my perspective in globalization essay

Essay on Globalization for Students and Children

500+ words essay on globalization.

Globalization refers to integration between people, companies, and governments. Most noteworthy, this integration occurs on a global scale. Furthermore, it is the process of expanding the business all over the world. In Globalization, many businesses expand globally and assume an international image. Consequently, there is a requirement for huge investment to develop international companies.

How Globalization Came into Existence?

First of all, people have been trading goods since civilization began. In the 1st century BC, there was the transportation of goods from China to Europe. The goods transportation took place along the Silk Road. The Silk Road route was very long in distance. This was a remarkable development in the history of Globalization. This is because, for the first time ever, goods were sold across continents.

Globalization kept on growing gradually since 1st BC. Another significant development took place in the 7th century AD. This was the time when the religion of Islam spread. Most noteworthy, Arab merchants led to a rapid expansion of international trade . By the 9th century, there was the domination of Muslim traders on international trade. Furthermore, the focus of trade at this time was spices.

True Global trade began in the Age of Discovery in the 15th century. The Eastern and Western continents were connected by European merchants. There was the discovery of America in this period. Consequently, global trade reached America from Europe.

From the 19th century, there was a domination of Great Britain all over the world. There was a rapid spread of international trade. The British developed powerful ships and trains. Consequently, the speed of transportation greatly increased. The rate of production of goods also significantly increased. Communication also got faster which was better for Global trade .

Finally, in 20th and 21st -Century Globalization took its ultimate form. Above all, the development of technology and the internet took place. This was a massive aid for Globalization. Hence, E-commerce plays a huge role in Globalization.

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Impact of Globalization

First of all, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) increases at a great rate. This certainly is a huge contribution of Globalization. Due to FDI, there is industrial development. Furthermore, there is the growth of global companies. Also, many third world countries would also benefit from FDI.

Technological Innovation is another notable contribution of Globalization. Most noteworthy, there is a huge emphasis on technology development in Globalization. Furthermore, there is also technology transfer due to Globalization. The technology would certainly benefit the common people.

The quality of products improves due to Globalization. This is because manufacturers try to make products of high-quality. This is due to the pressure of intense competition. If the product is inferior, people can easily switch to another high-quality product.

To sum it up, Globalization is a very visible phenomenon currently. Most noteworthy, it is continuously increasing. Above all, it is a great blessing to trade. This is because it brings a lot of economic and social benefits to it.

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✍️Essay on Globalisation: Samples in 100, 150 and 200 Words

• Updated on  
• Oct 25, 2023

Globalisation means the combination of economies and societies with the help of information, ideas, technology, finance, goods, services, and people. It is a process where multinational companies work on their international standing and conduct operations internationally or overseas. Over the years, Globalisation has had a profound impact on various aspects of society. Today we will be discussing what globalisation is and how it came into existence with the essay on globalisation listed below.

This Blog Includes:

How globalisation came into existence, essay on globalisation in 100 words, essay on globalisation in 150 words, essay on globalisation in 200 words.

For all those unaware, the concepts of globalisation first emerged in the 20th century. Here are some of the key events which led to the development of globalisation in today’s digital world.

• The ancient Silk Route as well as the maritime routes led to the exchange of goods, ideas and culture in several countries. Although these were just trade routes, but later became important centres for cultural exchange.
• Other than this, the European colonial expansion which took place from the 15th to the 20th century led to the setting up of global markets where both knowledge and people were transferred to several developing countries. 
• The evolution and exchange of mass media, cinema and the internet further led to the widespread dissemination of cultures and ideas.

Also Read: Essay on the Importance of the English Language for Students

Globalization, the interconnectedness of nations through trade, technology, and cultural exchange, has reshaped the world. It has enabled the free flow of goods and information, fostering economic growth and cultural diversity. However, it also raises challenges such as income inequality and cultural homogenization. 

In a globalized world, businesses expand internationally, but local industries can suffer. Moreover, while globalization promotes shared knowledge, it can erode local traditions. Striking a balance between the benefits and drawbacks of globalization is essential to ensure a more equitable and culturally diverse global community, where economies thrive without leaving anyone behind.

Also Read: Essay on Save Environment: Samples in 100, 200, 300 Words

Globalization is the process of increasing interconnectedness and interdependence among countries, economies, and cultures. It has transformed the world in various ways.

Economically, globalization has facilitated the flow of goods, services, and capital across borders. This has boosted economic growth and reduced poverty in many developing nations. However, it has also led to income inequality and job displacement in some regions.

Culturally, globalization has resulted in the spread of ideas, values, and cultural products worldwide. While this fosters cultural exchange and diversity, it also raises concerns about cultural homogenization.

Technologically, globalization has been driven by advances in communication and transportation. The internet and smartphones have connected people across the globe, allowing for rapid information dissemination and collaboration.

In conclusion, globalization is a complex phenomenon with both benefits and challenges. It has reshaped the world, bringing people closer together, but also highlighting the need for responsible governance and policies to address its downsides.

Also Read: Essay on Unity in Diversity in 100 to 200 Words

Globalization, a multifaceted phenomenon, has reshaped the world over the past few decades. It involves the interconnectedness of economies, cultures, and societies across the globe. In this essay, we will briefly discuss its key aspects and impacts.

Economically, globalization has led to increased international trade and investment. It has allowed companies to expand operations globally, leading to economic growth in many countries. However, it has also resulted in income inequality and job displacement in some regions.

Culturally, globalization has facilitated the exchange of ideas, values, and traditions. This has led to a more diverse and interconnected world where cultures blend, but it can also challenge local traditions and languages.

Socially, globalization has improved access to information and technology. It has connected people across borders, enabling global activism and awareness of worldwide issues. Nonetheless, it has also created challenges like cybercrime and privacy concerns.

In conclusion, globalization is a double-edged sword. It offers economic opportunities, cultural exchange, and global connectivity, but it also brings about disparities, cultural tensions, and new global challenges. To navigate this complex landscape, the world must strive for responsible globalization that balances the interests of all stakeholders and promotes inclusivity and sustainability.

Related Articles

The movement of goods, technologies, information, and jobs between countries is referred to as globalisation. 

Globalization as a phenomenon began with the earliest human migratory routes, or with Genghis Khan’s invasions, or travel across the Silk Road.

Globalisation allows wealthy nations to access cheaper labour and resources, while also providing opportunity for developing and underdeveloped nations with the jobs and investment capital they require.

For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay-writing page and follow Leverage Edu ! 

Malvika Chawla

Malvika is a content writer cum news freak who comes with a strong background in Journalism and has worked with renowned news websites such as News 9 and The Financial Express to name a few. When not writing, she can be found bringing life to the canvasses by painting on them.

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A Perspective on Globalization: Responsibility to Help Each Other

Globalization derives from the word globalize , which refers to the emergence of an international network of economic systems.  The term globalization had been used in its economic sense at least as early as 1981, and in other senses, probably as early as 1944.  The late Theodore Levitt, a Harvard economist, is credited with popularizing the term and bringing it into the mainstream in the late 1980s.  Since its inception, the concept of globalization has inspired competing definitions and interpretations.  Its antecedents date back to the great epochs of trade and empire across Asia and the Indian Ocean from the 15th Century onward.

In The Consequences of Modernity , Anthony Giddens (1990), writes: “Globalization can thus be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations, which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.

In Future Smart: Managing the Game-Changing Trends, Which Will Transform Your World, author James Canton (2015) writes that Globalization 2.0 will define the global economy and deliver higher levels of prosperity and quality of life to make equality a more realistic objective for our civilization’s future.  He goes on to say that prosperity and equality will become achievable and pillars of what the next chapter of globalization shall bring.  Though not a panacea, he maintains that globalization holds great promise in stimulating global trade and commerce, lifting up societies, and actually driving new jobs and economic growth.

Many economists suggest we need a new perspective to better understand globalization. Professors Ian Golding and Chris Kutarna (2016) of Oxford University write in The Age of Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance  that what we lack and so urgently need is a new and positive perspective. They claim that, with it, we can see the context, which defines our lifetime and better assert our own will upon the wider forces shaping the world. Civil and political leaders, they continue, need perspective to craft a compelling vision, which connects the big drivers of change to our daily lives.  Business people need perspective to cut through the chaos of 24/7 news and information to reach capable decisions.

Supporters of globalization argue that it has the potential to make the world a better place in which to live, and to solve some entrenched problems like unemployment and poverty.  A May 6, 2015, article in Forbes Magazine “Reinventing America” lists ten positive outcomes of globalization:

• There is now a worldwide market for companies and consumers who have access to products of different countries.
• Gradually there is a world power that is being created instead of compartmentalized power sectors.
• There is more influx of information between two countries, which do not have anything in common between them.
• There is cultural intermingling, and each country is learning more about other cultures.
• Since we share financial interests, corporations, and governments are trying to sort out ecological problems for each other.
• Socially we have become more open and tolerant towards each other.
• Most people see speedier travel, mass communications, and quick dissemination of information through the Internet as benefits of globalization.
• Sharing technology with developing nations will help us all progress.
• Transnational companies investing in installing plants in other countries provide employment for the people in those countries, often helping them rise out of poverty.
• Globalization has given countries the ability to participate in free trade agreements like NAFTA, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and The Trans Pacific Partnership.

The general complaint about globalization is that it has made the rich richer, while making the non-rich poorer.  It is wonderful for managers, owners and investors, but less so for workers and the environment.  These globalization pros and cons show that a borderless world potentially offers many benefits, but with many enormous challenges, which need to be resolved for globalization to be workable.

Whether one supports a world without borders, or the current state of affairs, one truth resounds: we have a responsibility to help each other .   When the minority of the world’s population consumes the majority of its resources, that fact alone is evidence that we must heed the call to help people in need. Our future most assuredly belongs to inclusion, interconnectivity, and interdependence—all aided by the economic process of globalization.

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12 Globalization

Lauren miller griffith, texas tech university [email protected] https://www.depts.ttu.edu/sasw/people/griffith.php, jonathan s. marion, university of arkansas [email protected].

Learning Objectives

Define globalization and the 5 “scapes” that can be used to characterize global flows or exchanges.

Explain the relationship between globalization and the creation of new “glocal” lifestyles and forms of consumption.

Describe some of the ways people use agency to respond to globalization including syncretism and participation in alternative markets.

Assess the relationship between globalization, neoliberalism, and neocolonialism.

Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the intensification of globalization.

Discuss the implications of globalization for anthropology.

It is Tuesday on campus as you enter the dining hall. The day’s hot lunch entrées include Caribbean jerk pork with mango salsa and a side of collard greens. The next station is offering made-to-order Asian stir-fry. At the sandwich counter, tuna salad, an all-American classic, is being served in a pita. Now, are these dishes authentic? That, of course, depends on how you define authenticity. [1] A similar question was asked at Oberlin College in December 2015 when a group of students claimed that adapting foreign cuisines constituted a form of social injustice. [2] Their claim, which raised a great deal of controversy, was that the cafeteria’s appropriation and poor execution of ethnic dishes was disrespectful to the cultures from which those recipes were taken. Many people dismissed the students’ concerns as either an overreaction or as an attempt to rephrase a perennial complaint (bad cafeteria food) in a politically loaded language of social justice likely to garner a response from the administration. Regardless of what one thinks about this case, it is revealing of how college campuses—as well as the larger societies in which they are situated—have changed over time. The fact that dishes like sushi and banh mi sandwiches are even available in an Ohio college cafeteria suggests that globalization has intensified. The fact that the students would be reflexive enough to question the ethical implications of appropriating foreign cuisine suggests that we are truly in a new era. But what, in fact, is globalization?

OVERVIEW AND EARLY GLOBALIZATION

Globalization is a word commonly used in public discourse, but it is often loosely defined in today’s society (much like the word “culture” itself). First appearing in the English language in the 1940s, the term “globalization” is now commonplace and is used to discuss the circulation of goods, the fast and furious exchange of ideas, and the movement of people. [3] Despite its common use, it seems that the many people using the term are often not defining it in the same way. Some treat globalization as simply an economic issue while others focus more on the social and political aspects. What is clear, however, is that globalization has influenced many different facets of contemporary social life. This actually makes globalization an ideal topic of study for anthropologists, who pride themselves on taking a holistic approach to culture (see the Development of Anthropological Ideas chapter). For our purposes, we adopt political scientist Manfred Steger’s definition of globalization: “the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.” [4]

It is challenging to determine precisely when globalization began. Although some people discuss globalization as if it was an entirely new process without historical antecedents, in truth its precursors have been going on for a very long time. In this chapter, we argue that the distinguishing feature of globalization in the contemporary era is the speed, rather than the scope, of global interactions. Early modern technological innovations hastened globalization. [5] For instance, the invention of the wheel created a need for permanent roads that would facilitate transport of animal drawn carts. These wheeled vehicles increased people’s mobility, which in turn facilitated the sharing of both goods and ideas. Even before the invention of the wheel, the creation of written communication systems allowed ideas to be shared between people in distant locations.

Certainly extensive empires have existed at various times throughout human history, including Chinese dynasties (the Han dynasty, 206 BCE-220 CE, for instance, reached the same size the Roman Empire achieved much later); the Ottoman Empire , and the Roman Empire . Most recently in world history, European colonial expansion into Africa, Asia and the Americas marked another landmark of globalization. As discussed in the Development of Anthropological Ideas chapter, colonialism refers to the political, social, economic, and cultural domination of a territory and its people by a foreign power for an extended period of time. Technically, colonialism can be practiced by any group that is powerful enough to subdue other groups—and this certainly would be an accurate term for Ottoman and Roman imperial expansion—but as a term, colonialism is typically associated with the actions of European countries starting in the 1500s and lasting through the 1900s. During this period, European colonial powers divvied up “unclaimed” land with little regard for ethnic groups who already lived in those places, their political structures, belief systems, or lifeways. By 1914, European nations ruled more than 85 percent of the world, and it is not by accident that the image of the world most often seen on conventional maps continues to be very Eurocentric in its orientation ( see map ).

Colonialism in the Americas was the result of European conquest of newly “discovered” territories during the Age of Exploration. Columbus was likely not the first explorer to reach the Americas, but his “discovery” intensified Europeans’ desires to colonize this “new” territory. European leaders began expanding their spheres of influence in Europe before turning their attention to lands further afield; the successes they had in colonizing nearby lands, amplified by a growing demand for trade items found in “the Orient,” fueled their enthusiasm for exploration outside the region. The Catholic Church also supported this economically motivated mission, as it coincided with a weakening of their religious-stronghold in places like England, Germany, and France.

One of the most devastating features of the colonial period was the forced labor of both indigenous Americans and Africans who were enslaved and shipped off as chattel. Between 1525 and 1866, 12.5 million slaves were sent to the New World from Africa. Treated as chattel, only 10.7 million Africans survived until arriving in the Americas. The U.S. imported approximately 450,000 of these slaves. It is not by coincidence that the ethically irredeemable shipment of slaves to the Americas corresponded to massive shipments of goods to Europe and down the west coast of Africa. As far as the total scope of international flows, however, European colonialism pales in comparison to the scope of globalization that has transpired since the 1990s.

Contemporary globalization, at least in terms of economics, is perhaps best pinpointed as coinciding with the conclusion of World War II and the Bretton Woods Conference. [6] The agreements made at the Bretton Woods Conference led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which later became the World Bank (WB). It also laid the groundwork for the World Trade Organization (WTO). Taken together, these three organizations have had a tremendous role in accelerating globalization and in shaping the lives of people in the developing world. The very idea of governing bodies like the United Nations, or regulatory institutions like the IMF and WB, that exist outside the confines of a specific nation-state—now widely referenced as Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)—contributes to undermining local sovereignty. [7] Although local, regional, and national identities and affiliations retain salience in the global era, their importance has shifted relative to the growing sense many people have of being citizens of the world.  

THE ACCELERATION OF GLOBALIZATION

  the 5 “scapes” of globalization.

As we have already established, globalization refers to the increasing pace and scope of interconnections crisscrossing the globe. Anthropologist Arjun Appadurai has discussed this in terms of five specific “scapes” or flows: ethnoscapes, technoscapes, ideoscapes, financescapes, and mediascapes. Thinking of globalization in terms of the people, things, and ideas that flow across national boundaries is a productive framework for understanding the shifting social landscapes in which contemporary people are often embedded in their daily lives. Questions about where people migrate, their reasons for migration, the pace at which they travel, the ways their lives change as a result of their travels, and how their original communities change can all be addressed within this framework. Questions about goods and ideas that travel without the accompaniment of human agents can also be answered using Appadurai’s notion of scapes.

Ethnoscape refers to the flow of people across boundaries. While people such as labor migrants or refugees (see case study below) travel out of necessity or in search of better opportunities for themselves and their families, leisure travelers are also part of this scape. The World Tourism Organization, a specialized branch of the United Nations, argues that tourism is one of the fastest growing commercial sectors and that approximately one in eleven jobs is related to tourism in some way. [8] Tourism typically puts people from developed parts of the world in contact with people in the developing world, which creates both opportunities and challenges for all involved. While there is the potential for tourists to be positively affected by their experiences with “the Other” while travelling, the tourism industry has also received its share of criticisms. Individuals from wealthier countries like the U.S., even if they are not wealthy themselves by the standards of the United States, are able to indulge in luxuries while traveling abroad in poorer nations like those found in the Caribbean. There is a fine line between a) tourists expecting service while on vacation and b) tourists treating local people like servants . This latter scenario exemplifies the unequal power relationships that develop in these kinds of situations, and such power relationships concern responsible social scientists. [9]

Technoscape refers to flows of technology. Apple’s iPhone is just one example of how the movement of technologies across boundaries can radically affect day-to-day life for people all along the commodity chain. Sales records are surpassed with each release of a new iPhone, with lines of customers spilling out of Apple stores and snaking around the block. Demand for this new product drives a fast and furious pace of production. Workers who are struggling to keep up with demand are subjected to labor conditions most iPhone users would find abhorrent; some even commit   suicide as a result . The revenue associated with the production and export of technological goods is drastically altering the international distribution of wealth. As the pace of technological innovation increases, so does the flow of technology. This is not, of course, an entirely new phenomenon; earlier technologies have also drastically and irrevocably changed the human experience. For example, the large-scale production and distribution of the printing press throughout Europe (and beyond) dramatically changed the ways in which people thought of themselves—as members not only of local communities, but of national communities as well. [10]

Ideoscape refers to the flow of ideas. This can be small-scale, such as an individual posting her or his personal views on Facebook for public consumption, or it can be larger and more systematic. Missionaries provide a key example. Christian missionaries to the Amazon region made it their explicit goal to spread their religious doctrines. As the experiences of missionary-turned-anthropologist Daniel Everett show, however, local people do not necessarily interpret the ideas they are brought in the way missionaries expect. [11] In addition to the fact that all people have agency to accept, reject, or adapt the ideologies that are introduced to or imposed on them (see syncretism below). The structure of the language spoken by the Pirahã makes it difficult to provide direct translations of the gospel. [12]

Financescape refers to the flow of money across political borders. Like the other flows discussed by Appadurai, this phenomenon has been occurring for centuries. The Spanish, for example, conscripted indigenous laborers to mine the silver veins of the Potosí mines of Bolivia. The vast riches extracted from this region were used to pay Spain’s debts in northern Europe. The pace of the global transfer of money has only accelerated and today transactions in the New York Stock Exchange, the Nikkei index, and other such finance hubs have nearly immediate effects on economies around the world.

Mediascape refers to the flow of media across borders. In earlier historic periods, it could take weeks or even months for entertainment and education content to travel from one location to another. From the telegraph to the telephone, and now the Internet (and myriad other digital communication technologies), media are far more easily and rapidly shared regardless of geographic borders. For example, Brazilian telenovelas may provide entertainment on long-distance African bus trips, Bollywood films are shown in Canadian cinemas, and people from around the world regularly watch mega-events such as the World Cup and the Olympics from wherever they may live.

While the five scapes defined by Appadurai provide useful tools for thinking about these various forms of circulation, disentangling them in this way can also be misleading. Ultimately, the phenomena studied by most anthropologists will involve more than one of these scapes. Take clothing for instance. Kelsey Timmerman, an author whose undergraduate concentration was in anthropology, was inspired to find out more about the lives of the people who made his clothing. [13] In a single day, he found, the average American might be wearing clothes made in Honduras, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and China. Something as seemingly simple as a T-shirt can actually involve all five of Appadurai’s scapes. The transnational corporations responsible for the production of these shirts themselves are part of capitalism, an idea which has become part of the international ideoscape. The financescape is altered by a company in the U.S. contracting a production facility in another country where labor costs are cheaper. The equipment needed to create these T-shirts is purchased and delivered to the production facility, thus altering the technoscape. The ethnoscape is affected by individuals migrating from their homes in rural villages to city centers, often disrupting traditional residence patterns in the process. Finally, the mediascape is involved in the marketing of these T-shirts.

SELECTIVE IMPORTATION AND ADAPTATION

Glocalization.

Globalization most certainly changes the landscape of contemporary social life (see our discussion of Appadurai above). Yet it would be a mistake to think of globalization as a state that emerges without human agency. In most cases, people make decisions regarding whether or not they want to adopt a new product or idea that has been made available to them via globalization. They also have the ability to determine the ways in which that product or idea will be used, including many far different from what was originally intended. A cast-off Boy Scout uniform, for example, may be adopted by a Maasai village leader as a symbol of his authority when dealing with Tanzanian government officials. [14]

First emerging in the late 1980s, the term glocalization refers to the adaptation of global ideas into locally palatable forms. [15] In some instances, this may be done as a profit-generating scheme by transnational corporations. For example, McDonald’s offers vastly different menu items in different countries. While a Big Mac may be the American favorite, when in India you might try a McAloo Tikki (a breadcrumb-coated potato and pea patty), in Hong Kong mixed veggies and egg  mini twisty pasta in a chicken broth for breakfast, in Thailand corn pies or pineapple pies , or a Steak Mince ‘N’ Cheese pie in New Zealand. In other cases, people rather than corporations find innovative ways to adopt and adapt foreign ideas. The Zapotec of Oaxaca, Mexico, for example, have found a way to adapt globally available consumer goods to fit their longstanding cultural traditions. Traditionally, when a member of the community dies, that individual’s relatives have an obligation to ease his or her passing to the afterlife. One part of this obligation is making an extraordinary number of tamales for the mourners who come to pay their respects at the home altar that has been erected for the deceased. These tamales are intended to be taken home and were once shared in traditional earthen containers. Rather than disrupting this tradition, the introduction of modern consumer goods like Tupperware has made the old tradition of sharing food easier. [16] In this case, Zapotec culture is not threatened by the introduction of foreign goods and ideas because the community incorporates new things into their pre-existing practices without completely trading old ideas for new ones. Practices like these provide evidence that fears about globalization leading to nothing but cultural homogenization may be exaggerations. Yet, other communities refuse these products precisely because they equate modernization and globalization with culture loss. For example, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Dr. Rigoberta Menchu recounts how adamantly the Maya elders where she was raised warned the youth away from consuming Coca-Cola or even using modern corn mills rather than the traditional mano and metate. [17]

Case  Study: Both Global and Local –Salsa Dancing Around the World

While there are a variety of texts regarding the histories of salsa music and dancing, as it exists today the salsa scene is inseparable from the five flows of globalization described above. [18] Take for instance the vast number of salsa “congresses” and festivals held worldwide throughout the year. People from near and far travel to these events as dance students, social participants, performers, and instructors (the ethnoscape ). Travel to and from these events, often internationally, depends on modern transportation (the technoscape ). What is being taught, shared, and communicated at these events is, primarily ideas about different dancing style and techniques (the ideoscape ). In addition to the costs of gas/parking/airfare or the like, registration, hotel rooms, lessons, DJs/bands, and other services are all available because they are being paid for (the financescape ). Finally, these events could not exist as they do today without online advertising (see Figure 1 for an example), workshop and performance schedules, and event registration, let alone video-clips of the featured teachers and performers (the mediascape ). Indeed, the very fact that dancers can come from disparate locations and all successfully dance with each other—even in the absence of a common spoken language—testifies to the globalization involved in such dance forms today. [19]

The widely shared patterning of movement to music in this dance genre does not, however, negate the very real differences between local iterations. Featured in the very title of ethnomusicologist Sydney Hutchinson’s recent edited volume, Salsa World: A Global Dance in Local Contexts , real differences between local contexts, practices, and meanings are shown in chapters dedicated to the salsa scenes in New York, New Jersey, Los Angeles, rural America, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Colombia (Cali), Dominican Republic (Santo Domingo), France, Spain (Barcelona), and Japan. [20] Learning to dance at family gatherings is different from learning in a studio. Learning to dance to music that plays in every building on the street is different from learning in a setting with entirely different local instruments. Learning to dance is different when everyone comes from the same general socioeconomic and ethnic background compared to learning in extremely heterogeneous urban settings. This set of comparisons could continue for quite some time. The point is that even global forms take on local shapes. [21]

Lifestyle, Taste, and Conspicuous Consumption

While some aspects of globalization are best studied at the societal level, others are best examined at smaller scales such as the trends visible within specific socio-economic strata or even at the level of individual decision-making. The concept of “lifestyle” refers to the creative, reflexive, and sometimes even ironic ways in which individuals perform various social identities (see the Performance chapter in this volume). Sociologist David Chaney describes lifestyles as “characteristic modes of social engagement, or narratives of identity, in which the actions concerned can embed the metaphors at hand.” [22] The lifestyles we live and portray, then, can be seen as reflexive projects (see the Fieldwork chapter for more information about reflexivity) in the sense that they display both to ourselves and to our audiences who we think we are, who we want to be, and who we want to be seen to be.

Chaney argues that people only feel the need to differentiate themselves when confronted with an array of available styles of living. [23] Societies organized via organic solidarity (versus mechanical) are predicated on different goods, skills, and tasks. Within this framework, the rise of a consumerist economy enables individuals to exhibit their identities through the purchase and conspicuous use of various goods. [24] Globalization has increased the variety of goods available for individuals to purchase—as well as people’s awareness of these products—thus expanding the range of identities that can be performed through their consumption habits (see the Gender and Sexuality chapter for more on performance of identity). In some situations, identity is an individual project, with conspicuous consumption used to display one’s sense of self. For example, a student who feels alienated by the conservative, “preppy,” students at her East Coast school can cultivate an alternative identity by growing dreadlocks, wearing Bob Marley T-shirts, and practicing djembe drumming, all of which are associated with the African diaspora outside the United States.

Critics have argued that a consequence of globalization is the homogenization of culture. Along similar lines, some have worried that the rapid expansion of the leisure market would decrease the diversity of cultural products (e.g. books, movies) consumed by the populace. The disappearance of small-scale shops and restaurants has certainly been an outcome of the rise of global conglomerates, but the homogenization of culture is not a foregone conclusion. [25] Globalization enables individuals in far-flung corners of the world to encounter new ideas, commodities, belief systems, and voluntary groups to which they might choose to belong. At times these are at the expense of existing options, but it is also important to acknowledge that people make choices and can select the options or opportunities that most resonate with them. The concept of lifestyle thus highlights the degree of decision-making available to individual actors who can pick and choose from global commodities, ideas, and activities. At the same time as individual choices are involved, the decisions made and the assemblages selected are far from random. Participating in a lifestyle implies knowledge about consumption; knowing how to distinguish between goods is a form of symbolic capital that further enhances the standing of the individual. [26]

How much free will, freedom of choice, or autonomy an individual actually has is an age-old question far beyond the scope of this chapter, but in many cases a person’s consumption patterns are actually a reflection of the social class in which she or he was raised—even when an individual thinks he or she is selectively adopting elements from global flows that fit with his or her unique identity. In other words, an individual’s “taste” is actually an outgrowth of his or her habitus , the embodied dispositions that arise from one’s enculturation in a specific social setting. [27] Habitus results in a feeling of ease within specific settings. For example, children who have been raised in upper-class homes are able to more seamlessly integrate into elite boarding schools than classmates on scholarships who might find norms of dining, dress, and overall comportment to be unfamiliar. [28] Habitus, the generative grammar for social action, generates tastes and, by extension, lifestyles. [29]

Recall the vignette that opened this chapter. The fact that the students of this prestigious liberal arts college are in the position to critique the ethical implications of specific recipes suggests that their life experiences are far different from the roughly one in seven households (totaling 17.5 million households) in the United States with low or very low food security. [30] Inevitably then, what people choose to consume from global offerings—and the discourses they generate around those consumption choices—are often indicative of their social status. Once a commodity becomes part of these global flows, it is theoretically available to all people regardless of where they live. In actual practice, however, there are additional gatekeeping devices that ensure continued differentiation between social classes. Price will prevent many people from enjoying globally traded goods. While a Coca-Cola may seem commonplace to the average college student in the U.S., it is considered a luxury good in other parts of the world. Likewise, although Kobe steaks (which come from the Japanese wagyu cattle) are available in the U.S., it is a relatively small subgroup of Americans who would be able and willing to spend hundreds of dollars for a serving of meat. Having the knowledge necessary to discern between different goods and then utilize them according to socially prescribed norms is another mark of distinction between social classes, as anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu’s work on taste made clear. [31]

GLOBALIZATION IN EVERYDAY LIFE

Although some within the discipline argue that anthropologists should report objectively on the cultures and social phenomena they study, given the structure of the discourse surrounding globalization, it is increasingly difficult to avoid being pigeonholed as “pro” or “anti” globalization. In truth though, globalization has had both positive and negative impacts.

Advantages of the Intensification of Globalization

As optimists, we will start with the “glass-half-full” interpretation of globalization. Political Scientist Manfred Steger has argued that “humane forms of globalization” have the potential to help us deal with some of the most pressing issues of our time, like rectifying the staggering inequalities between rich and poor or promoting conservation. [32] The mediascape has made people in the Global North increasingly aware of the social injustices happening in other parts of the world. In his book on the global garment industry, Kelsey Timmerman highlights the efforts undertaken by activists in the U.S., ranging from public demonstrations decrying the fur industry to boycotts of products produced in socially unsustainable ways. [33] While many of these efforts fall short of their intended outcome—and typically overlook the complexities of labor situations in the Global South where families often rely upon the labor of their children to make ends meet—such examples nonetheless underscore the connections people in one location now feel with others (who they will likely never meet) through the commodity chains that link them.

Globalization has also facilitated the rise of solidarity movements that would not have been likely in an earlier era. To take a recent example, within hours of the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, individuals from different nations and walks of life had changed their Facebook profile pictures to include the image of the French flag. This movement was criticized because of its Eurocentrism; the victims of a bombing in Beirut just the day before received far less international support than did the French victims. Shortcomings aside, it still stands as a testament to how quickly solidarity movements can gain momentum thanks to technological innovations like social media.

Micro-loan programs and crowd-source fundraising are yet more ways in which individuals from disparate circumstances are becoming linked in the global era. Kiva, for example, is a microfinance organization that enables anyone with an Internet connection to make a small ($25) donation to an individual or cooperative in various parts of the developing world. The projects for which individuals/groups are seeking funding are described on the Kiva website and donors choose one or more specific projects to support. The recipient must then repay the loan to Kiva with interest.

Crowd-source fundraising follows a similar principle, though without the requirement that money be paid back to the donors. One small-scale example involves funds gathered in this way for a faculty led applied visual research class in Dangriga, Belize in 2014. By generating a small pool of additional funding, 100 percent of the students’ project fees could be dedicated to producing materials for local community partners (compared to other groups, who used some of these fees for student lunches or other items). As a result, the team was able to over-deliver on what had been promised to the community. The Sabal Cassava Farm (Belize’s sole commercial cassava farm) had requested a new road sign as well as full-color marketing flyers. The Austin Rodriguez Drum Shop—a cultural resource center, and producer of traditional Garifuna drums—had wanted help updating their educational poster (see Figure 2a and 2b). For both groups the team was able to a) provide digital frames with all the research images (so that the local community partners had something “in hand” and could use as they wanted; b) use higher grade production materials, and c) start work on large-format, coffee-table style documents to be provided to each family and  also copies  to be donated to the local Gulisi Garifuna Museum.

Advances in transportation technologies, combined with an increased awareness of humanitarian crises abroad (an awareness that is largely facilitated by advances in communication technologies) also create new ethnoscapes. Programs like the Peace Corps have a relatively long history of sending Westerners into foreign nations to assist with humanitarian efforts on a regular basis. Other volunteers are mobilized in times of crisis. Medical professionals may volunteer their services during a disease epidemic, flocking to the regions others are trying to flee. Engineers may volunteer their time to help rebuild cities in the wake of natural disasters. And even lay people without a specialized skill set may lend their energy to helping others in the aftermath of a disaster, or by collecting and/or donating goods to be used in various relief efforts. In 2010, a devastating, 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, affecting an estimated three million people. Thanks to widespread coverage of the crisis, the international response was immediate and intense with more than twenty countries contributing resources and personnel to assist in the recovery efforts.  Clearly, then, there are also benefits facilitated by globalization.  

Disadvantages of the Intensification of Globalization

In the previous section, we concluded by noting how the intensification of globalization can bring benefits to people in times of crisis. Yet it bears remembering and reiterating that sometimes such crises are themselves brought about by globalization. The decimation of indigenous tribes in the Americas, who had little to no resistance to the diseases carried by European explorers and settlers, is but one early example of this. Such changes to the world’s ethnoscapes may also be accompanied by changes to local health. As epidemic after epidemic wreaked havoc on the indigenous peoples of the Americas, death rates in some tribes reached as high as 95 percent. Addressing a current instance, the research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) coordinated by the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, has called attention to the role of human-caused climate change in creating the current Syrian refugee crisis (see case study by Laurie King below). [34]

Similarly, a current example of how globalization can spell disaster from a public health standpoint would be the concern in 2014 about infected airplane passengers bringing the Ebola virus from Africa to the U.S. In March 2014, the country of Guinea experienced an outbreak of the Ebola virus. From there, it spread into many countries in the western part of Africa. Medical professionals from the U.S. traveled to West Africa to assist with patient care. In October 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed that a man who traveled from Liberia to the U.S. while asymptomatic became ill several days after reaching the U.S. and eventually succumbed to the disease. Several health workers in the U.S. also became ill with the virus, but were successfully treated. In response to this outbreak, the CDC increased screening efforts at the major ports of entry to the U.S. [35] However, these precautions did not quell the fears of many Americans who heatedly debated the possibility of instituting travel bans to and from countries with confirmed cases of Ebola.

The debates about travel bans to and from West Africa were a reminder of the xenophobic attitudes held by many Americans even in this age of globalization. There are many reasons for this. Racial prejudice is still very much a reality in today’s world (see the Race and Ethnicity chapter) as is prejudice against other religions, non-normative gender identity, the differently abled, and others. In some ways, these fears have been heightened by globalization rather than diminished. Especially after the global recession of 2008, some nation-states have become fearful for their economic security and have found it easy to use marginalized populations as scapegoats. While advances in communication technology have enabled social justice focused solidarity movements (as discussed above), unfortunately the same media have been used as a platform for hate-mongering by others. Social media enables those who had previously only been schoolyard bullies to broadcast their taunts further than ever before. Terrorists post videos of unspeakable violence online and individuals whose hateful attitudes might have been curbed through the informal sanctions of gossip and marginalization in a smaller-scale society can now find communities of like-minded bigots in online chat rooms. By foregrounding the importance of the hypothetical “average” person, populist politics has engaged in scapegoating of minority ethnic and religious groups. This has been most apparent in the successful campaigns for the British Brexit vote on June 23, 2016 and the election of Donald Trump as President in the United States.

A portmanteau of “British” and “exit,” Brexit refers to the vote to leave the European Union. (Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, the European Union is an economic and political union of 28 nation-states founded on November 1, 1993 in Maastricht, Netherlands.) Both this and the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the U.S. represent backlash against some of the inequities generated by globalization. At the world scale, the Global North continues to extract wealth from the Global South. More tellingly though is the widening wealth-gap even in “rich” countries. Without sufficient social protection, capitalism—a system wherein profit motivates political and economic decision making—has led to a situation in which the world’s eight richest men (note the gendering) now control as much wealth as the bottom 50 percent of the entire world’s population. In other words, eight men now have just as much money as 3.75 billion people combined and no nation in the world has a larger wealth-gap (the difference between those with the most and the least in a society) than the United States. So, while globalization has facilitated advantages for some, more and more people are being left behind. Social scientists often use the term “re-entrenchment” to describe efforts people make to reassert their traditional values and ways of life. While this impulse is understandable, many of these people are susceptible to the rhetoric of scapegoating: being told some other group is at fault for the problems they are facing. This is the double-edged sword of globalization. Additionally, in some cases globalization is forced on already marginal populations in peripheral nations through institutions like the IMF and World Bank. In these instances, globalization facilitates and amplifies the reach and impact of neoliberalism , a multi-faceted political and economic philosophy that emphasizes privatization and unregulated markets (see below).

GLOBALIZATION AND NEOLIBERALISM

Latin America provides a good example of how the shift from colonialism to neoliberalism has been disseminated through and exacerbated by globalization. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Latin American colonies’ independence from Spain and Portugal was secure, but the relations of power that prevailed during the colonial period had largely been replicated with local elites controlling the means of production. During this period, citizens individually and collectively endeavored to establish a new national identity. Despite nominal commitments to democracy throughout the region, patron/client relationships functioned as the primary political mechanism. Internal divisions ran deep in many Latin American countries, with the supporters (or clients) of rival elites periodically drawn into violent contests for rule on behalf of their patrons. In the last decade of the 1800s and the first decade of the 1900s, people in Latin America began to question the right of the elites to rule, as well as the hidden costs of modernization. Peasant uprisings, like the one that took place at Canudus in Brazil in 1896, were evidence of the shifting political framework. People also saw the imperialistic tendencies of the U.S. as a negative force of modernization which they hoped to avoid. Together, this led to a situation in which people in Latin America sought a national identity that resonated with their sense of self.

During this same period there was a slight but significant change in the economic structure of the region. The economy was still based on exports of agriculture and natural resources like minerals, and the profits remained in the hands of the elite. What was new, however, was the introduction and modest growth of manufacturing in the cities, which created new job opportunities. Economic diversification led to a more complex class structure and an emerging middle class. Unfortunately, this period of relative prosperity and stability soon ended. Because of the plentiful natural resources and the captive labor source “available” for exploitation in Latin America, wealthy landowners were able to undersell their European competitors on agricultural products and provide “exotic” minerals. The privileged position of Latin American landowner compared to European farmers led to widespread poverty among farmers in Europe, which led to out-migration and political instability in Europe. As locally born Latin American peasants migrated from the countryside to the cities and the cities filled with European immigrants, the landowning elite began to lose control, or at least the kind of power they used to hold over the farmers who worked their land and had no other work options.

While city living provided certain opportunities, it also introduced new challenges. In the city, for instance, people rarely had access to land for subsistence agriculture. This made them far more vulnerable to economic fluctuations, and the vulnerability of city living necessitated the adoption of new political philosophies. Urban poverty and desperation created a climate in which many people found socialist philosophies appealing, starting as early as the 1920s in some places like Brazil. Initially, union leaders and European immigrants who spread socialist ideas among the urban poor were punished by the state and often deported. Eventually such repressive tactics proved insufficient to curtail the swelling disruptions caused by strikes and related actions by the unions. Faced with a new political reality, the elite co-opted the public rhetoric of the urban masses. Realizing the need to cast themselves as allies to the urban workforce, the elites ushered in a period of modest reform with more protection for workers.

During this period, and as an extension of their work-related activism, the middle class also clamored for expansions of the social services provided by the state. Pressure from the middle class for more social services for citizens unfortunately played into growing  xenophobia (fear of foreigners) resulting from the immigration of so many foreigners and faulty ideas about racial superiority communicated through a growing discourse of nationalism. In some places, the elites aligned with the middle classes if they saw it as politically advantageous. In other places, however, elites resisted incorporating the middle classes into the ruling structure and the elites’ power ultimately was wrested away though military coups. While emerging leaders from the middle class continued relying on the export economic model, they directed a greater percentage of the profits back into social programs. Only after the stock market crash of the 1930s—and the resulting global recession—did those in power start to question the export model.

In the early part of the 1900s, Latin American countries largely supported free trade because they believed they had a competitive advantage. They believed that by producing the products their country/region was best suited to produce they would prosper on the world market. However, changing world circumstances meant that Latin American countries soon lost their advantage; average family size in industrialized countries began to decrease, lowering demand for Latin American commodities. When other countries with similar climates and topography began to grow the same crops, a global oversupply of agricultural products led to lower prices and worsened the decline of Latin America’s financial status in the world market.

This economic downturn was amplified by the loss of British hegemony after World War II. Before the war, Great Britain and Latin America had enjoyed a stable exchange relationship with Latin America sending agricultural goods to Great Britain and the British sending manufactured goods to Latin America. As the U.S. rose in global power, Americans looked to Latin America as a new market for U.S.  manufactured goods. In contrast to Great Britain though, the U.S. did not need to import Latin American agricultural goods because the U.S. produced enough of its own, production that was further protected by high import tariffs. Even if a consumer wanted to buy Latin American commodities, the commodities would be more expensive than domestic ones—even if actual costs were lower.  Overall, Latin America sold its agricultural goods to Europe, including Great Britain, but Latin American exporters had to accept lower prices than ever before.

The United States’ economic strategy toward Latin America was different than Great Britain’s had been. For those commodities that could not be produced in the U.S., like bananas, U.S. companies went to Latin America so they could directly control the means of production. Although these commodities were grown and/or produced in Latin America, the profits were taken by foreign companies rather than local ones. This same process also happened with mining interests like tin and copper; U.S. companies purchased the mines in order to extract as much profit as possible. American companies were in a position to exploit the natural resources of these countries because the U.S. had the financial capital local communities lacked and the technological expertise needed to sustain these industries. This pattern curtailed the rate of economic growth throughout Latin America as well as in other regions where similar patterns developed.

The late 1920s through the 1950s saw many Latin American countries turning to nationalism—often through force—as both a cultural movement and an economic strategy. The middle classes were in a favor of curtailing the export economy that had been preferred by the elites, but did not have the political clout to win elections. Indeed, their agenda was regularly blocked by the elites who used their influence (i.e. with their clients) to press their interests, especially in the rural areas. With time, however, middle class men increasingly came to occupy military officer positions and used their newfound authority to put nationalist leaders in the presidencies. Nationalists argued that an over-dependence on agriculture had led to Latin America’s vulnerable position in the international economy and called for a build-up of industry. They hoped to start producing the goods that they had been importing from the U.S. and Europe. Their goal: industrial self-sufficiency.

The state was instrumental in this economic reorganization, both helping people buy local goods and discouraging them from buying foreign goods. Doing this was far from as easy as it may sound. The state imposed high duties on goods destined for the export market in order to entice producers to sell their goods at home. At the same time, the state imposed high tariffs on the imports they wanted to replace with local products. With time (and struggle) these measures had their intended effects, making the locally produced goods comparatively more affordable—and therefore appealing—to local consumers.

As already noted, developing factories required capital and technological expertise from abroad, which in turn made the goods produced much more expensive. To help people afford such expensive goods, the state printed more money, generating massive inflation. (In some places this inflation would eventually reach 2,000 percent!) The combination of chronic inflation with high foreign debt emerged as an enduring problem in Latin America and other parts of the Global South. Countries crippled by high inflation and debt have turned to international institutions like the IMF and WB for relief and while the intentions may be good, borrowing money from these global institutions always comes with strings attached. When a country accepts a loan from the IMF or the WB, for instance, they must agree to a number of conditions such as privatizing state enterprises (see the case study on Bolivia’s water crisis, below) and cutting spending on social services like healthcare and education. Borrowing countries are also required to adopt a number of policies intended to encourage free trade, such as the reduction or elimination of tariffs on imported goods and subsidies for domestically produced goods. Policies are put into place to encourage foreign investment. Transnational corporations have now reached the point that many of them rival nations in terms of revenue. In fact, as of 2009, “forty-four of the world’s hundred largest economies are corporations.” [36] It is an understatement to note that the policies forced on countries by lenders are often disruptive—if not entirely destructive—of locally preferred lifeways and preferences. Although the IMF and WB measures are intended to spark economic growth, the populace often winds up suffering in the wake of these changes. Colonialism has given way to a neocolonialism in which economic force achieves what used to require military force with transnational corporations benefiting from the exploitation of poorer nations.

Case Study: Privatization and Bolivia’s Water Crisis

In 2000, Bolivians in the city of Cochabamba took to the streets to protest the exploitative practices of a transnational company that had won the right to provide water services in the city. [37] Anti-globalization activists celebrated this victory of mostly poor mestizo and indigenous people over capitalist giants, but the situation on the ground today is more complicated.

Water is one of the most essential elements on this planet. So how is it that a foreign company was given the right to determine who would have access to Bolivian water supplies and what the water would cost? The answer serves to highlight the fact that many former colonies like Bolivia have existed in a perpetual state of subordination to global superpowers. When Bolivia was a colony, Spain claimed the silver and other precious commodities that could be extracted from Bolivia’s landscape, but after Bolivia became independent structural adjustment policies mandated by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank paved the way for foreign companies to plunder the country’s natural resources. In other words, colonial style relationships have been replicated in a global system that forces impoverished countries to sell resources to satisfy creditors; “resource extraction is facilitated by debt relations.” [38]

Like many countries in the Global South, Bolivia is deep in debt. A failed program of social reforms, coupled with government corruption, was worsened by a severe drought affecting Bolivian agriculture. In order to pay its debts in the 1980s, Bolivia agreed to structural adjustments mandated by the conditions of the country’s World Bank and International Monetary Fund loans. One of the mandates of these loans was privatization of state-run enterprises like the water system. Proponents of privatizing such resources argue that the efficiency associated with for-profit businesses will also serve to conserve precious natural resources. Some have gone so far as to suggest that increases in water prices would help customers better grasp the preciousness of water and thereby encourage conservation. Of course, if customers conserve water too much the company managing water delivery will fail to make a profit, thus initiating a dangerous cycle. When companies anticipate that they will not see a return on their investment in infrastructure, they simply refuse to extend services to certain areas of the community.

What made the privatization of water in Bolivia so disastrous for the people of urban areas like Cochabamba was the rapid population growth they experienced starting in the latter half of the twentieth century (growth that continues in the present). Population pressures layered on top of the scarcity of water in the Bolivian natural environment makes access to potable water a perennial concern. Migration to urban areas was hastened by many different factors including land reform, privatization of mines and resultant layoffs, and severe droughts. This influx of migrants put pressure on urban infrastructure. To make matters worse, climate change led to a decline in the amount of surface water available. In 2015, Lake Poopó, the second largest lake in Bolivia, went dry and researchers are doubtful it will ever fully recover (see Figure 3). [39]

In Cochabamba, organizing began in late 1999. Community members formed an organization called Coordinator for the Defense of Water and for Life, which was run using a direct form of democracy wherein everyone had an equal voice. This was empowering for peasants who were accustomed to being silenced and ignored in a centuries-old social hierarchy. This organization, in contrast, coordinated actions that cut across ethnic and class lines. As the situation came to a head, activists blockaded the roads in and out of the city and riot police were brought in from the capital. After several days of confrontations between the people and the military, local activists ousted the transnational company and reclaimed their water source.

Despite local’s reclaiming control, however, they still lacked the infrastructure needed to effectively deliver what was once again “their” water. This forced them to look to international donors for assistance, which could recreate the very situation against which they so recently fought. Access to increasingly scarce water supplies is a growing problem. For example, plans to seize surface water from lakes creates conflicts with rural peasants who depend on these water sources for agricultural purposes.  Unfortunately, such problems have emerged in many other places as well (such as throughout Africa and the Middle East), and are increasing in prevalence and severity amidst ongoing climate change. The question of whether or not water is a human right remains one that is heatedly debated by activists, CEOs, and others. (See a discussion of the position taken by Nestlé Chairman Peter Brabeck, who argues for the privatization of water, a position clearly at odds with the position taken by the United Nations General Assembly which, in 2010, recognized water and sanitation as human rights .)

RESPONSES TO GLOBALIZATION

Cultures are dynamic and respond to changes in both the social and physical environments in which they are embedded. While culture provides a template for action, people are also active agents who respond to challenges and opportunities in a variety of ways, some of which may be quite creative and novel. As such, it would be inaccurate to only see globalization as an impersonal force dictating the lives of people in their various localities. Rather, people regularly use a variety of strategies in responding to global forces. While a comprehensive catalog of these strategies is beyond the scope of this chapter, here we outline two key responses.  

  Syncretism refers to the combination of different beliefs—even those that are seemingly contradictory—into a new, harmonious whole. Though syncretism arises for a variety of reasons, in many cases it is as a response to globalization. In this section, we use the example of Candomblé as a way of demonstrating that syncretism is a form of agency used by people living under oppression.

Most often, anthropologists discuss syncretism within the context of religion. Anthropologists define religion as the cultural knowledge of the spiritual realm that humans use to cope with the ultimate problems of human existence (see the Religion chapter). Candomblé is an Afro-Brazilian spirit-possession religion, in which initiates serve as conduits between the human and supernatural realm. It is also an excellent example of a syncretic religion. The many gods in Candomblé, known as orixás , are personified: they all have personalities; experience the full range of human emotions like love, hatred, jealousy, and anger; and have individual histories that are known to practitioners. Each orixá is associated with a particular color, and practitioners of the religion often wear bead necklaces that correspond to the specific deity with whom they feel a connection (see Figure 4). Unlike Christianity (a monotheistic religion), Candomblé does not stress the duality of good and evil (or heaven and hell). Although on the surface these two religious traditions may seem very different, in actual practice, many adherents of Candomblé also identify as Christians, specifically Catholics. So how can this be?

Much like the orixás, Catholic saints are personified and have unique roles within the Catholic tradition. This feature of Catholicism—more so than any other major Christian denomination—facilitated a fairly seamless overlay with orixá worship. For example, Iemanja , the orixá who rules over the seas and is associated with fertility, is syncretized with Our Lady of Conception. Ogum , whose domain is war and whose ritual implements are the sword and shield, is syncretized with Saint Anthony.

Just to be clear, syncretism is in no way unique to Brazil or the African Diaspora; it frequently occurs when one group is confronted with and influenced by another (and typically one with more power). The reason syncretism is particularly common within Latin American religious systems is due to 1) the tenacity with which African slaves clung to their traditional beliefs; 2) the fervor of the Spanish and Portuguese belief that slaves should receive instruction in Catholicism, and 3) the realities of colonial life in which religious instruction for slaves was haphazard at best. This created the perfect climate within which African slaves could hide their traditional religious practices in plain sight.

Syncretism serves as a response to globalization insofar as it mediates overlapping frameworks. It would be unnecessary if people lived in a world where boundaries were clearly defined with no ideological exchanges taking place across those boundaries (if such a world ever existed). Since that is far from the lived reality for most people though, syncretism often serves as what James C. Scott categorizes as a “weapon of the weak” – a concept referring to the ways in which marginalized peoples can resist without directly challenging their oppressors (which could incite retaliation). [40] Examples might include mocking the elite behind their backs, subtle subversion, sabotage, or participation in alternative economies that bypass the elite. In the classroom, it can be rolling one’s eyes behind the professor’s back, or thinking that you are “getting away with something” when texting in class. So too in the case of Candomblé. Syncretism allowed the slaves and their descendants, who continue the tradition today, to create a façade of compliance with mandated worship within the Catholic tradition, while still continuing to pay homage to their own beliefs—and thus perpetuate their own ethnic identity—behind closed doors.  

Participation in Alternative Markets

  As discussed earlier, structural adjustments mandated by international bodies like the IMF and WB have left farmers in developing nations particularly vulnerable to the whims of global markets. Within this framework, “fair trade” has emerged as a way for socially-conscious consumers to support small farmers and artisans who have been affected by these policies. To be certified as fair trade, vendors must agree to a “fair” price, which will be adjusted upwards if the world market price rises above the fair trade threshold. If the world market price drops, fair trade farmers still make a decent living, which allows them to continue farming rather than abandon their fields for wage labor. While admirable in its intent, and unassailably beneficial to many, anthropological research reminds us that every situation is complex and that there is never a “one size fits all” perfect solution.

As you read about in the Fieldwork chapter, and have seen demonstrated throughout this text, anthropologists focus on the lived experience of people closest to the phenomenon they are studying. In the case of fair trade, then, anthropologists focus primarily on the farmers or artisans (although an anthropologist could also study the consumers or people who import fair trade goods or facilitate their sale). Looked at from farmers’ perspectives, setting and maintaining fair wages for commodities like coffee or bananas ensures that farmers will not abandon farming when the world market prices drop. On the plus side, this helps ensure at least some stability for producers and consumers alike. One of the key features of fair trade is the social premium generated by fair trade contracts: the commitment that a certain percentage of the profit goes back into beneficial community projects such as education, infrastructure development, and healthcare. But, in order for this to be successful, it is the local community and not an outside entity (however well intentioned) that must get to decide how these premiums are used.

Although fair trade is very appealing, it bears remembering that not everyone benefits from fair trade in the same way. Individuals in leadership positions within fair trade cooperatives tend to have stronger relationships with the vendors than do average members, leading them to have more positive associations with the whole business of fair trade. [41] Similarly, people with more cultural and social capital will have more access to the benefits of fair trade. A cacao farmer with whom Lauren works in Belize, for example, pointed out that farmers with less education will always be taken advantage of by predatory traders, which is why they need the assistance of a well-structured growers’ association when entering the free trade market. Also of concern is that in some communities fair trade disrupts traditional roles and relationships. For example in a Maya village in Guatemala, traditional gender roles were compromised, with men becoming even more dominant because their commodity (coffee) had a fair trade market whereas the women’s main commodity (weaving) did not. [42]

In addition to the challenge of finding a market for one’s goods, there are additional barriers to becoming involved in fair trade. For example, it used to be that farmers could sell relatively low quality coffee to fair trade organizations interested in social justice. Now, however, fair trade coffee must be of exceptional quality to compete with specialty coffees. [43] In and of itself this is not a bad thing,  but remember that some of the elite coffee producers of today were once the low quality producers of old. In other words, the first generation of fair trade coffee farmers benefited from the many ways in which fair trade companies invested in their farms, their processing equipment, and their education  in a way that newer participants cannot replicate. Indeed, once these initial farmers achieved a high quality coffee bean, there was less incentive for fair trade vendors to invest in new farms. Now that the bar has been set so high, it is much more difficult for new farmers to break into the fair trade market because they lack the equipment, experience, knowledge, and networks of farmers who have more longstanding relationships with fair trade companies.

Also worth noting are the many situations in which global standards conflict with local norms of decision making. To be labeled as fair trade within the European Union banana market, for example, bananas must be of an exceptionally high quality. Banana farms must conform to a number of other guidelines such as avoiding pesticides and creating a buffer zone between the banana trees and water sources. While this all may make sense in theory, it can be problematic in practice, such as in parts of the Caribbean where land is customarily passed from one generation to the next without being subdivide into individual parcels. In these cases, decisions about land use have to be made collectively. If some of the landowners want to farm according to fair trade guidelines but other individuals refuse to meet these globally mandated standards, the whole family is blocked from entering the fair trade market. [44]

IMPLICATIONS FOR ANTHROPOLOGY

As has been argued throughout this text, culture is dynamic. So too is anthropology as the field of study dedicated to culture. Although many students of anthropology (let alone the public at large) may have romantic visions of the lone ethnographer immersing her or himself in the rich community life of a rural village in a remote land, this is not the reality for most anthropologists today. An increasing number of anthropologists find themselves working in applied settings (see the Seeing Like an Anthropologist chapter), but even many of the more strictly identified “academic” anthropologists—those employed at colleges and universities—have begun working in settings that might well be familiar to the average person. Now that anthropologists understand the importance of global flows of money, people, and ideas the importance of doing research everywhere that these issues play out—at home (wherever that may be)  as much as abroad—is clear.  

Urban Anthropology

Globalization has become a powerful buzzword in contemporary society and it would be difficult to find anyone who has not been affected by it in at least some small way. The widespread influence of globalization on daily life around the world—whether directly (such as through multinational businesses) or indirectly (such as via climate change)—raises a number of questions that anthropologists have begun to ask. For example, an anthropologist might investigate the effects of global policies on people in different regions of the world. Why is it that the monetary policies of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank typically result in rich countries getting richer and the poor countries getting poorer? In her book Beautiful Flowers of the Maquiladora (1997), for example, Norma Iglesias Prieto gives an up-close portrait of the lives of Mexican women working in factories in the infamous border zone of Tijuana. [45] Although the working conditions in these factories are dangerous and the women are subjected to invasive scrutiny by male supervisors, many of the women profiled in the book nonetheless appreciate the little luxuries afforded by their work. Others value the opportunity to support their household or gain a small degree of financial independence from the male figures in their life. Unable to offer any artificially flat answer concerning whether globalization has been “good” or “bad” for such individuals, anthropologists focus on the lived experience of the people most affected by these global forces. What is it like to live in such environments? How has it changed over time? What have been the costs and benefits?

Especially amidst the overlapping flows of people and ideas, questions concerning mobility, transnationalism, and identity have all become increasingly important to the field of anthropology. Although some exceptions exist (see quinoa case study below), the general trend is for globalization to result in urbanization. With neoliberalism comes the loss of state-funded programs and jobs, the unsustainability of small farms, and the need for economic alternatives that are most commonly found in urban areas. While anthropologists have long studied cities and urban life, the concentration of populations in urban centers has added increasing importance to anthropologies of the city/metropolis in recent years. [46] Indeed, the term urban anthropology came into use to describe experiences of living in cities and the relationships of city life to broader social, political, and economic contexts including issues of globalization, poverty, and neoliberalism. [47] The heightened focus on the city in global context has also heightened awareness of and attention to issues of transnationalism: the understanding that people’s lives may be lived and/or significantly influenced by events that cross the geopolitical borders of nation states. [48]

Case Study: Global Demand for Quinoa

When a group of people is afforded little status in a society, their food is often likewise denigrated. [49] Until recently, this held true for quinoa in Bolivian society, which was associated with indigenous peasants. [50]  Mirroring “first world” patterns from the U.S. and Europe, city dwellers preferred foods like pasta and wheat-based products. Conspicuous consumption of these products provided them with an opportunity to showcase their “sophisticated” choices and tastes. Not surprisingly, there was little local demand for quinoa in Bolivian markets. Further undercutting the appeal of producing quinoa, the Bolivian government’s adoption of neoliberal policies eliminated the meager financial protections available to peasant farmers. If that was not bad enough, a significant drought in the early 1980s spelled disaster for many small farmers in the southern Altiplano region of Bolivia. As a result of these overlapping and amplifying obstacles, many people moved to 1) cities, like La Paz; 2) nearby countries, like Chile, and even 3) to Europe.

The situation faced by Bolivian peasants is not unique. More than half of the world’s people currently live in cities. This is the result of widespread urbanization that began at the end of World War II and stretched into the 1990s. As a result, many peasants lost access to their traditional modes of subsistence. Although migration to the city can provide benefits like access to education, infrastructure, and wage-labor, it can also result in a loss of identity and many peasants who migrate into cities are forced to subsist on the margins in substandard conditions, especially as they most often arrive without the social and cultural capital necessary to succeed in this new environment.

Fortuitously for indigenous Bolivians, the structural adjustments adopted by their government coincided with foreigners’ growing interest in organic and health foods. Although it is often assumed that rural peasants only produce food for their own subsistence and for very local markets, this is not always the case. In some situations, peasants may bypass local markets entirely and export their commodities to places where they have more cultural capital, and hence financial value (see discussion of taste above). In the 1970s, the introduction of tractors to the region enabled farmers to cultivate quinoa in the lowlands in addition to the hillside terraces they had previously favored. In the 1980s, cooperative groups of farmers were able to find buyers in the Global North who were willing to import quinoa. These cooperatives researched the best ways to expand production and invested in machines to make the process more efficient. Now, quinoa is such a valuable commodity that many of those individuals who had previously abandoned the region are now returning to the Altiplano. Yet this is not a simple success story, especially because there are serious issues associated with the re-peasantization of the Bolivian countryside and with the fact that a healthy local crop has been removed from many people’s regular diets since it can be sold to the Global North.

Another serious issue raised by the reverse migration from the cities back to the Altiplano concerns environmental sustainability. It is easier to grow large quantities of quinoa in the flat lowlands than it is on the steep hillsides, but the lowland soil is much less conducive to its growth. The use of machinery has helped a great deal, but has also led to a decline in the use of llamas, which have a symbiotic relationship with quinoa. Farmers must now invest in fertilizer rather than using manure provided by their own animals. The global quinoa boom also raises questions about identity and communal decision-making. Conflict has arisen between families that stayed in the region and those that are returning from the cities. Pedro, a farmer who stayed in the region, says of the others “those people have returned – but as strangers.” [51] The two groups often clash in terms of what it means to respect the land and how money from this new cash crop should be used.

So has the international demand for quinoa been a good thing for rural Bolivian peasants? In some ways yes, but in other ways no.; on the whole, it may be too soon to know for sure.

Changes in How—and “Where”—We Conduct Research  

Globalization has changed not only what anthropologists research, but also how they approach those topics. Foregrounding the links between global processes and local settings, multi-sited ethnography examines specific topics and issues across different geographic field sites. [52] Multi-sited ethnography may be conducted when the subject of one’s study involve and/or impact multiple locations and can be best understood by accounting for those multiple geographic contexts. For example, in her study of yoga, Positioning Yoga: Balancing Acts Across Cultures , Sarah Strauss (2005) found that her study would be incomplete if she focused only on Indians studying yoga. To understand this transnational phenomenon,  she recognized the importance of also focusing on non-Indian practitioners of yoga who had gone to study yoga in its homeland. [53] Work such as that of Swedish anthropologist Ulf Hannerz, who studies  news media correspondents, highlights the ways that people can be on the move, creating a community of study that is both  multi-sited and multilocal. [54] Further work has expanded on these models, highlighting various translocal fieldsites: “locations” that cannot be geographically defined. Such models include calls for an activity-based anthropology (where it is the activity itself that is the “site” of the culture and/or the basis of the community) [55] and digital anthropology (where the field site exists online). [56]

Globalization in Application: The Syrian Situation Today (courtesy of Laurie King)

Syria today presents us with an apocalyptic landscape: major cities such as Homs have been reduced to rubble and anyone remaining there is starving. Since 2011, over 250,000 civilians have been killed by barrel bombs, shelling, internecine terrorist attacks, drone strikes, the use of chemical weapons, and Russian aerial assaults. Well-armed and well-funded Islamist militias control large swathes of the country and have, for all intents and purposes, erased the border between Syria and Iraq, thereby undoing the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement that established the new nation-states of the modern Middle East after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

The so-called Islamic State (IS/Da`esh) has destroyed world heritage sites such as Palmyra (Tadmur), ethnically cleansed non-Muslim towns, enslaved women, and flooded the global media with horrific images of beheadings, immolations, and mass executions.  Aleppo, a city of stunning architectural beauty with a rich multi-cultural heritage, is now damaged beyond repair and largely uninhabitable as the result of fighting between IS, Syrian regime forces, and a diverse but largely Islamist Syrian opposition.

Farming in the Syrian countryside has come to a virtual halt. Since 2003, Syrian agriculture had been suffering from a prolonged drought, pushing many rural families into urban centers such as Damascus and Aleppo. [57] In 2015, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (the “Doomsday Seed Vault”) in Norway was accessed for the first time to obtain seeds needed for crops to feed the Syrian population. [58] Meanwhile, as any glance at the evening news demonstrates, millions of refugees continue to flow out of the country, mostly through the Syrian-Turkish border, before making dangerous trips in unsafe boats to Greece, hoping to get their families to Europe and away from the hell-scape that their country has become.

Five years ago, no scholar of Syrian society and politics could have predicted the dire conditions Syria now faces. Given the Assad regime’s iron grip on all aspects of Syrian society since 1970, the dramatic transformations of the last five years were inconceivable at the beginning of 2011. The scapes and flows of globalization enumerated by Appadurai were largely absent from Syria over the last 40 years. The hardline Baathist regime of Hafez al-Assad, who came to power in 1970 through a bloodless coup, was profoundly insular and not open to the world – whether regionally or internationally – in the realms of finance and commerce. Never a major petroleum power, and not blessed with vast tracts of fertile land for farming, Syria’s economy centered largely on industry and commerce.

Up until the mid-1980s, Syria had a highly centralized economy that eschewed private ownership of industry or services. With the end of the Cold War (during which Syria had been a client state of the USSR), and the ensuing dramatic shifts in regional power dynamics – most notably the 1991 Iraq war, which saw the rout of Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait and the diminution of the Iraqi Baathist regime’s power—Syria emerged as a key regional player capable of leveraging concessions from other Arab states as well as the West. In exchange for joining the US-led coalition against Iraq, the United States and the international community raised no objections to Syria asserting direct and indirect control over its neighbor (and former mandatory province) Lebanon, where a series of interconnected civil, regional, and global wars had raged for fifteen years.

Syrian political and military control effectively put the Lebanese wars into a deep freeze between 1992 and 2005. While freedom of speech in Lebanon declined significantly under Syria’s tutelage, an unregulated market economy flourished, centering on the massive post-war reconstruction boom. The Syrian economic elite—largely co-terminous with the regime—benefited significantly from business deals in Lebanon, while thousands of Syrian workers flooded into Lebanon to do construction work on the new city center and infrastructural repairs. The influx of money from Lebanon strengthened and entrenched the patron-client ties between the Syrian regime (whose members were also relatives by blood or marriage) and a growing class of wealthy businessmen, who owed their wealth to the regime. As Bassam Haddad notes, the insularity of and corruption within the regime and big business blurred the line between private and public domains, while sharpening class divisions within Syria. [59] Any attempts to foster political reform, economic transparency, and international commerce were viewed suspiciously by Syria’s political, commercial, and military/intelligence elite.

In June 2000, Hafez Al-Assad died. His son Bashar, an ophthalmologist who had lived in London for many years, succeeded him. Local and international observers wondered if the new, foreign-educated young president would launch an era of economic reform and political decentralization. Bashar seemed keen to bring Syria into the Internet era, and his first years in power witnessed relatively free discussion of the need for economic and political reforms, heralded by the closing of the infamous Mezzeh prison, where many political prisoners had been tortured and killed. But power remained in the hands of the few in the upper reaches of the Baath party, some of whom did not know whether or not to trust Bashar, who lacked the steely reserve and unquestioned authority of his father.

Although Syria lacked the sort of material and financial capital enjoyed by its neighbors, such as the oil-rich Gulf states, it enjoyed the benefits of symbolic capital as the sole, front-line Arab nationalist state opposing Israel and resisting any normalization of ties with the Jewish state in the post-Cold war era, even as the Palestinian Liberation organization and Jordan joined Egypt in establishing peace treaties with Israel. In the hope that Syria would come into the fold, the United States did not make harsh demands on Syria for internal reforms or regional economic integration.

In February 2005, in the wake of growing Lebanese dissatisfaction with Syria’s control of the country, Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri and over a dozen of his colleagues were killed in a massive suicide bomb while traveling in a motorcade through downtown Beirut. (To this day, no one knows decisively who was behind the car bomb, though many suspect Syrian involvement.) Massive, largely peaceful, demonstrations erupted in Beirut immediately, and within a matter of weeks, Syria was forced to end its occupation of Lebanon and retreat.

While Syria had not experienced a significant flow of people and wealth in and out of its borders for years, media and technology flows were growing in the first decade of the twenty-first  century. The flow of ideas and images from Tunisia and Egypt in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings of 2010-11 heralded Syria’s first sustained experience with the dynamics of globalization, described in this text by political scientist Manfred Steger as: “the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away, and vice versa.” [60]

In February 2011, the regime lifted the ban on Facebook and You Tube following unprecedented street protests on January 26, the day after the Egyptian protests began. (Before this, Syrians contravened the ban through proxy servers.) Soon, Facebook groups were organizing and even calling for a “Day of Rage” and encouraging people to come out to the streets to protest against the regime. Nothing came of this, though. Despite garnering thousands of “likes,” no one seemed to be following the directives of the new Facebook pages. [61]

The Internet’s impact in the Arab world has built upon the phenomenon of satellite television, particularly that of Al-Jazeera, which opened up new spaces of discourse and debate about political and human rights issues in the Arab world, thereby undermining the legitimacy and validity of state-owned news programs and the power structures underpinning them. While Al Jazeera instilled a powerful reformist spirit, blogs were particularly crucial in advancing and fortifying Arab activism efforts.

Before blogs, there were chat rooms, listservs, and email communication, all of which enhanced and expanded a cyber world of public discourse in some Arab states, but not in Syria. Some Egyptian bloggers called the Internet and social media “our lungs. If they cut them off, we will suffocate.” As a result of Internet communications technology (ICT), social isolation in the Arab world began to give way to the formation of communities of conversation and debate, which ultimately evolved into social movements that took to the streets and made history in the real world. Our “networked society,” to use Manuel Castell’s phrase, connects us horizontally and allows us not only to communicate, but to self-communicate and self-create. [62] We not only consume the news, we now evaluate, filter, and respond to the news. We not only read headlines, our networked actions and reactions to breaking news can ripple out across countries and continents and make headlines.

While Western media paid considerable attention to Egypt’s uprising, the Syrian uprisings were not as well covered. Perhaps this is because Egypt is part of the West’s cultural imaginary. (Hollywood movies such as Raiders of the Lost Ark and popular culture depictions of pyramids, pharaohs, and the Valley of the Kings are all evidence of this.) Syria, a tightly controlled authoritarian state, had not been a destination for Western tourists, scholars, film producers, or even journalists for decades, so its street protests and popular struggles did not loom large in Western media coverage. While every major American news agency covered the uprising in Tahrir Square in Cairo in real time, news of protests and civil society activism in Syria did not always reach the rest of the world.

It seems that the Syrian regime underestimated its ability to channel or harness public opinion by lifting the ban on social media. Vigils, protests, and marches, all initially peaceful, began to appear on Syria’s streets, drawing larger and larger crowds. The response of the regime, unaccustomed to public political expression, was quick and brutally repressive. Rather than scaring people into silence, the regime now confronted an armed opposition. Within just one year, social media protests had become street protests, which became street battles between pro- and anti-regime forces. Globalization, as experienced in Syria, has revealed the limits of an authoritarian regime’s ability to control and constrain social action in the age of social media.

Syria is now experiencing flows of people across borders.  Syrians are escaping to Turkey, Europe, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq by the millions, creating the world’s worst refugee crisis. Meanwhile, drawn to the message of the Islamic State (IS), young men and women from across the Middle East and as far afield as Europe and North America are traveling to the IS controlled territories of eastern Syria and Western Iraq to join in a “global jihad.”

As the high-quality and gory video productions of IS demonstrate, technological and media resources, skills, and knowledge are flowing in and out of Syria’s borders. Financial flows in oil wealth are now in the hands of IS, and food resources are flowing into the country when possible from international non-governmental organizations such as Mercy Corps. Syria is an example of the disadvantages of globalization, as well as an illustration of how quickly one country’s crises can become global crises.

The term “globalization” is not simply a verbal shortcut for talking about contact, transmission, and transportation on the global scale. This chapter has shown that contact has existed across disparate locations throughout much of human history. As it is used and understood today, however, globalization is about much more than the total scope of contact; it references the speed and scale of such contact. Understood in this way, globalization is a modern phenomenon; it is not just how many places are connected, but in how many ways and with what frequency.

Where people once had to rely on horses or sail-driven ships to bring them to new locations, mass transportation (especially air travel) makes such commutes a part of many people’s daily lives, and someone who had never seen a TV one week might end up visiting Jakarta, Cairo, or Toronto the next. News, which might have raced ahead via carrier pigeons can now be transmitted in a virtual instant, and information once confined to physical libraries can now be accessed on the smart phones carried by peoples around the world. Neither “good” nor “bad,” globalization is a fact of life today. Whether a business woman flies between international hubs on a weekly basis or a man tends his garden on a remote plateau, both of their lives may be equally influenced by how a specific crop is received on the world market. Providing both opportunities and constraints, globalization now serves as the background—if not the stage—for how life gets lived, on the ground, by us all.

Discussion Questions

In his research, Kelsey Timmerman discovered that the average American is wearing clothes made in many different countries. This demonstrates how everyday items can involve all five of Arjun Appadurai’s scapes. Choose another product that is part of your everyday life. How many scapes can you connect it to?

Globalization makes new forms of consumption possible, but the effects of globalization on an individual’s lifestyle vary based on many factors including socioeconomic status. In what ways is globalization experienced differently by people from wealthy countries compared to people in developing countries? How are producers of commodities like clothing or food affected differently by globalization than consumers?

In Latin America, globalization and neoliberalism have led to the development of policies, such as the privatization of the water supply, that reduce local control over important resources. In what ways is globalization a “double-edged” sword that brings both benefits and problems to developing countries?

Globalization presents the possibility of engaging in activity-based anthropology, where it is the activity itself that is the ‘“site”’ studied, or digital anthropology, where the field site exists online. What kinds of activities or digital environments do you think would be interesting to study using this approach?

Commodity chain : the series of steps a food takes from location where it is produced to the store where it is sold to consumers. Ethnoscape : the flow of people across boundaries. Financescape : the flow of money across political borders. Global North: refers to the wealthier countries of the world. The definition includes countries that are sometimes called “First World” or “Highly Developed Economies.” Global South : refers to the poorest countries of the world. The definition includes countries that are sometimes called “Third World” or “Least Developed Economies.” Glocalization : the adaptation of global ideas into locally palatable forms. Habitus : the dispositions, attitudes, or preferences that are the learned basis for personal “taste” and lifestyles. Ideoscape : the global flow of ideas. Mediascape : the flow of media across borders. Neoliberalism : the ideology of free-market capitalism emphasizing privatization and unregulated markets. Syncretism : the combination of different beliefs, even those that are seemingly contradictory, into a new, harmonious whole. Technoscape : the global flows of technology.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

• See Charles Lindholm, Culture and Authenticity (New York: Wiley, 2007). ↵
• Robby Soave, “Oberlin College Students: Cafeteria Food is Racist,” The Daily Beast, December 20, 2015 http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/20/oberlin-students-cafeteria-food-is-racist.html ↵
• Manfred Steger, Globalization: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). ↵
• Steger, Globalization , 13. ↵
• Steger, Globalization . ↵
• United Nations World Tourism Organization, “Why Tourism,” http://www2.unwto.org/content/why-tourism ↵
• To be fair, responsible policy makers and businesses, local communities, and travelers themselves may also be concerned with these issues. ↵
• See Benedict R. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983). ↵
• Daniel L. Everett, Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle (New York: Vintage Books, 2009). ↵
• Daniel L. Everett, “What Does Pirahã Grammar Have to Teach Us About Human Language and the Mind?” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science 3 no. 6 (2012): 555-63. ↵
• Kelsey Timmerman, Where Am I Wearing? (Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2012). ↵
• Robin Schmidt and Morten Vest, Maasai on the Move , Film, directed by Robin Schmidt and Morten Vest (2010, Danish Broadcasting Corporation). ↵
• See Chanchal Kumar Sharma, “Emerging Dimensions of Decentralisation Debate in the Age of Globalisation”  Indian Journal of Federal Studies  19 no. 1 (2009): 47–65. ↵
• Anya Peterson Royce, Becoming an Ancestor: The Isthmus Zapotec Way of Death (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011). ↵
• Rigoberta. I Menchu, Rigoberta Menchu : An Indian Woman in Guatemala , trans. Ann Wright (London: Verso, 1984). ↵
• See, for instance, Peter Wade, Music, Race and Nation: Musica Tropical in Colombia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). Or, Lise Waxer, The City of Musical Memory: Salsa, Record Grooves, and Popular Culture in Cali, Columbia (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2002). ↵
• For more on traveling to train at such congresses and festivals—whether salsa, or any other embodied practice—see Griffith and Marion, Apprenticeship Pilgrimage: Developing Expertise through Travel and Training (Lexington: forthcoming). ↵
• Sydney Hutchinson, Salsa World: A Global Dance in Local Contexts (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2013). ↵
• Also see Lise Waxer, Situating Salsa: Global Markets and Local Meanings in Latin Popular Culture (New York: Routledge, 2002). ↵
• David Chaney, Lifestyles (London: Routledge, 1996), 92. ↵
• Chaney, Lifestyles. ↵
• Ibid., 24. ↵
• Ibid., 57. ↵
• Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984). ↵
• Shamus Rahman Khan, Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012). ↵
• Chaney, Lifestyles, 60. ↵
• Economic Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, “Food Security Status of U.S. Households in 2014” http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics.aspx ↵
• Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction . ↵
• Manfred Steger, Globalization , xiii. ↵
• Kelsey Timmerman, Where Am I Wearing? . ↵
• Bruce Campbell and Lisa Goddard, “Climate Change, Food Security and the Refugee Crisis: Connecting the Dots to Avoid Future Tragedy.” https://ccafs.cgiar.org/blog/climate-change-food-security-and-refugee-crisis-connecting-dots-avoid-future-tragedy#.Vt1JXJMrLu4 ↵
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “2014 Ebola Outbreak in West Africa.” http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/2014-west-africa/index.html . ↵
• Steger, Globalization , 54. ↵
• This case study is based on the work of Nicole Fabricant and Kathryn Hicks, “Bolivia's Next Water War: Historicizing the Struggles over Access to Water Resources in the Twenty-First Century” Radical History Review 116 (2013): 130-45. ↵
• Ibid., 131. ↵
• Thomson Reuters, “Lake Poopo, Bolivia's 2nd-Largest Lake, Dries Up”  December 18, 2015, http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/lake-poopo-bolivia-dries-up-1.3371359 . ↵
• James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985). ↵
• Sarah Lyon and and Mark Moberg, eds. Fair Trade and Social Justice (New York: New York University Press, 2010). ↵
• Sarah Lyon, “A Market of Our Own: Women's Livelihoods and Fair Trade Markets,” in Fair Trade and Social Justice , ed. Sarah Lyon and Mark Moberg (New York: New York University Press, 2010). ↵
• Julia Smith, “Fair Trade and the Specialty Coffee Market: Growing Alliances, Shifting Rivalries,” in Fair Trade and Social Justice . ↵
• Mark Moberg, “A New World? Neoliberalism and Fair Trade Farming in the Eastern Caribbean,” in Fair Trade and Social Justice . ↵
• Norma Iglesias Prieto, Beautiful Flowers of the Maquiladora: Life Histories of Women Workers in Tijuana , trans. Michael Stone and Gabrielle Winkler (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985). ↵
• See, especially, Setha M. Low, “The Anthropology of Cities: Imagining and Theorizing the City” Annual Review of Anthropology 25 (1996):383-409 and Ulf Hannerz, Exploring the City: Inquiries toward an Urban Anthropology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980). ↵
• For the Oxford Bibliography of “Urban Anthropology,” see http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766567/obo-9780199766567-0026.xml . For a brief online overview, please see http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/URBAN.htm (prepared by Layla Al-Zubaidi).  ↵
• See Andrew Irving, “Cities: An Anthropological Perspective” Anthropology Matters 6 no. 1 (2004):1-4. http://www.anthropologymatters.com/index.php/anth_matters/article/viewFile/105/207 ↵
• This case study is based on the work of Tanya M. Kerssen, “Food Sovereignty and the Quinoa Boom: Challenges to Sustainable Re-Peasantisation in the Southern Altiplano of Bolivia” Third World Quarterly 36, no. 3 (2015): 489-507. ↵
• See Richard Wilk, “‘Real Belizean Food’: Building Local Identity in the Transnational Caribbean” American Anthropologist 101 no. 2 (1999): 244-55. ↵
• Quoted in Tanya M. Kerssen, “Food Sovereignty and the Quinoa Boom.” ↵
• George E. Marcus, “Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography.” Annual Review of Anthropology , 24 (1995): 95-117. http://www.dourish.com/classes/readings/Marcus-MultiSitedEthnography-ARA.pdf . For a more recent perspective, see M.A. Falzon, Multi-Sited Ethnography: Theory, Praxis and Locality in Contemporary Research (Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2012). ↵
• Sarah Strauss, Positioning Yoga: Balancing Acts across Cultures (Oxford, UK: Berg, 2005). ↵
• Ulf Hannerz, “Being there… and there… and there! Reflections on Multi-Site Ethnography” Ethnography 4 no. 2 (2003): 201-216.     ↵
• Jonathan S. Marion, “Beyond Ballroom: Activity as Performance, Embodiment, and Identity” Human Mosaic 36 no. 2 (2006): 7-16, 2006. Also see Jonathan S. Marion, Ballroom: Culture and Costume in Competitive Dance (Oxford, UK: Berg Publishing, 2008) and Jonathan S. Marion, “Circulation as Destination: Considerations from the Translocal Culture of Competitive Ballroom Dance” Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement 17 no. (2012). ↵
• See Tom Boellstorff,  Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human (Princeton University Press, 2009). For more on theory and method see Tom Boellstorff, Bonnie Nardi, Celia Pearce, and T. L. Taylor, Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method (Princeton University Press, 2012); Heather A. Horst and Daniel Miller, eds. Digital Anthropology (London, UK: Bloomsbury, 2012); and Sarah Pink, Heather Horst, John Postill, Larissa Hjorth, Tania Lewis, and Jo Tacchi, Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practice. (Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage, 2015). ↵
• Bassam Haddad, “The Syrian Regime’s Business Backbone,” Middle East Report , 262 no. 42 (2012). http://www.merip.org/mer/mer262/syrian-regimes-business-backbone ↵
• Alister Doyle, “Syrian War Spurs First Withdrawal from Doomsday Arctic Seed Vault” Reuters September 21, 2015. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-seeds-idUSKCN0RL1KA20150921 The report states: “Grethe Evjen, an expert at the Norwegian Agriculture Ministry, said the seeds had been requested by the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA). ICARDA moved its headquarters to Beirut from Aleppo in 2012 because of the war. ‘ICARDA wants almost 130 boxes out of 325 it had deposited in the vault.’” ↵
• Haddad, “The Syrian Regime’s Business Backbone.” ↵
• Joshka Wessels, “Syria Lifts Ban on Facebook and Youtube, Reflections on the ‘Egypt Effect’ in Syria” Sapiens Productions February 11, 2011./ ↵
• Manuel Castells, “Communication, Power and Counter-power in the Network Society” International Journal of Communications 1 (2007): 238-266. ↵

Refers to the wealthier countries of the world.

Refers to the poorest countries of the world

Perspectives: An Open Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, 2nd Edition Copyright © 2020 by American Anthropological Association is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Globalization: Key Debates, Concepts, and Perspectives

Globalization Synopsis : This article defines globalization, provides some causes for the advancement of globalization, explores the different dimensions of globalization, presents three different perspectives through which the phenomenon has been examined, explores the relation between globalization and identity, and finally examines how globalization is connected to power and politics.

In sociological terms, globalization can be defined as “an ongoing process that involves interconnected changes in the economic, cultural, social, and political spheres of society” (Cole, 2019). The world’s economies, societies, and cultures are becoming more and more interconnected and reliant on one another. The result of such increased connection and interdependence between regions is, therefore, and increase in the influence that the people of these regions have on one another’s lives. The vast and intricate nature of these processes makes globalization a complex event and necessitates its examination. Like all other processes involving large-scale change, globalization also includes certain factors – advances in technology, transportation, and communication being the primary ones. These have made the mobility of goods, people, and ideas across borders easier, faster, and more efficient, thereby driving globalization.

Causes of Globalization

As mentioned before, a number of factors are responsible for globalization. Firstly, technological innovations have played a huge role in the way the process of globalization has made a speedy advance. Over time, mobile phones, the internet, and social media have undergone significant advancements and are now easily accessible to a larger portion of the population. Connecting to others has, therefore, become easier and quicker – we are now able to connect to one part of the world from another and spread any kind of information in a matter of seconds. The second factor responsible for globalization is infrastructural development, particularly when it comes to transport. Traveling by air has become considerably easy and cheap (although still largely unaffordable to the majority), owing mostly to the development of the aviation industry and expansion of international trade routes due to better relations between countries. Due to these technological advancements, people from countries across the globe find mobility easier and faster from one place to another.

Additionally, trade liberalization, which involves reducing or completely removing “restrictions or barriers on the free exchange of goods between nations” (Banton, 2021), has made international trade less costly and more efficient. As a result, a space has been created to foster the establishment and growth of multinational companies and global trade.

With the growing interdependence of economies worldwide, nations are collaborating more closely in pursuit of common objectives like fostering economic growth and development. However, factors of globalization are not limited to economic factors only–several cultural and social changes have also contributed to globalization. As we will discuss in later sections, the rigidity of cultural boundaries has seen significant collapse owing to the increased exchange of people from one country to another and growth of social media and mass culture.

Dimensions of Globalization: Economic, Social, and Cultural

Globalization is often associated with the promotion of free trade, which has had both favorable and negative outcomes based on the context of the country. On one side, globalization has increased the accessibility of markets and technologies to developing countries that have been freed from the clutches of colonization very recently. This has led to economic growth and poverty reduction in many parts of the so-called ‘developing’ world. Simultaneously, it has also led to loss of jobs and worsening of wages and working conditions in, for instance, the fast fashion industry, where workers from developing countries are provided minimum wage by big firms, which leads to exploitation of their labour. Globalization, therefore, has led to greater income inequality, both within countries and between them.

Globalization also has social and cultural dimensions to it. A large part of why the world has become ‘smaller’ and people from different parts have gotten closer is popular culture, which includes music, movies, and fashion. Take for example the movie Parasite, directed bu Bong Joon Ho, which became the first movie in a ‘foreign’ language (i.e., language other than English) to win the Oscar for Best Picture, which is a result of the increased popularity of the Korean culture and entertainment industry across the globe.

However, globalization has also raised important socio-cultural concerns, such as the disintegration of cultural traditions, beliefs, practices, and values to make space for more global ones. The increased movement of people from one country to another also give rise to similar concerns. While it has created new opportunities for cultural exchange and cooperation, matters such as identity have also led to tensions and even conflict, leading to questions about the benefits of globalization.

Glocalization

The term ‘glocalization’ is formed by combining the words globalization and localization together. This is the same for the concept of glocalization as well, which combines elements of localization and globalization. According to Blatter (2019), glocalization is “the simultaneous occurrence of both universalizing and particularizing tendencies in contemporary social, political, and economic systems.” In other words, glocalization refers to the process of adapting global products, services, or ideas into local contexts such that the global and local domains amalgamate to create a unique phenomenon. One of the most popular examples of glocalization is the way in which McDonald’s, Dominos, or other fast food chains adapt their menu to the local food culture – for instance, Dominos in India has a menu that includes certain flavors of pizza that cater to the Indian audiences, such as Tikka Masala, Tandoor, etc. Global fast-food chains do so in order to appeal to the local masses and expand their local market reach.

Problems in Defining Globalization

While it is assumed that there is a consensus about what globalization entails, in reality, the complexities of the phenomenon do not allow for an easy and universal way of defining the phenomenon. Firstly, there remains the problem of assuming that globalization impacts everyone everywhere in the same manner. Along with this is the problem of assuming that globalization impacts everyone in a positive manner. These assumptions do not hold true everywhere around the globe. Globalization has several negative effects on certain communities that do not have easy access to the tools that are necessary in a globalized world, such as the internet. Those without resources such as the internet are essentially left behind in the process of globalization, leading to their marginalization and social exclusion. Therefore, not only does globalization not take place in a homogenous manner all over the world, it also has the potential to negatively impact communities and individuals, which contradicts the positive assumption that one might take while trying to define globalization. Further, there is contradiction among sociologists and other social scientists as to which aspect of globalization out of economic, social, and cultural need to be prioritized.

Perspectives on Globalization

Marxist Perspective

According to the Marxist perspective, globalization primarily benefits the capitalist class which essentially owns the production system and exploits the working class to earn profits. Globalization is seen as a process through which large firms expand their businesses and boost their profits while exploiting their workers and harming the environment. For proponents of the Marxism, rather than a people-centric focus, accumulation of capital and profits is what motivates globalization.

Karl Marx wrote extensively about the relationship between capitalism and globalization. In one of his most renowned works, The Communist Manifesto, Marx argued that capitalism’s inherent need for expansion–finding new sources for raw materials and labour and creating new markets for products–would eventually lead to the globalization. According to Marx, the “need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere” (Marx & Engels, 1848, p.16). For Marx, globalization also meant the exacerbated exploitation of workers by capitalists and, on a global scale, the uneven distribution of the way in which capitalist economies develop, with some countries becoming more wealthy and powerful at the expense of others. In brief, according to the Marxist view, globalization is advantageous for the capitalist class as it opens up new markets for their goods, fresh sources of labor and raw materials, and fresh prospects for earning profits. It also worsens certain issues of socio-economic concern, such as exploitation and inequalities, within and between countries around the world.

Feminist Perspective

It is important that “economic globalization must (also) be understood in terms of the effects it has had on women, who make up a disproportionate percentage of the global poor” (Parekh & Wilcox, 2014). According to feminist scholars, men have disproportionately benefited from globalization while women have been exploited and subjugated. For instance, when it comes to the division of labor, industries that heavily rely on the cheaply available female labor in developing countries have been augmented by globalization, therefore leading to the exploitation of female workers and their marginalization. However, industries that require higher levels of skill and also provide higher wages, such as technology, keep growing due to globalization. Such industries are primarily male-dominated and therefore disproportionately benefit male workers in economies.

Postmodernist Perspective

As per the postmodernist viewpoint, globalization is a phenomenon that entails breaking down borders and boundaries, blending cultures, and generating novel hybrid identities. Postmodernists reject the idea of fixed and stable identities and argue that globalization has created new and fluid forms of identity and cultural exchange. From a postmodernist point of view, globalization is not a straightforward or easily definable concept, instead consisting of several complexities. Postmodernists maintain that this process is characterized by a multitude of interconnected factors that interact in intricate and often unpredictable ways. Consequently, a simple or reductionist understanding of globalization is insufficient to capture its nuances and complexities.

Postmodernists argue that globalization has complex and unpredictable outcomes, and its benefits are not limited to any specific group or individual. Globalization has opened up fresh prospects for cultural exchange, creativity, and innovation. At the same time, it has given rise to several new types of inequalities, displacement, and marginalization. Postmodernists suggest that globalization has disrupted established forms of knowledge and power, presenting new opportunities for dissent and rebellion. In their view, globalization involves the crossing of boundaries and borders, the blending of different cultures, and the emergence of novel hybrid identities. Postmodernists believe that globalization does not have negative consequences only, as certain other theorists would like to argue. Instead, they recognize the complexities attached to the phenomenon, which opens up new avenues for positive change and transformation. Through these hybrid identities and cultural exchanges, individuals and groups may find ways to resist or subvert dominant power structures, leading to a more diverse and egalitarian society.

Globalization and Identity

Globalization has had a significant impact on identity. It challenges traditional forms of identity based on nation-states, cultures, and religions and creates new opportunities for cultural exchange, hybridity, and fluidity. Identity, in a lot of different ways, has become more flexible and diverse.

There are mixed responses to how globalization has impacted and continues to impact identity. On one hand, the large-scale global exchange of people, ideas, and commodities globally due to globalization means that certain new forms of identity have emerged that go beyond traditionally-defined national and socio-cultural identities. On the other hand, globalization has negatively affected community identity by causing its disintegration.

Globalization and Cultural Divergence and Convergence

Globalization has had both converging and diverging effects on cultures around the world. Convergence of culture has mostly been in terms of the West. Western values of culture, such as individualism and consumerism, has seen a significant increase, and due to its overpowering nature owing to a history of global colonialism, it has led to a homogenization of culture across the globe. In simple terms, it means that the diverse cultural patterns have given way to a considerably homogenous one lacking variations in beliefs and practices, especially when it comes to consumption. An example of this can be the hegemonic acceptance of English as the ‘official’ language for most countries of the world, including those for whom English is not the native language.

However, mostly as a result of such cultural homogenization and convergence, globalization has also revived an interest in local cultures and traditions among people who identify cultural convergence as a threat to their unique cultural identities. Cultural divergence has been the obvious outcome of such a critical view of globalization, with people striving to maintain their unique cultural practices.

Simply put, the debate over the impact of globalization on cultural convergence versus divergence is a complex one, and varies with cultural context and the specific processes of globalization at work.

Globalization, Western Ideology and Identity, and the Concept of Westernization

According to The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica (2019), Westernization can be defined as “the adoption of the practices and culture of western Europe by societies and countries in other parts of the world, whether through compulsion or influence.” Western ideas are known to have had a huge impact on the rest of the world, regardless of whether they have been forced onto other countries or willingly accepted by them. Further, Western nations are often considered the ‘ideal’ models of so-called ‘modernity’ and ‘progress’ of human civilization. Globalization has facilitated the adoption of Western ideology throughout the rest of the world, leading to homogenization of culture across domains such as politics, economics, education, and media. This trend has sparked concerns that distinct cultural identities are being eroded as local traditions and practices are supplanted by more universalized norms. Scholars such as Kaul (2012) have emphasized the potential impact of this homogenization on the richness and diversity of human cultures, and urge us to consider the broader implications of globalization on cultural identity.

Identity is a complex thing, and globalization has only made it more complicated. It has created both new opportunities and challenges in terms of cultures, traditions, and shared experiences. Western ideology has influenced the way people view themselves, with western values and practices being seen as aspirational and desirable. The adoption of western values and practices has also created new forms of identity, including transnational and cosmopolitan identities, which transcend national and cultural boundaries. However, the adoption of western values and practices can also lead to cultural hybridization, where traditional practices are blended with western ones, challenging the notion of western cultural hegemony. Identity crisis, which has become a catchphrase, is most common in non-Western countries. For instance, Doku and Asante (2011) state that “globalization increases the proportion of young people in non- Western cultures who experience a state of identity confusion rather than successfully forming an identity.”

Westernization is thus differently interpreted by its proponents, who argue that it can promote economic growth and development, and its critics, for whom westernization dismantles traditions, creating a sense of loss of cultural identity. It is important to understand and examine Westernization in the context of globalization from a critical lens.

Ethnic Revitalization

An important phenomenon in relation to globalization, ethnic revitalization is the process by which ethnic groups that are considered minority respond to the threats to their socio-cultural identity that they face due to globalization and the resultant homogenization of cultures. It is a process of renewal of their cultural identity and fighting back the aspects of globalization that lead to destruction of their local cultures and traditions. It is through ethnic revitalization that communities, groups, and cultures that have been relegated to ‘minorities’ resist the negative effects of globalization. For example, the Māori culture, which was suppressed due to centuries of colonial rule, is under the process of being revived or revitalized in New Zealand rapid spread and increasing popularity of te reo Māori , or the Māori language, through development of classes and lessons dedicated towards the language (Roy, 2018).

Cultural Defense

According to Kim (1997), cultural defense is a “a legal strategy that uses evidence about a defendant’s cultural background to negate or to mitigate criminal liability (with a concomitant sentence reduction)” (p. 102-103). In other words, the usage of cultural defense necessitates that individuals should not be held accountable for certain actions or behaviors if they are consistent with their cultural beliefs and practices. In the context of globalization, cultural defense can be seen as a way in which individuals resist homogenization of legal instruments by putting forward their particular cultural context into consideration. However, such a ‘benefit’ of cultural defense also means that acts of crime, such as violence, assault, murder, and sexual offenses, are defended for by using this concept. In the context of globalization, by citing a ‘loss of culture’ or ‘harm to cultural beliefs’, cultural defense can potentially be used to justify actions that violate basic human rights or harm others. Broeck (2001) gives an example of a case in Netherlands where an act of throwing flowers into a river by a Hindu person was considered a crime because Dutch law mandates pollution of waterbodies to be a criminal offense, but for the Hindu, it was simply part of a religious ritual. Such an act can easily be defended on cultural grounds.

Hybrid Identities

Cultural hybridization refers to the process by which “a cultural element blends into another culture by modifying the element to fit cultural norms” (Bell, 2014), which has become a common occurrence in an increasingly globalized world. Since cultures are a huge factor in creation of identities, in an increasingly culturally hybridizing world, identities are also become hybrid. Hybrid identities can therefore be described as the way in which multiple cultures, traditions, and experiences influence the identities of individuals as a result of the cultural blending due to globalization. For instance, Bell (2014) suggests that the language of Louisana Creole which resulted from a mix of African, French, and English languages is an example of cultural hybridization, which means that the lingual identity of the people who speak the language is also hybrid.

Globalization, Power, and Politics

The spread of liberal democracy and human rights.

 Globalization has led to the spread of liberal democracy and human rights.  According to Dalpino (2001), one of “the most tangible evidence of globalization’s impact on democratization has been the infusion of democratic norms, and the principles of human rights that support them, into many international and regional institutions.” A complex interplay of power, politics, and cultural values has been central to this. Citizens have increasingly demanded for more political freedom and accountability from the government. Governments also face pressure for the same from international organizations – the UN, for instance – and other governments. These can and have led to changes in the way governments work around the world. International organizations and advocates have worked to promote human rights norms and standards. Unequal power dynamics among countries can, however, hinder progress. More powerful countries can marginalize and exploit less powerful countries.

Power and Politics

In terms of power and politics, globalization has had a significant impact on the power bestowed upon nation-states (Jotia, 2011). Traditional power structures have been questioned and dismantled, making way for newer forms of power to emerge. According to Jotia (2011), the globalization of trade, finance, and technology has created new opportunities for corporations and wealthy individuals to accumulate wealth and power on a global scale, often at the expense of national governments and local communities, such that “the nation-states’ sovereignty remains in limbo as power steadily shifts to the most powerful financial and corporate institutions” (p. 246).

Globalization and Social Movements

Globalization has also had an impact on political activism and social movements . It has created new opportunities for the same to accommodate for the rising need among people for more equitable forms of globalization. The phenomenon has “opened new spaces for communication, allowing ideas to flow freely across borders” (McKane, 2014). For example, the global climate strike movement started by Fridays For Future in 2018 gained widespread attention and support from all across the globe, and helped to put pressure on governments and corporations to take more action on climate change.

Upon thorough examination, globalization therefore emerges as an intricate phenomenon with several complexities surrounding it. The impact of globalization can be felt most when it comes to identity, whether individual or community. While there might be positive effects of globalization, the phenomenon needs to be evaluated critically to ensure that its negative outcomes are understood, examined, and effectively eliminated. Through the various facets connected to globalization, it can be easily concluded that there is no singular way of examining the complex phenomenon that is globalization.

Also Read : Globalization- Contemporary: Issues

Banton, C. (2021, March 24). Trade liberalization: Definition, how it works, and example . Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/trade-liberalization.asp#:~:text=What%20Is%20Trade%20Liberalization%3F

Bell, K. (2014). Cultural hybridization. In https://sociologydictionary.org/ . https://sociologydictionary.org/cultural-hybridization/

Blatter, J. (2019). Glocalization. In Encyclopedia Britannica . https://www.britannica.com/topic/glocalization

Cole, N. L. (2019, July 3). What is the meaning of globalization in sociology? ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/globalization-definition-3026071#:~:text=Globalization%2C%20according%20to%20sociologists%2C%20is

Dalpino, C. E. (2001, September). Does globalization promote democracy?: An early assessment . Brookings; Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/does-globalization-promote-democracy-an-early-assessment/

Doku, P., & Asante, K. (2011). Identity: Globalization, culture and psychological functioning . https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/268072584.pdf

Jotia, A. (2011). Globalization and the Nation-State: Sovereignty and State Welfare in Jeopardy. Education Review B , 2 , 243–250. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED528356.pdf

Kaul, V. (2012). Globalisation and crisis of cultural identity. Journal of Research in International Business and Management , 2 (13), 341–349. https://www.interesjournals.org/articles/globalisation-and-crisis-of-cultural-identity.pdf

Kim, N. (1997). The cultural defense and the problem of cultural preemption: A framework for analysis. N.M. L. Rev , 27 (1). https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/151604531.pdf

Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1848). Manifesto of the Communist party. In Written: Late Source: Marx/Engels Selected Works: Vol. One (Issue 1). Marxists Internet Archive. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf

McKane, R. (2014). The globalization of social movements: Exploring the transnational paradigm through collection action against neoliberalism from Latin America to the Occupy movement. Pursuit – the Journal of Undergraduate Research at the University of Tennessee , 5 (1). https://trace.tennessee.edu/pursuit/vol5/iss1/11

Parekh, S., & Wilcox, S. (2014). Feminist perspectives on globalization. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-globalization /

The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. (2019). Westernization. In Encyclopædia Britannica . https://www.britannica.com/topic/Westernization

Soumili is currently pursuing her studies in Social Sciences at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, focusing on core subjects such as Sociology, Psychology, and Economics. She possesses a deep passion for exploring various cultures, traditions, and languages, demonstrating a particular fascination with scholarship related to intersectional feminism and environmentalism, gender and sexuality, as well as clinical psychology and counseling. In addition to her academic pursuits, her interests extend to reading, fine arts, and engaging in volunteer work.

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How to Write an Essay on Globalization

Table of Contents

• How to start
• How to write body paragraphs
• How to conclude
• Outline sample

Theme Actuality

As a topic and concept, globalization has had tremendous on how the world runs today. Currently, people use products from manufacturers who are thousands of miles away, and this can be attributed to globalization. As a topic, it has earned its place in economics and business books. It is, therefore, ideal whenever teachers give students essays or test students on globalization. The tests not only help students to become better writers but also helps them understand how the world works. Therefore, it is necessary to include globalization as a topic in class.

How to Start an Essay on Globalization

Good essay writing is indeed challenging. Moreover, students often complain of the difficulty of introducing a topic. Starting an essay can be problematic, and this explains why a majority of students seek help with essay writing. Introductions are indeed the most important part of an essay because they not only reveal a writer’s focus but also determines whether the audience will read the entire article or not. Therefore, writers need to exercise caution and base their article or essay on research and facts.

Here are tips to help you start an essay on globalization:

• Conduct exhaustive research on the topic under study.
• Prepare an outline with all the points and arguments you wish to include in your essay.
• If definitions are necessary, include them at the beginning of the essay. For example, provide the definition of globalization. While there is no problem in providing the dictionary definition, it is advisable to provide yours.
• Narrow the scope of your topic or article. Avoid being general and providing vague information within your article.
• Formulate a clear and appropriate thesis statement before you begin the essay. This will help you come up with the other supporting arguments.
• Make the introduction of your essay brief and to the point. Do not include a lot of information within your introduction but provide enough information to keep your audience interested.

While it can be a challenge finding a decent starting point, it is not impossible. By following the above, writers can find or establish a suitable starting point.

How to Write Body Paragraphs for an Essay on Globalization

In the body section, writers are expected to include supporting arguments. These arguments build on the main argument or the thesis statement. Therefore, they should enrich or improve on what the writer chose or developed as their primary argument. In the body section, being detailed is highly advisable, and therefore, writers are encouraged to make their papers comprehensive. The purpose of research or the bulk of research work often helps to write or develop this section.

Here are tips to help you write an essay on globalization:

• Use topic sentences. Each paragraph should highlight a specific point.
• Be detailed and provide examples in your essay.

How to Conclude an Essay on Globalization

As an introduction, writing a conclusion can also be a challenge. Every conclusion should have or leave a lasting impression on the audience.

Writers should, therefore, consider the following tips to guide them in writing a conclusion for an essay on globalization:

• Restate the thesis statement or main argument.
• Provide a summary of the main arguments you provided in the body section.
• Emphasize the main idea or the specific thing or issue you need your audience to remember after reading your essay.

Outline Sample

Outlines are important because they make a writer’s work easier. Essay writing can be a daunting task, but writers often make it simple by creating an outline before they begin the writing process.

Below is a sample of an outline of an essay on globalization:

Describe the social as well as cultural indicators or manifestations of globalization

Introduction

• Definition of globalization.
• Brief background information on the topic.
• Thesis statement. For example, Globalization has indeed been at the forefront of social and cultural change. The world has seen significant shifts in how people communicate and pass information, the internationalization of some services, as well as the dramatic impact in popular culture.
• Expound on the shifts in communication mechanisms.
• Internationalization of services.
• The borrowing as well as spread of popular culture.
• Restate the thesis statement.
• Summarize the essay’s main points.
• Highlight the importance or the impact of globalization on the social and cultural platforms of society.

Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Globalization

Essays on Globalization

Hook examples for globalization essays, "the global village" metaphor hook.

"In the age of globalization, our world has transformed into a 'global village.' Explore the implications of this metaphor and how it has reshaped our understanding of interconnectedness and cultural exchange."

The Impact of Digital Connectivity Hook

"In an era where a single tweet can reach millions, digital connectivity has revolutionized globalization. Delve into the profound impact of the internet, social media, and technology on global interactions."

The Paradox of Local vs. Global Hook

"Globalization blurs the lines between local and global identities. Analyze the paradox of preserving cultural heritage while embracing the globalized world and how this tension shapes our societies."

The Global Marketplace Hook

"Globalization has ushered in an era of unprecedented trade and economic interconnectedness. Explore the dynamics of the global marketplace, from multinational corporations to supply chains spanning continents."

Cultural Fusion and Identity Hook

"Globalization has led to a melting pot of cultures, but what happens to cultural identities in the process? Investigate how globalization impacts the preservation and evolution of cultural identities."

The Challenges of Globalization Hook

"While globalization offers numerous benefits, it also presents challenges. Examine issues such as income inequality, cultural homogenization, and environmental concerns that arise in a globalized world."

The Future of Globalization Hook

"As we stand on the brink of a globalized future, what can we expect? Join me in exploring the potential trajectories of globalization, from its impact on politics to the role of emerging technologies."

The Best Globalization Essay Topics

• The Impact of Globalization on Local Cultures: Integration or Erasure?
• The Impact of Globalization on Cultural Identity in Anthropological Studies
• Globalization and Economic Inequality: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor
• The Role of Technology in Advancing Globalization and Its Social Implications
• Environmental Consequences of Globalization: Challenges and Sustainable Solutions
• Analyzing the Advantages and Disadvantages of Globalization
• The Influence of Globalization on Education and Cross-Cultural Exchanges
• Global Political Dynamics: How Globalization Affects Sovereignty and Governance
• Globalization and Health: The Spread of Diseases and Global Health Initiatives
• Consumer Culture and Globalization: The Homogenization of Global Markets

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Globalization's Theories and Effects in The Modern World

The effects of globalization on health and medicine, a study on globalization and its various sides, overview of five articles about globalization, globalization: two sides of the arguments both for and against, globalization and its positive and negative sides for india, the advantages and disadvantages of the globalization process based on real-life examples, criticism and controversial benefits of globalization, globalization: importance of english nowadays, the impact of globalization, nationalism and protectionism on india, an overview of the overall impact of globalization, research of effects of globalization on the media in the world, globalisation as an economical, political and cultural process, pro globalist and anti globalist view from developed country perspective, how global issues impact individual states, electronic commerce in the globalization era, the effect of globalization and americanization on mass media, components of globalization: concept sociocultural and social globalizations, how the impact of globalization on illicit drug trafficking has affected international security, discussion of whether globalization is good or bad for the indian economy.

1. Halliday, T. C., & Osinsky, P. (2006). Globalization of law. Annu. Rev. Sociol., 32, 447-470. (https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.soc.32.061604.123136) 2. Fischer, S. (2003). Globalization and its challenges. American Economic Review, 93(2), 1-30. (https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/000282803321946750) 3. Lang, M. (2006). Globalization and its history. The Journal of Modern History, 78(4), 899-931. (https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/511251?journalCode=jmh) 4. Spring, J. (2008). Research on globalization and education. Review of educational research, 78(2), 330-363. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/0034654308317846?journalCode=rera) 5. Scott, A., & Storper, M. (2003). Regions, globalization, development. Regional studies, 37(6-7), 579-593. (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0034340032000108697a) 6. Jameson, F. (1998). Notes on globalization as a philosophical issue. In The cultures of globalization (pp. 54-78). Duke University Press. (https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780822378426-005/html?lang=de) 7. Frankel, J. A. (2003). The environment and globalization. (https://www.nber.org/papers/w10090) 8. Teeple, G. (2000). What is globalization?. Globalization and its discontents, 9-23. (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780333981610_2)

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• Essay On Globalisation

Globalisation Essay

500+ words essay on globalisation.

Globalisation can be defined as a process of integration of the Indian economy with the world economy. Globalisation has been taking place for the past hundred years, but it has sped up enormously over the last half-century. It has increased the production and exchange of goods and services. Globalisation is a positive outcome of privatisation and liberalisation. Globalisation is primarily an economic process of interaction and integration associated with social and cultural aspects. It is said to be an outcome of different policies to transform the world towards greater interdependence and integration. To explain, in other words, Globalisation is a concept or method of interaction and union among people, corporations, and governments universally.

The top five types of globalisation are:

1. Cultural globalisation

2. Economic globalisation

3. Technological globalisation

4. Political globalisation

5. Financial globalisation

Impact of Globalisation on the Indian Economy

After urbanisation and globalisation, we can witness a drastic change in the Indian economy. The government-administered and established economic policies are imperative in planning income, investment, savings, and employment. These economic policies directly influence while framing the basic outline of the Indian economy.

Indian society is critically impacted by cross-culture due to globalisation, and it brought changes in different aspects of the country in terms of political, cultural, economic and social.

However, the main factor is economic unification which contributes maximum to a country’s economy into an international economy.

Advantages of Globalisation

Labour access: Due to globalisation, nations can now access a broader labour pool. If there is any shortage of knowledgeable workers in any developing nation, they can import labour from other countries. On the other hand, wealthier countries get an opportunity to outsource their low-skill work to developing nations with a low cost of living to reduce the cost of goods sold and move those savings to the customers.

High standard of living: After Globalisation, the Indian economy and the standard of living have increased. The change can be observed in the purchasing behaviour of an individual, especially those associated with foreign companies. Hence, most cities are upgraded with a better standard of living and business development.

Resource Access : The primary reason for trade is to gain access to the resources of other countries. It would have been impossible to produce or manufacture luxurious goods if the flow of resources across countries was not permissible—for example, Smartphones.

Impact of Globalisation

Globalisation in terms of economy is associated with the development of capitalism. The introduction of Globalisation has developed economic freedom and increased the living standard worldwide. It has also fastened up the process of offshoring and outsourcing. Due to outsourcing, transnational companies got an opportunity to exploit medium and small-sized enterprises intensively at a low price worldwide. As a kind of economic venture, outsourcing has increased, in recent times, because of the increase in quick methods of communication, especially the growth of information technology (IT).

Privatization of public utilities and goods, such as security, health, etc., are also impacted by Globalisation. Other goods, such as medicines or seeds, are considered economic goods and have been integrated into recent trade agreements.

This essay on Globalisation will help students to understand the concept more accurately. Students can also visit our BYJU’S website to get more CBSE Essays , question papers, sample papers, etc.

Frequently Asked Questions on Globalisation Essay

What are the benefits of globalisation.

Globalisation gives countries access to foreign cultures and technological innovation from more advanced countries. It provides improved living standards to people. The global exposure it gives has resulted in the emergence of new talent in multiple fields.

What are the main elements of globalisation?

Principle elements of globalisation are international trade, foreign investment, capital market flows, labour migration, and diffusion of technology.

What are the different types of globalisation?

Political, economic and cultural globalisation are the main types of globalisation.

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‘Rap Sh!t’ Star Aida Osman Jokes About Show’s Cancellation by Seemingly Shading Jerrod Carmichael’s HBO Series

"See if I woulda just let a white man call me Harriet one time I could have kept my damn show," she tweeted.

Aida Osman , star of the recently canceled  Rap Sh!t , has made some jokes about her show getting the axe and  Jerrod Carmichael  taking up that space. 

On Tuesday, the actress logged on to the platform formerly known as Twitter and let off some jokes about  Rap Sh!t  getting canceled while the  Jerrod Carmichael Show  is thriving in its place on the Max streaming platform. Osman seemed to poke fun at the latest episode of Carmichael's show, where he made a joke about engaging in slave play with his white boyfriend. 

"See if i woulda just let a white man call me harriet one time i could have kept my damn show," she tweeted. 

Osman then seemed to take a shot at Carmichael by saying the only gay black man she'll acknowledge is Meek Mill, a dig at all the social media chatter around  a lawsuit that claimed the Philly rapper had sexual relations with Diddy . 

She also retweeted a post that called out Max for allegedly canceling several Black-led shows to make way for Carmichael's show, which has already shown two episodes that have people talking all over social media. Over the last year, Max canceled several Black-led shows, including  Rap Sh!t ,  South Side,   A Black Lady Sketch Show ,  among others from different networks .   

In an interview with  Teen Vogue  last month, Osman revealed she wasn't surprised by the cancellation because Black creatives in the industry have a harder time getting their ideas through.  

"When I got the news, I was like, 'This makes sense,'" said the comedian. "It makes sense in the way that nothing is guaranteed for Black people in Hollywood, and we have to consistently fight for our stories."

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Globalization Essay

Argumentative essay evaluation, checklist for essay writing.

The word globalization can be defined as the world greatest and most important force, which has an impact on economy (Mostert, 2003). In some cases, globalization can again be regarded as a whirlwind of basically relentless changes, which sometimes can leave most governments helpless and full of economical problems.

In actuality globalization, globalization has contributed to economic developments in most developing countries, which are also regarded as the founders of globalization and its implementation. In my own opinion, I hold the view that the globalization process is more beneficial to developing countries than it is to developed countries.

It is ’s clearly evident that globalization has done more good in terms of development specifically in developing poor countries. In actuality, the concept of free trade liberalization has created a favorable scenario where those who possess a lot of capital are able to disburse to those who don’t have in form of wages and salaries.

In the real sense, the wage, be it exploitative or not, will at least raise the productivity or development of the individual persons earning it. It is clear that in many poor developing countries, there is access to cheap labor and various types of natural resources (Horwitz, 2010).

This attracts international firms to do business in such regions, based on this trend, for instance, we can already see how globalization is beneficial to both developing countries and developed countries. This is because developing countries benefits from increased job opportunities etc while developed countries benefit from cheap labor and resources.

The fact that more western countries established more and more companies in the developing countries was expected to believed will help accelerate their profits by taking advantage of the available as a result of the availability of cheap labor and the presence of natural resources found in the developing countries (Horwitz, 2010).

On the other hand people in the developing countries count on the development as a rare opportunity for improving infrastructure and general development in the country. In addition, the local citizens are also able to gain free knowledge and skills when working for companies owned by developed countries. Even though the wages given you are is considerably low, it had a greater impact on the citizens of developing countries who have used it to boost their living standards (Horwitz, 2010).

Furthermore, it has been postulated criticized that the developed countries would become poor when using their capital on investments in developing countries but the investment of these funds was necessary to spur further growth of the developing countries (Curran, 2010).

This strategy while it has facilitated growth in developed countries because of the generated huge profits has enabled these countries to quickly grow experience accelerated growth and also catalyzed proportional economic growth in developing countries.

I posit believe that even though the developed countries are exploitatively using the developing countries for acquisition of cheap raw materials and labor, I strongly support the fact that in at the long run, the beneficiary would be the developing country since these countries would have remained undeveloped for decades if it were not for the globalization revolution.

This is because, out of the mutual relationship perceived to exist between the two parties, citizens of the developing countries also benefit from wages, formal knowledge, and experience that they gains which they continue to apply in their local context.

The more free trade continues to exist between the western and developing countries, the more the third countries country keep benefiting from the relationship. This has enabled heavy investments setups to be established in the third countries by the rich western firms.

However, it remains true that the truth is that no matter how the rich western firms improve on their profits making, most of their money in at the long run is again spent back to fund more investments or exploration for better technology most of the time in the same developing or undeveloped countries (Horwitz, 2010).

Those who refute this claim argue that as far as the western countries (who are always considered to be highly developed, and the first world countries) keep on investing more and more of their money pumping millions of their money on investments in the developing countries, their interest rates still appreciate they still appreciate their interest rates and they are also able also have time to explore and improve on new technological developments (Curran, 2010). This opposition can be considered to be factual.

However, only that it is not strong enough to counter counsel the fact that, the more as far as the developed countries continue to invest and expand their trade boundaries through investments, the more the citizens of the developing countries benefits. This is because they will benefit from this contact with the first world be informed of new things reducing their level of primitivity through the formal and technological knowledge, as well as the and practical skills that they gain.

While I don’t wish to claim that This hardly means that the developed countries don’t are not benefiting as well., The proportion of their benefit however is not as much as that gained by the developing countries because they mainly benefit in terms of cheap labor and raw materials as we have already seen

Additionally, as a result of globalization, free trade has managed to promote international peace since it is obvious that countries trading together have got a mutual interdependence, which reduces cases of global conflicts. Opponents of this idea counter strongly oppose this argument, although there are some countries though by positing that even though some counties are being good trade partners, they are perpetually involved in conflicts mainly over right to resources (Curran, 2010).

In addition to this, some developed countries, due to hunger for raw materials, will opt to fund rebel groups within the developing countries so as to destabilize their governments by causing chaos and security instability within the country which will give them the opportunity and thus gain free access to exploit such resources. A good example of such a situation is currently happening in the Democratic Republic of republic of Congo in Central Africa.

But after reviewing this argument, certain weaknesses in its formulation become evident. I totally disagree with this argument For instance, given that globalization cannot be solely blamed for this form of conflicts. Historically, before globalization came into the picture, there were many civil and religious wars taking place between communities in the developing countries.

In fact, one might be tempted to argue that the emergence of globalization has actually reduced the rate of such conflicts if the present trend is anything to go by. For instance, because of globalization, interregional trade was established., This free trade and interaction between countries has promoted mutual friendship which has in turn and this has greatly reduced the former incidents of war between countries.

Through globalization many developing countries have gradually increased their wealth and accelerated modern development. This is because of free trade and accessibility of loans, which has resulted in to economic growth in most developing countries. As a result of economic growth, citizens of developing countries can now easily access funds to finance modern facilities and systems of education to reduce illiteracy.

Those who are against this idea considerably agree that globalization has brought increased rates of economic growth. However, their argument point at inequalityies in development as a result of trade among many nations. The rich countries, for instance, set up trade laws primarily to benefit themselves. them only Partly due to these laws, citizenry from third world countries continue to experience worsening economic conditions. such that only the poor people who will be left out worsening their situations; this is partly true (Curran, 2010).

The richest countries are claimed to be the ones more involved in open global economy, which is quite unfair for the poor countries, which have been sidelined. The western countries use openness as a methodology employed to boost their economy at the expense of poor and developing countries.

A recent research by Oxfam revealed that most developing countries embrace openness as a trade strategy ies copied from western countries yet they end up being poor or have achieved very little. The best example of such a scenario is being Haiti, which who threw open its their economy and is are the most poorest country is in the world (Curran, 2010).

This is because of poor interpretation of the word openness, which has two meanings. It either refers to economic outcomes on imports and exports or it can also refer to the government policy of opening up and increase the exportations (Curran, 2010). To a certain extend extent, this argument can be considered to be true but one must also understand that the policies of the developing countries and politics also contribute to this outcome.

But globalization has also benefited most developing countries in terms of trade. The formal trade systems established in developing countries by the western countries have made many local countries to abandon their indigenous systems of trade. For example, barter trade was abandoned when countries crossed their boundaries for internationally trade. It is in such venues, where most developing countries developed international friendship.

As a result, they benefited from loans rich countries since and banks were all willing to guarantee the developing countries’ loans because trade goods from developing countries could be used as collateral (Lowry, 2010). As a result, the people’s living conditions have gradually improved, including better salaries to the locals and also promoted international peace.

Thus, we can see how trade can be a powerful tool for spurring prosperity and poverty reduction. Nevertheless, the current trade rules set up by western countries are very unfair; this is because, these is trade rules have been deliberately designed as a tool to oppress the poor and developing countries for the benefit of the developed countries. It is unfair to claim that trade is free yet all the rules have been rigged up only to benefit western countries (Curran, 2010).

For example, a poor African coffee farmer will at no time bargain with a big European coffee conglomerates over world coffee prices; This is a case of a buyer dictating the price at which they will buy instead of the other way round. As an effect of globalization, it is only the rich who benefits from these is trade rules and for it to work for the poor, then it must be made free than it is currently (Curran, 2010).

Free trade is always considered to be necessary but not sufficient for the countries’ development. One of the most progressive projects in the human history 200 years ago was the attempt to completely open up the whole world to free trade as this would empower anyone to have free access to goods and people’s services anywhere even in developed western countries (Horwitz, 2010). Such policies really enabled most people to best use their local knowledge towards their individual benefits. In At the long run, many people from developing countries have been the greatest beneficiaries; this is so because third world countries are always considered to be behind in terms of development.

According to the World Bank “further integrations into the world markets, better functioning of the internal markets and the rising demands of many commodities,” are some of the economic growth being experienced by most developing countries as a result of globalization (Lowry, 2010). In summary, it is evident that most developing countries are taking advantage of developed western countries, which are through with their economic development to seek for technological support and modern systems of medical treatments.

As a matter of fact, globalization reduces the rates of mortality such that a lot of resources can be availed to fight some of the most killer diseases that burden most developing countries. International friends will also be available to help reduce mortality rates in the developing countries whenever there is a disease outbreak through humanitarian initiatives, which are concepts of globalization (Hoffman, 2010). This further shows how globalization has benefited the developing countries most.

According to Lancet, the main substantial proportion cause of deaths among many infants is malnutrition. that states, “When a developing country gets more and more wealthy, it automatically depicts that citizens there will be less likely to be malnourished” (Lowry, 20101). Furthermore, the wealth will enable the government to improve on infrastructure, increase access to clean water, medical facilities, and practice good sanitation. This means there will be few cases of diseases, malnutrition and the mortality rate will be highly reduced (Lowry, 2010).

On the other hand it is not logical to claim that, where there is wealth there is no death since malnutrition for instance is not the only cause of death as there are many other genetic complications, accidents, parental carelessness and other diseases like AIDS which can cause death.

But since poverty is the biggest cause of deaths increased income will always empower people to seek better treatments and medical checkups. Money will also enable one to access clean water and balanced diet, which are some of the preventive strategies used globally to reduce disease prevalence.

Based on the evidence that we have so far reviewed here, it is clear that globalization while it has benefitted developed countries has principally benefited developing and developed countries. Indeed, it is only with the advent of globalization that major strides in economic development has been able to be achieved by majority of countries world over, majority of which were in the category of the poorest countries.

Curran, D., (2010). Globalization does not benefit developing nations .

Hoffman, M., (2010). Job losses and perceptions of globalization. Journal of wWorld tTrade . 2010. 44 (5): 969.

Horwitz, S. (2010). Globalization benefits developing nations .

Lowry, R. (2010). Globalization is good for the poor of the world .

Mostert, J. (2003). The impact of globalisation on developing countries, 35. Proceedings from ESSA conference 17 –19 September 200. Somerset West . Web.

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IvyPanda. (2024, February 27). Globalization. https://ivypanda.com/essays/globalization-essay-3/

"Globalization." IvyPanda , 27 Feb. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/globalization-essay-3/.

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1. IvyPanda . "Globalization." February 27, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/globalization-essay-3/.

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