The Contemporary world-lesson 1

1. THE CONTEMPORARY
WORLD
GE 3

2. WHAT IS GLOBALIZATION?

3. - The expansion and intensification of
social relations and consciousness across
world-time and across world-space
(Manfred Steger)
GLOBALIZATION

4. - Refers to “Both the creation of new
social networks and the multiplication
of existing connections cut across
traditional political, economic, cultural,
and geographic boundaries”.
WHAT IS EXPANSION?

5. These various connections occur at different
levels. Social media, for example, establish
new global connections between people,
while international groups of non-
governmental organizations (NGOs) are
networks that connect a more specific group-
social worker and activists- from different
corners of the globe.

6. - Refers to the expansion, stretching,
and acceleration of this networks.
WHAT IS INTENSIFICATION?

7. Not only are global connections multiplying, but
they are also becoming more closely-knit and
expanding their reach. For example, there has
always been a strong financial Market connecting
to London and New York. With the advent of
electronic trading, however, the volume of that
trade increases exponentially, since traders can
now trade more at higher speed.

8. Steger notes that “globalization processes do not
occur merely at an objective, material level but they
also involve the subjective plane of human
consciousness”.
In other words, people begin to feel that the world
has become smaller place and distance has
collapsed from thousands of miles to just a mouse-
click away.

9. One can now email a friend in another country and
get a reply instantaneously, and as a result, begins
to perceive their distance as less consequential.
Cable TB and the internet has also exposed one to
news from across the globe, so now, S/he has this
greater sense of what is happening in other places.

10. - Steger (2014) uses the term globalism
to mean globalization an ideology. He
identifies five core claims of globalism.
GLOBALIZATION

11. 1. Globalization is about the liberalization and
global integration of markets
2. Globalization is inevitable and irreversible
3. Nobody is in charge of globalization
4. Globalization benefits everyone
5. Globalization furthers the spread of
democracy in the world.

12. -Only an ideological component of
globalization.
-More on mindset and philosophy
Globalism

13. Steger posits that his definition of globalization must be
differentiated with an ideology he calls globalism. If globalization
represents the many processes that allow for the expansion and
intensification of global connections, globalism is a widespread
belief among powerful people that global integration of economic
markets is beneficial for everyone, since it spreads freedom and
democracy across the world. It is a common belief forwarded in
media and policy circles.

14. Different kinds of globalization occur in
multiple and intersecting dimensions of
integration that he calls “scapes”
For Anthropologist Arjun Appadurai

15. ethnoscape - Refers to the movement of the people
mediascape – about the flow of the culture
technoscape – refers the circulation of mechanical
goods and software
financescape – denotes the global circulation of
money
ideoscape – it’s the realm where political ideas
move around
SCAPES