Globalization Definition

Defining Globalization Introduction • Globalization is a very important change, the “most important” change (Bauman, 2003) • The reality and omnipresence makes us see ourselves as part of what we refer to as the “global age” (Albrow, 1996) (internet – Google, mass media)

Defining Globalization •Encompasses a multitude of processes that involves the economy, political systems, and culture. •Process of “world shrinkage, of distances getting shorter, things moving closer” (Thomas Larsson) •Occurring through and with regression, colonialism and destabilization. •Globalization as colonization (Martin Khor – former President of Third World Network (TWN) in Malaysia)

Definitions could be classified as: a. Broad and inclusive – include a variety of issues that deal with overcoming traditional boundaries b. Narrow and exclusive – limiting, adhere to only particular definitions • Globalization means the onset of the borderless world (Ohmae, 1992) • The characteristics of the globalization trend include the internationalizing of production, the new international division of labor, new migratory movements from South to North, new competitive environment that accelerates these processes, and the internationalizing of the state… making states into agencies of the globalizing world (Robert Cox)

Definitions deal with either economic, political, or social dimensions • “Globalization is a transplanetary process or a 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 (Ritzer, 2015) • Assumes that globalization could bring either or both integration and/or fragmentation

3. Globalization is a reality. It is changing as human society develops (has happened before, still happening today, and continue to happen in the future; its future is more difficult to predict)

4. Globalization is not easy to define because in reality, globalization has a shifting nature. It is complex, multifaceted, and can be influenced by the people who define it.

Metaphors of Globalization

Solid and Liquid • Solidity – barriers that prevent or make difficult the movement of things Solids can either be natural or man-made Natural solids • Landforms and bodies of water

Man-made barriers • Great Wall of China • Berlin Wall • Nine-dash line

Great Wall of China

Berlin Wall

Solid and Liquid • Liquidity – refers to the increasing ease of movement of people, things, information and places in the contemporary world. Characteristics: - Change quickly and are in continuous fluctuation (global finance – stock market) - Movement is difficult to stop (videos in Youtube & FB) - Forces made political boundaries more permeable to the flow of people and things (decline/death of the nation-state)

• Liquidity and solidity are in constant interaction. However, liquidity is the one increasing and proliferating today. • Liquidity is the metaphor that could best describe globalization

Flows • Movements of people, things, places, and information brought by the growing “porosity” of global limitations (Ritzer, 2015) • Foreign cuisines • Global financial crises can bring ramifications to other regions of the world – spread of the effects of American financial crisis on Europe in 2008 • Poor illegal migrants flooding many parts of the world • Virtual flow of legal and illegal information (blogs and child pornography) • Filipino communities abroad and the Chinese communities in the Philippines

GLOBALIZATION THEORIES • Theories see globalization as a process that increases either homogeneity or heterogeneity • Homogeneity – refers to the increasing sameness in the world as cultural inputs, economic factors, and political orientations of societies expand to create common practices, same economies, and similar forms of government. • Homogeneity in culture is often linked to cultural imperialism A given culture influences other cultures. Ex. Christianity brought to us by Spaniards, Americanization, spread of neoliberalism, capitalism and the market economy in the world

GLOBALIZATION THEORIES • Existence of “McWorld” – only one political orientation is growing in today’s societies • Media imperialism • Process of McDonaldization – Western societies are dominated by the principle of fast food restaurants • Global spread of rational systems (efficiency, calculability, predictability and control) • Grobalization – process wherein nations, corporations, etc. impose themselves on geographic areas in order to gain profits, power, and so on.

• Heterogeneity – creation of various cultural practices, new economies and political groups because of the interaction of elements from different societies in the world. • It refers to the differences because of either lasting differences or of the hybrids or combinations of cultures that can be produced through the different transplanetary processes. • Heterogeneity in culture is associated with cultural hybridization • Glocalization – As global forces interact with local factors or a specific geographic area, the “glocal” is being produced (Roland Robertson)

• Economy - Commodification of cultures and “glocal” markets • Political institutions - The “Jihad” - alternate of McWorld - refers to political groups that are engaged in an “intensification of nationalism and that leads to greater political heterogeneity throughout the world.”

Dynamics of Local and Global Culture Global flows of culture tend to move more easily around the globe than ever before, especially through non-material digital forms.

Three Perspectives on Global Cultural Flows 1. Cultural differentialism – cultures are essentially different and are only superficially affected by global flows 2. Cultural hybridization – emphasizes the integration of local and global cultures Globalization is considered to be a creative process which gives rise to hybrid entities that are not reducible to either the global or the local.

3. Cultural convergence – stresses homogeneity introduced by globalization. Cultures are deemed to be radically altered by strong flows, while cultural imperialism happens when one culture imposes itself on and tends to destroy at least parts of another culture. John Tomlinson – critique of cultural imperialism Deterritorialization of culture – means that it is much more difficult to tie culture to a specific geographic point of origin