Lecture 9

Globalization and Global

Disparity
 1. Globalization
 Globalization is a complex and uneven
process in which local and national capital,
labor, technology, media, and ideas
become more and more interconnected
and integrated into a large framework of
production, finance, and trade beyond
national borders. Changes at one place
can often generate far-reaching ripple
effects in many other regions throughout
the world.
Global connection with a click
 Examples
 Recent global
economic downturn
(2007 onward)
 Asian financial
crisis (1998)
Made in China
 What factors have contributed to
the formation of a global economy?
  Shifting power geometry from the
West/East divide to the North/South
divide.
 Changing role of the state
 2. Localization
 Localization: global social and
economic forces are articulated
through different and specific local
forms. A global sign and practice
may entail very different meanings in
different cultural contexts.
 3. Disjuncture in the Global
Cultural Economy
 Ethnoscapes: Increasing presence of mobile people/moving
groups in the shifting world (tourists, immigrants, refugees,
guestworkers…).
 Technoscapes: Technology of all kinds moves at higher speeds
across various kinds of boundaries (national, regional,
political, ethnic…).  
 Finances: Currency markets and stock markets connect
deeply across space and move megamonies at fast speed.
 Mediascapes: The production and dissemination of information
and images have expanded and speeded up. The lines
between the real and the fictional are sometimes blurred.
 Ideoscapes: Political ideologies of states and counter-
ideologies of movements proliferate in various forms and shift
their focus.
 4. Global Disparity

 Global Cities are a special kind of

central place where immense and
intense concentrations of economic
and financial power is located. They
are also centers of international
finance and businesses that
command a global economy.
  Characteristics
Global cities
 Global Disconnect and Abjection

What does that mean? What does he

mean by being disconnected that has
been experienced by some countries?
Mine workers
 5. Flexible Citizenship

 a strategy to both circumvent and

benefit from different nation-state
regimes by selecting different sites
for investment, work, family, and
protection.
 Example: Aihwa Ong’s study