WEEK 1

Learning Outcomes/Objectives:

a. Write a personal definition of globalization.

CHAPTER 1: Defining Globalization

Lesson 1: Introduction

Discussion

• Much has changed during time immemorial. Human being have encountered many changes over the last
century especially in their social relationships and social structures of these changes, one can say that
globalization is a very important change, if not “the most important “

(Bauman, 2003)

• It cannot be contained within specific time frame , all people and all situations.

(Al Rhodan, 2006)

• “Globalization is the process of world shrinkage, of distances getting shorter things moving closer. It pertains
to increasing ease with which somebody on one side of the world internet, to mutual benefit with somebody on
the other side of the world” (p. 9)

(Thomas Larson, 2001)

• On the other hand some see it as occurring through with regression, colonialism, and destabilization. In the
mid 1990’s, Martin Knor the former president of Third World network (TWN) in Malaysia, once regarded
globalization as colonization.

• The task of conceptualizing it reveals a variety of perspectives.

• To understand further the concepts different metaphor will be used. These metaphors will allow an
appreciation of earlier epoch before globalization and the present globalized world.
Lesson 2: The Task of Defining Globalization

Discussion

Since its first appearance in the Webster’s Dictionary in 1961, many opinions about globalization have
flourished.

Globalization in Literature

Definitions could be classified as either:

1. Broad and inclusive - “globalization means the onset of borderless world..” (p. 14) Ohmae in 1992 stated

2. Narrow and exclusive - “The characteristics of global trend include:

the internationalizing of the production, the new international division of labor, new migratory movements from
South to North, the new competitive environment that accelerates these processes and the internationalizing of
the state… making states into agencies of the globalizing world”

(as cited in RAWOO Netherland Development Assistance Research Council, 2000 p. 14)

• The sheer number and complexity of definitions do not mean that there is a remarkable improvement in every
definition given by scholars.

• According to Kumar (2003), the debate about globalization and what it is are similar. (This is in relation to
what some academics have claimed about defining globalization – it is a useless task.

Recent definition

Ritzer (2005) “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…” (p. 2)

“If so why are we going to spend time studying this concept? How can we appreciate these definitions? How
can these help us understand globalization?”

GLOBALIZATION

1. The perspective of a person who defines globalization shapes its definition.

Ones definition and perspective could determine concrete steps in addressing the issues of globalization. If
one sees globalization as positive, the person can say that it is a unifying force.
If it is deemed as creating greater inequalities among nations, globalization is negatively treated.

2. According to Cesore Poppi: Globalization is the debate and the debate is globalization. One becomes part
and parcel of the other.

The meaning of concept is self-evident in another it is vague and obscure as it reaches are wide and constantly
shifting.

3. Globalization is reality.

It is changing as human society develops. We should expect it to continue to happen in the future. The future
of globalization is more difficult to predict.

“Overall globalization is a concept that 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.”

“Attitudes toward globalization depend among other things, on whether one gains or losses from it.

The globalization of Nothing (Ritzer, 2003) (p. 190)”

The fact that we experience globalization should give one interest of engaging in the study of it.

Lesson 3: Metaphors of Globalization

Discussion

We utilize metaphors to make use of one term to help us better understand another term.

Solid and Liquid

• The epoch that preceded today’s globalization paved way for people, things, information, and places to harden
over time. Consequently they have limited mobility (Ritzer, 2015).

• The social relationships and objects remained where they were created.

Solidity- barriers that prevent or make difficult movement of the things

Solid can either be:

1. Natural- Natural solids are landforms and bodies of water.

2. Man-made barriers include the Great Wall of China and Berlin Wall.

3. Modern man-made solid- An imaginary line such as the nine-dash line used by the People’s Republic of
China is their claim to the South China Sea.
Liquid- as a state of matter takes the shape of its container; not fixed; refers to the increasing ease of movement
of people, things, information, and places in the contemporary world.

Zygmunt Bauman’s ideas about characteristics of liquidity:

1. Today’s liquid phenomena change quickly and their aspects, spatial, and temporal, are in continuous
fluctuation.

Example: In global finance, changes in stock market are a matter of seconds.

2. Their movement is difficult to stop.

Example Videos uploaded on Youtube or Facebook are unstoppable once they become viral.

3. The forces (the liquid ones) made political boundaries more permeable to the flow of people and things
(Cartier 2001).

Example: The decline if not death of the nation-state.

Liquidity and solidity are in constant interaction. However, liquidity is the increasing and proliferating
today.

• Therefore, the metaphor that could best describe the globalization is liquidity.

• Liquids do flow and this idea of flow (Appadurai 1996; Rey and Ritzer, 2010) will be the focus of the next
discussion.

The literature in globalization makes use of the concept of flows.

Flows are the movement of people, things, places,and information brought by the growing “porosity” of global
limitations (Ritzer, 2015).

• Aside from local dishes, many of us are fond of eating sushi, ramen, hamburger, and french-fries.

• Another example of flows is global financial crises.” In global financial system, national borders are porous”.
(Landler)

Lesson 4: Globalization Theories

Discussion

• We will analyze globalization culturally, economically and politically.

Homogeneity

• It refer to 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.

• In culture, it is often linked to cultural imperialism. Given culture influences other culture.

Examples of Homogeneity

1. Christianity in the Philippines brought by Spaniards

2. Americanization- the import by Non-Americans of products, images, technologies, practices and behavior
that are closely associated with America/Americans (p. 96)

3. Global economic prices are also product of homogeneity in economic globalization Stigilitz (2002), for
instance blame the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for its “one size fits all”.

4. Barber (1995) said that McWorld is existing. It means only one political orientation is growing in today’s
societies.

• The global flow of media is often characterized as Media

imperialism. TV, music, books, and movies are perceived as

inposed on developing countries by the West (Owen 2002)

• Media imperialism undermines the existence of alternative global

media originating from developing countries such as the Al Jazeera

(Bielsa, 2008), and the Bollywood (Larkin, 2003), as well as the

influence of the local and regional media.

• The internet can be seen as an arena for alternative media.

• Ritzer (2008) claimed that, in general, the contemporary world is undergoing the process of
Mcdonaldization.

It is the process by which Western societies are dominated by the principle of fastfood restaurants.
Grobalization vs Glocalization

Grobalization is a process wherein nations, corporations, etc. impose themselves on geographic areas in order
to gain profits, power, and so on (Ryan, 2007).

Ritzer (2007) also espoused the idea that globalization can also be seen as flow of “nothing” as opposed to
“something,” involving the spread of non-places, non-things, non-people, and non-services.

Heterogeneity pertains to 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 differences because of either lasting differences or of the hybrids or combinations of cultures that
can be produced through the different transplanetary processes.

• Contrary to cultural imperialism, heterogeneity in culture is associated with cultural hybridization.

A more specific concept is “glocalization” coined by Roland Robertson in 1992. To him, as global
forces interact with local factors or a specific geographic area , the “glocal” is being produced.

• Economic issues are not exempted from heterogeneity. The commodification of cultures and “glocal” markets
are examples of differentiation happening in many economies around the world.

• The same goes with political institution. Barber (1995) also provided the alternate of “McWorld”– the
“Jihad.”

As Ritzer (2008) mentioned, it refers to political groups that are engaged in an “intensification of nationalism
and that leads to greater political heterogeneity throughout the world” (p. 576)

• Although homogeneity and heterogeneity give us idea about the effects of globalization, the picture is not yet
complete.

The theories about globalization will be clarified as we look closer at each of them in the succeeding
chapters.

Lesson 5: Dynamics of Local and Global Culture

Discussion

• Global flows of culture tend to move more easily around the globe than ever before, especially through non-
material digital forms.
There are three perspectives on global cultural flows.

1. Cultural differentialism emphasizes the fact that cultures are essentially different and are only
superficially affected by global flows.

The interaction of cultures is deemed to contain the potential for “catastrophic collision.”
According to Huntington, after Cold War, political economic differences were overshadowed by new
fault lines, which were primarily cultural in nature.
This theory has been critiqued for a number of reasons, especially on its portrayal of Muslim as being
“prone to violence.” (Huntington 1996)

2. Cultural hybridization approach emphasizes the integration of local and global cultures (Cvetkovich
and Kellner, 1997).

Globalization is considered to be a creative process which give rise to hybrid entities that are not
reducible to either global or the local.

• Glocalization or the interpenetration of the global and local resulting in unique outcomes in different
geographic areas(Giulianotti and Robertson, 2007, p. 133).

 Arjun Appdurai’s “scapes” in 1996, where global flows involve people, technology, finance, political
images, and media and the disjunctures between them, which lead to the creation of cultural hybrids.

3. The cultural convergence approach stresses homogeneity introduced by globalization.

Cultures are deemed to be radically altered by strong flows, while cultural imperialism happen when

one culture imposes itself on and tends to destroys at least parts of another culture.

Deterritorialization means that it is much more difficult to tie culture to a specific geographic point of
origin.