Does Globalization necessarily lead to cultural homogenization? Essay

worldwideization entered free-and- subdued English usage in the early Sixties, adjacent the periodical of Marshall McLuhans Gutenberg Galaxy (Mc Luhan 1962). Malcolm Waters, a principal authority on the subject, define sphericization as a process in which the limits of geography on hearty and pagan arrangements retreat and as a consequence plenty have ever more advised that such constraints ar retreating (Waters 1995, p. 3). The term orbicular is an astoundingly recent creation, curbm for the first time in the 1986 second reading of the Oxford English Dictionary.The OEDs definition of to planetaryize is easy and to the point to render cosmea(prenominal). In sphericalization a large and increasing proportion, whether native or of immigrant backgrounds, atomic number 18 also people with little or no education and few Marketable skills (Cohen and Kennedy 2000, 75). Globalization, in multinational corporate lingo, is conceived as the last of three stages of global t ransformation since 1945 (Jameson and Miyoshi 1998). The impact of the crude humanity sparing has been just as great on North-South transaction as on North-North hotshots.For one thing, as Manuel Castells suggests, some parts of the South ar becoming progressively irrelevant and marginal to the field thrift (Castells, 1997). In an early(a)(prenominal) parts, the possibilities for study-based development be there, but a totally assorted confine of new policies is required. These policies would feature to be based on the development of military man productive potential. In popular usage, globalisation is associated with the base that advanced capitalist economy, aided by digital and electronic technologies, will ultimately obliterate local traditions and creates a homogenized, world acculturation.Critics of globalisation argue that human specify out everywhere is becoming funda psychogenicly the same. The transformative male monarch of digital technologies in a globalised world means that information and knowledge have now become media of production, displacing numerous kinds of manual work. Marx thought that the working class would use up capitalism but as it has turned out, capitalism has buried the working class (Hutton and Giddens 200122).Globalization is some(prenominal) Homogeneity-Heterogeneity as it refers to both(prenominal) the compression of the world and the intensification of sense of the world as a hearty. In other words, it covers the acceleration in concrete global interdependence and in consciousness of the global whole (Robertson 1992 8). It involves the crystallization of four main components of the global-human circumstance societies (or nation- alleges), the body of societies, indivi triples (selves), and reality.This takes the form of processes of, respectively, societalization, internationalization, individuation, and generalization of consciousness about humankind (Robertson 1992 215-6 1992 27). Rather th an referring to a multitude of historical processes, the concepts higher up all capture the form in wrong of which the world has moved towards unicity (Robertson, 1992 175). This form is practically contend. about linked to the process of globalisation is therefore the fuss of globality or the cultural terms on which coexistence in a single place becomes possible (Robertson, 1992 132).The echt process of globalization has been erratic, chaotic, and slow. Some observers of modern government argue that a basic version of world tillage is taking shape among extremely enlightened people, itemly those who work in the r befied domains of international finance, media, and diplomacy. Hyper elites of this nature make up what Samuel Huntington (1996) calls a Davos civilization, named after the Swiss town that hosts yearly meetings of the land Economic Forum.Whatever their ethnic, spiritual, or national origin, Davos participants are said to follow a identifiable life-style chara cterized by consistent behaviour (social ease, aristocratic manners, and the qualification to tell jokes), technological complexity (knowledge of the freshst software, communication theory systems, and media innovations), complex taste of financial markets and currency exchange, grad student education in influential institutions, common garnish and grooming codes, similar body obsession (dietary restraint, vitamin regimes, fitness routines), and a control of Ameri laughingstock-style English which they use as the main medium of communication. Super cultures in the global age of communication which is distinguished by ontogenesis and complex connectivity (Tomlinson 1999)Davos people, it is asserted, are instantly identifiable and odour more comfortable in individually others presence than they do amongst less advanced compatriots. The World Economic Forum no long-lasting commands the consideration it did in the Nineties, but the term Davos has entered world vocabulary as a synonym for late-Twentieth- ascorbic acid cosmopolitanism. twist on this idea, the sociologist Peter Berger (1997) argued that the globalization of Euro-American faculty member agendas and lifestyles has form a worldwide faculty fraternity culture. Since the Sixties, international funding agencies have sustained academic exchanges and postgraduate training for scholars in exploitation countries, permitting them to score alliances with Western colleagues.The long-term consequence, Berger argues, is the formation of a global ne 2rk in which similar values, attitudes, and research goals are collective. Ne 2rk participants have been instrumental in advance feminism, environmentalism, and human rights as global issues. Berger cites the anti-smoking proceeding as a case in point the movement began as an elite North American intentness in the Seventies and consequently spread to other parts of the world following the forms of academes global network. As with Davos sophisticates, me mbers of the international faculty club rely on English to communicate with each other. The anthropologists Ulf Hannerz and Arjun Appadurai have studied similar elites that work on a global scale.Hannerz (1990) believes that a world culture appeared in the late Twentieth Century, stemming from the activities of cosmopolitans who nurtured an intellectual applause for local cultures in the developing world. The new global culture, in this interpretation, is based on the organization of potpourri rather than a replication of uniformity. Cultural globalization refers to the intensification and elaborateness of cultural persists across the globe. Obviously, culture is a very broad concept it is frequently apply to describe the whole of human experience (Steger 2003 69). By the end of millennium, international elites had organized dozens of NGOs to function preserve cultural diversity in the developing world.Institutions such as Cultural Survival (located in Cambridge, Massachusett s) now work on a world scale, drawing attention to indigenous classs that expect to see themselves as first peoplesa new, global exposition that emphasizes common experiences of utilization. Appadurai (1997) claims that modern diasporas are not just now transnational but post national importee that people who work in these spheres are unconscious(predicate) of national borders and socialize in a social world that has several(prenominal) home bases. Fundamental to these elite visions of globalism is a disinclination to describe exactly what is meant by culture. This is not unexpected, given that the idea of culture has become one of the most contentious issues in modern social sciences.Throughout most of the Twentieth Century, anthropologists delimit culture as a shared set of beliefs, customs, and ideas that held people together in identifiable, self-identified groups. Scholars in several disciplines challenged the idea of cultural coherence as it became overt that members of close-knit groups held fundamentally different visions of their social worlds. last is no longer professed as a pre-programmed mental library, a knowledge system inherited from ancestors. newfangled anthropologists, sociologists, and media specialists treat culture as a set of ideas, aspects, and expectations that are continually changing as people respond to changing circumstances.This logical development reflects common life at the turn of the Twenty-First Century the disintegration of Soviet socialism and the rise of cyber capitalism , both of which have growingd the perceived f number of societal change everywhere. Globalization empowers the hybridization of nations and communities to fend for cultural imperialism or chauvinism by dowery them to describe who they are, where they come from, and where they are going. Globalization and engine room assist communities to develop cultural networks, free from state or hierarchical controls, regulations, or limitations. It also helps to clarify cultural differences by easing intercultural connectedness, interactions and hybridization. Therefore, while mighty managed, globalization can be good for cultural inspiration, diversity and development.There is a new cosmopolitanism in the air as, through criticism, the concept has been rediscovered and reinvented. As the late Nineties there was a sharp increase in literature that attempted to relate the intervention on globalization (in cultural and political terms) to a redefinition of cosmopolitanism for the global age. The new cosmopolitanism is the prerogative of wealthy, self-serving, anational agents of capital on the one hand and, on the other, international moralists. Nussbaum, 1996, 5. For this resolve it is worth pointing out that etymologically, cosmopolitan is a become of beingness and polis. Thus cosmopolitanism, captivatingly enough, relates to a pre-modern ambivalence towards a dual identity and a dual devotion.Every human being is patch up ed (beheimatet) by birth in two worlds, in two communities in the cosmos (namely, nature) and in the polis (namely, the city/state). more(prenominal) exactly, every individual is rooted in one cosmos, but concurrently in different cities, territories, ethnicities, hierarchies, nations, religions, and so on. This is not an elite but rather an inclusive plural membership (Heimaten). Being part of the cosmos nature, all men (and even all women) are equal yet being part of divers(a) states organized into territorial units (polis), men are different (bearing in mind that women and slaves are expelled from the polis). Leaving aside for one moment the issue of women and slaves, cosmopolitanism at its root includes what was separated by the logic of barring subsequently on.Cosmopolitan ignores the either/or principle and symbolizes Sowohl-alsauch opinion, the this-as-well-as-that principle. This is an ancient hybrid, melange, scape, flow idea that is even more structured than the new o ffshoots of globalization communion. Thus cosmopolitanism generates logic of non-exclusive oppositions, making patriots of two worlds that are concurrently equal and different. The anti-globalization label became overriding after the Seattle demonstration, apparently a coinage of the US media (Graeber 200263). However, it is pregnant to realize that the term is strongly contested amongst militants and that m either, if not most, reject the label anti-globalization entirely. So what is it, exactly, that activists meet?Although there has been significant attention paid deep to militarism in the context of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it seems to me that most activist accounts in recent years have cerebrate more centrally on phenomena linked with economical globalization the increasing power of corporations, the growing use of goods and services of international financial institutions, and the neoliberal policies of softwood loosening and privatization propounded by the latter and from which the former benefit. These are seen to stimulate economic inequality, social and environmental destruction, and cultural homogenization. They are also accused of leaching power and liberty away from people and governments of being anti-democratic. Such an understanding of the enemy chimes with many commentaries on the movement (Starr 2000 Danaher and Burbach 2000). It can also be discerned on activist websites.The assume of Principles of the World Social Forum (2002) declares participant groups inappropriate to neoliberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism. The statement of principles on the Globalize oppositeness site (2002a) indicates that it is primarily against the extension of corporate power over peoples lives under the heavier-than-air hand of international financial institutions similar to the WTO and IMF. The groups newsletters then target the exploitative practices of particular multinational corporations a nd draw attention to problems of debt and financial restructuring. Lastly, the Peoples Global Action manifesto (1998) articulated opposition to the expansion of the role of capital, through the help of international agencies and trade agreements.There are significant resonances here with academic depictions of globalization. I have argued elsewhere that an economic-homogenization model of globalization is becoming increasingly dominant in both academic and popular usage, which focuses attention on the modify combination of the global economy and its homogenizing effect on state policy and culture (Eschle 2004). Such a model is prevalent in International dealing (IR). It is characteristic of liberal IR approaches that support globalization that skeptical refutations of globalization are described as exaggerated and ideological and critical IR theories convict globalization as profoundly damaging.It is with this last, critical, approach in IR that we find the strongest resonance wi th activist discourses. twain activist and academic critics share the assumption that globalization equates with the neo-liberal economic developments described above. Then, in an extremely significant move, these developments might be linked to the underlying structures of the economy and globalization reinterpreted as the latest stage of capitalism. fit to Klein, the critique of capitalism just saw a comeback of Santana like proportions (200212). The global culture is ordinarily used in contemporary academic discourse to distinguish the experience of everyday life in specific, exclusive localities.