanding of globalized economy.

The thinkers from different field like Giddens a sociologist, Harvey a geographer, etc emphasize the compression of time and space as important factor of economic globalization. Rapid communication and transportation have compressed the space and structured it into a single global time. Manual Castelles proposed the idea of network society which characterizes the present day global economic order. The multicentered networks of capital information and power rule the world through the help of highly mobile managerial elites who are the dominant actors in the flows.

2.2 Political Globalization

Political scientist and sociologist have given attention to the global play of power by new agencies in the present economic world. The discipline called international relation has emerged as specialist set of knowledge to study these developments. The scholars are discussing the decreasing significance of nation state and national identity. Denationalization is dominant theme in theories of globalization across the discipline.

David Held a British sociologist theorizes the global challenges to nation state and national sovereignty as mainstay of globalization. He believes that political decision making international legal frameworks for rights and duties and cultural contact are responsible for weakening of nation state. The role of United States and Civil society organization in promoting universal declarations on several political agenda is posing threat to role of nation state in these matters. However several nation states have maintained sovereignty in relations to human mobility and finance.

Ulrich Beck differentiates between “globalism” and “globality” to discuss the globalization. The globalism model prioritizes the economic flow and reduces everything else as subsidiary of it. Instead he advocate for globality which give equal importance to ecology, culture, civil society and politics in theorizing globalization. Beck believes globality is are making nation state illlusiory and is important in founding of global democracy.

2.3 Cultural Globalization

The cultural globalization discusses the issues of flows of culture and how it impacts the human life in the world today. Jan Nederveen Pieterse (2004) has identified three major paradigms in theorizing the cultural aspects of globalization, specifically on the centrally important issue of whether cultures around the globe are eternally different, converging, or creating new “hybrid” forms out of the unique combination of global and local cultures. It has developed and discussed by George Ritzer as major way of looking at cultural globalization and its potential implications for economic and political globalization as well. The three type of cultural globalization are

• Cultural Differentialism
• Cultural Convergence
• Cultural Hybridization

Cultural Differeentialism: This mode of thinking emphasizes the stubborn nature of culture and its retaining capacity to diffrences. This also tends to focus upon the core of the culture which remains unaffaected by the processes of globalization though surface structure may change because of global connecettedness. The most famous example of this theory is Clash of Civilization thesis proposed by Samual P Huttington. He uses the world civilization to describe the coherent cultural identities which exist in the world and identifies eight such cultures in the world today. He proposes a historical argument to predict the clash of these different civilizations in future.

Huntington is concerned about the decline of the West, especially of the United States. He sees the United States, indeed all societies, as threatened by their increasing multicivilizational or multicultural character. For him, the demise of the United States effectively means the demise of Western civilization. Without a powerful, unicivilizational United States, the West is minuscule. For the West to survive and prosper, the United States must do two things. First, it must reaffirm its identity as a Western (rather than a multicivilizational) nation. Second, it must reaffirm and reassert its role as the leader of Western civilization around the globe. The reassertion and acceptance of Western civilization (which would also involve a renunciation of universalism), indeed all civilizations, is the surest way to prevent warfare between civilizations.

Cultural Convergence: Cultural convergence focuses upon the systematic homogenization and similarity of cultures across the globe. There is increasing sameness in the cultures in the world today because of the local cultures assimilation in dominant cultures. This similarities in culture is leading towards prominent changes in local cultures, however local realities are surviving in one way or other ways.

Cultural imperialism is an idea which reflects upon the influences of dominant cultures on local cultures being imposed consciously or unconsciously. This may result in complete transformation of local culture or in most of the case partial changes in one or other dimension of culture. The cultural hegemony of north countries on south is clearly visible today and many local cultures are threatened or being destroyed because of cultural imperialism. This view celebrates the formulation of new global culture replacing all local cultural deficiencies.

The related idea of Detrritorialization emphasizes the decreasing significance of place or geography in cultural experiences. The events and innovations in other parts of world have impact today in local everyday lives. The role of media and communication technology is significant in cultural imperialism as well as deterritorialization.

World Culture idea of cultural convergence highlights the structural isomorphism throughout the world. There is surprising amount of uniformity which exists today because of spread of similar models of politics, education, business, family etc. Advocates of this idea pursue the aim of bringing a homogenized world culture which will be enabling and empowering for people all across the world. The world culture approach looks at the positive side of singular global culture and suggests the models to bring changes for achieving this goal. Standard, guidelines and protocols are being devised to guide the establishment of one World Culture.

McDonaldization as a global homozenizing idea was proposed by Sociologist George Ritzer. He clearly outlines the principles which govern the McDonald fast food restaurant’s successful functioning. These principles are efficiency, calculability, predictability, control, and ironically the irrationality of rationality. He believes that these principles of McDonald have taken over not only on the ways which fast food industry is organized but also the various sector of life like education, NGOs, Church etc. across the world have started functioning.

Globalization of Nothing is another important contribution of Ritzer in the theories of globalization which emphasize upon the affinity between Globalization and Nothing. From nothing he means empty forms which are devoid of distinctive contents against something which is full forms rich in contents. He proposes that there is increase of these empty forms because they are easy to reproduce and transported. The world wide spread of these similar empty forms like shopping complexes, tourist sites etc. is leaving world without any diversity and content. This he calls globalization of nothing. He believe that the imperialistic tendencies of powerful nations, corporations and international organization and their desire motivated by economic growth and profit to impose themselves throughout the world is responsible for the increasing nothingness. He calls this growth motivated globalization as grobalization.

Cultural hybridization: It is about production of new and unique hybrids because of the mixing of cultures. In this sense globalization is creative process leading to new cultural realities. Roland Robertson has coined a term ‘Glocalization’ to refer to the process of interpretation of global and local resulting into new outcomes in different geographical locations. Hybridization itself is a term which refers to making of cultural hybrids with mixed traits. Creolization refers to the mixing of language and culture into unique acceptable forms.

Arjun Appadurai in his Modernity at large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalizations proposed the idea of global flow and disjuncture within it. His contribution is central to the anthropological understanding of globalization. He elaborates his understanding of global flows against five scapes of globalization.

ethnsocape is the scape of identity with people and community in any geographical area. This scape is in flow because of people are highly mobile and their community identity is not fixed in place. They may recognize cognitively with the place of origin but living realty as tourist, migrants, refugee, expatriates etc. detach them from any fixed territory. Those who cannot move live with imagination and fantasies of movement.

technoscapes represents the flows through information and transportation technology at global scale. The technoscapes have changed the

finanacescapes are the rapid flows of huge sum of money across the world at unimaginable speed. The stock exchange and digital transfer of money have changed the way economies are connected and exchange are made.

Mediascapes involves the images and information created by media and the way it is electronically communicated within no time. The power of media to influence the mode of thinking and imagining is also very important in living in a global world.

Ideoscapes are political ideas and propaganda which are propagated by state and it spreads and engulf the thinking about political possibilities. The counter ideas to stae also are part and parcel of ideoscape having equal effect in channelizing anti state sentiment.

These multiple scapes are disjunctive and they are flowing in different direction and at different speed. The way we experience these flows are fragmented and it leads to the creation of hybrid forms in cultures.

3.   Anthropology and Globalization Theory

The anthropologist used the idea of globalization and its theories to understand the changing landscape of locations in which they conduct fieldwork. The anthropologists who were traditionally focusing on bounded local communities unaffected by outside influences were challenged by globalization thinkers to look for the outside influences including their own on the ethnographic practices. The theoretical tools were designed and borrowed to inform the new realities of local in a global world.

The globalization itself has provided opportunities for anthropologist to have easy and frequent access to the field. Availability of writings of native anthropologists can build a tradition of multi vocal understanding of the field. At the same time some anthropologists have taken this opportunity to celebrate the local and challenge the global onslaught on culture and tradition of remote people. The barriers across region have not necessarily been erased and some anthropologists have carved new ethnographic regions, for instance, South Asia to represent the people living in a landmass.

However the globalization approach in anthropology is not altogether new. The early thinkers of Political Economy and World System approach were emphasizing the impact of dominant core on recessive periphery. Ande Gunder Frank and Historian Immanuel Wallerstein set the agenda for understanding the underdeveloped economy crumbling under the developed west. Eric Wolf and Peter Worsley followed the trend in anthropology and criticized the Global capitalism and its impact on local people. These theories are looking at unidirectional flow whereas globalization is about the multidirectional influence, at least in principle.

Jonathan Friedman has coined his neologism Global Systemic approach to address the global in anthropology. He distinguishes his approach from globalization theories in anthropology. In his approach the global and local or at same plane and there is no higher global place floating above the local. Though local is always part of global but it does not mean that local is produced by global. The global is arena of interaction among the localities and global systemic is the study of logics of such interactions and the processes that emerge from such interactions. For him the globalization theory is empiricist and looks at apparent surface phenomena of flow, movement, media and networks instead of the underlying structure which makes this phenomenon apparent. Global systemic approach calls for a transdisciplinary study of these underlying structures of social reproduction and history of human species.

The Globalization theory in anthropology is represented by the work of Ulf Hannerez, Arjun Appadurai and Cultural Sociologist Roland Robertson. Ulf Hannerez, A Swedish anthropologist is prominent name in theorizing about globalization in anthropology. He considered Globalization as Global aspect of modernity rather than all-encompassing Global Village approach. He proposes to redefine culture signifying flow, process and partial integration instead of bounded integrated static whole. He emphasizes the understanding of intermixing of cultures and making of new forms and called it ‘cultural creolization’. According to his view global processes has impact on local life and culture. Generally the local resist and come out with innovative creative forms of hybrids in this process. Arjun Appadurai who has been discussed above is another name to shape the ideas of global culture and its local entanglements.

French Anthropologist Marc Auge wrote a seminal work Non-Places to question the future of anthropological notion of place, culture and community in the time of flux and global changes. He argued that stability of place can no longer be taken for granted in this disembedded world. The Actor Network Theory a specialty in Science and Technology Studies propounded by French Anthropologist Bruno Latour is also an approach fit for doing fieldwork in globalized world of science and technology. His theory talks about the processes of translation and networking in various shifting contexts of material and nonmaterial realities.

The major theoretical argument in anthropology developed as a critic of globalization. It critiqued the one way process of globalization and its role in perpetuating the global inequality. The critics have termed it as new imperialism and a catchy metaphor to mask the threat it poses for losers of globalization from the winners. The globalization theory is nothing more than diffusionism where Euro American West is new Egypt.

Whatever the critique may be the anthropologists are encountering hybrid cultures and life forms in their field which are mix of local national and global. The identity of anthropologist has also been shaped by these realities of mixing and making of new forms. The globalization theory provides important insight to look at these new realities of human life and culture.

SUMMARY

The module is focused upon the theoretical framework to understand the Globalization and how globalization itself provides the approaches to understand the changing dimension of society and culture in present time. The globalization theory has been discussed in terms of three major dimensions economic, political and cultural. In anthropology globalization theories have been utilized to decontextualize the local and free it from the boundedness in time and space. The cultural globalization and its theoretical nuances are important for apprehending the global-local binaries which informs the human realities today.

References:

• Eriksen, Thomas Hylland and Finn Sivert Nielsen, 2014, A History of Anthropology, Pluto Press.
• Barnard, Alan 2000, History and Theory in Anthropology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Nederveen Pieterse, J. 2004. Globalization and Culture: Global Melange. Rowman and Littlefield.
• Stiglitz, J. 2002, Globalization and its Discontents, Allen Lane.
• M. Featherstone (ed.) 1990, Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity, Sage.
• Arjun Appadurai. 1996 Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, University of Minnesota Press.
• George Ritzer 2011, Globalization: The Essentials, John Wiley & Sons.
• Ted C. Lewellen , 2010, The Anthropology of Globalization, Rawat Publication.
• Robbins, R. 2008. Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, Prentice Hall.
• M. Kearney 1995, The Local and the Global: The Anthropology of Globalization and Transnationalism, Annual Review of Anthropology Vol. 24: 547-565.
• Jonathan Friedman 2007 Global Systems, Globalization, and Anthropological Theory in Ino Rossi edited Frontiers of Globalization: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches Springer.