Week 5 Seminar Notes Gp2

Seminar Outline
1. HOUSEKEEPING (17.30-17.50)

- CRITICAL CASE STUDY & PARTICIPATION TASK SHEET

2. INDIVIDUAL RAT (17.50-18.05)

3. TEAM RAT (18.05-18.25)

4. CHALLENGES (18.25-18.30) - ONLY IF REQUIRED

5. LECTURE INPUT (18.30-19.00), Globalisation discourse & Criticisms of Discourse/Consequences

6. ACTIVITY/APPLICATIONS (19.10-20.15), inc. The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)

Important Informations, Ideas &amp; Questions
Glen's Advice: When writing an academic paper/essay, try not to use words like very and too. There are usually more formal terms that can be used (e.g. very good = excellent)

'''The Great Globalisation Debate - Why is (not) this a relevant/important debate? '''

There is a difference in terms of the interpretation. The debate is more on practical issues, which would benefit everyone. These issues are those that concern the economy, health or cultural matters. There are multiple issues that need to be highlighted and debated. Debate intensified with the birth of network media. Globalisation is unevenly experienced thus the impact varies from one country to another. If it does not cover the whole globe how can it be global. It challenges the capacity of nation states to control domestic and international policy.

'Globalisation thesis' originated from presumed and strict separation of local, global, national etc. Need for thesis originated from multiple demands and spheres.

Debate is about practical/functional issues, as major western/capitalist countries seem to dominate e.g. imposition of Western culture.

Capitalism (after collapse of socialism) means one type of globalisation offered and Western cultures dominate.

   

- Debate positions 

Both skeptics and globalists agree that globalisation does not make the world more unified and homogenous - contradictory convergence and divergence. Not evenly experienced and felt. Globalists argue that 'globalisation' impacts are not isolated - cooperation and conflict e.g. cultural objects can flow across borders, but not human flows.

- Recent transformations &amp; signs   

- Definition of Globalisation

Globalisation also creates conflict due to the realisation of the differences. Borders,etc. to stop the human flow. There is always contradictory responses. Therefore there is nothing simple about globalisation. The relationship is not hierarchical instead it overlaps and it is fluid.

Globalisation is not simplistic. Some things are able to 'flow' across boarders more easily than others. For instance cultural products move with more ease than humans. Boarders, in fact, are becoming more defined in relocation to migration.

FRAMEWORKS FOR UNDERSTANDING   

- McLuhan (1964) - A 'Global Village'  

His ideas has been adapted by globalists/advocates of globalisation. The idea comes from a broadcast media paradigm. Increased in interconnected activity with the rise of technology which will produce a global village. Electronic media will restore the collectivity of cultures. Electronic communication has changed and reduced time and space. But the idea of global village has been highly criticized because of its romantic view of culture which is very utopian. It is a unidirectional view of the impacts of technology in society.

- Appadurai (1990) &amp; 'scapes'  

Cultural change needs to be understood form the different flows of media, technology, etc which results in new ways of seeing the world. He describes this flow as disjunctive. It is not in one direction or uniformed direction. It results in contradictory effect, as mentioned above.

This results in new "scapes": "Ethnoscapes", "Mediascapes", "Ideascapes"

- Criticisms of 'Globalisation' as a Discourse  

The concept of globalisation is not merely descriptive because it constructs reality in many ways. It supports and reinforces the views of reality. The term actively promotes and actualizes the term. Using the term functions as a mask to capitalist expansions or growth and it reproduces imperial exploitation.

Globalisation refers entrenched and enduring patterns of world wide interconnectedness and interaction and changes to the experience of time and space, and greater consciousness of the global condition. There are no infinite definition. Globalisation challenge the capacity of nation-states to control domestic & international policy.

Globalisation is a reflection on the contemporary inadequacy of any presumed strict separation of domestic and international, local and global.

Globalisation thesis requires an understanding of a social reality in which includes the political, technological and cultural rather than solely the economic and empahasises fluid and dynamic interrelationships between the global, regional, national and local.

The "sceptics vs globalists" debate demonstrate that there are differences of interpretation and emphasis and there are much to be learned from both side where the historical depth of the sceptics' case and the focus on transformations in spatial organization and power of the globalist.

- CULTURAL GLOBALISATION (nee IMPERIALISM)  

Contemporary cultural globalization follows a historical step of cultural imperialism. It threatens to displace local cultural practices. It is argued as a one way process, which is normally more westernized and associated with the commercial aspect, 'McDonalization' etc. The simple presence of western cultural good does not warrant the cultural impact. Cultural contact rarely results in cultural homogenization.

- Cultural Homogenisation (Hybridization) 

A phenomenon known as 'Cultural Homogenization' can be seen as a merge of different cultural practices into one uniform cultural practice. People from different cultural backgrounds interact and intermingle with each other in such ways that they lose their individual cultural identities and merge into a uniform culture - something new.

- Adaptation/Appropriation    

- A 'Culture of Capitalism'

Glossary
OECD---Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

belle epoque--- origin French, 'fine period', means the period of settled and comfortable life preceding the 1st World War.

Indigenization: to 'indigenize' means to transform things to fit the local culture. Most changes in original culture occur when western corporations impose their products on other economies (wikipedia).

p. 5 of The Great Globalization Debate: " 'regionalization' or 'triadization' - the geographical clustering of cross-border economic and social exchanges..."

Regionalization: the tendency to form regions or the process of doing so.

When used in opposition to globalization, this often means a world that is 					less connected, with a stronger regional focus.

http://www.greenfacts.org/glossary/pqrs/regionalization.htm

Leitmotif: a motif or theme associated throughout a music drama with a particular person, situation, or idea.