2. How does globalization impact upon me?
Globalization is not just about things ‘out
there’ in the big, wide world.
Globalization is also about our own place in
the world, and how we experience it
Remember Robertson’s definition of
globalization: the growing
interconnectedness of the world and the
awareness this this is occurring
To investigate the relationship between
globalization and the individual we will
look at the issue of ‘identity’
3. Globalization and identity
US golfer Tiger Woods
famously described
himself as ‘Cablinasian’
rather than black
Cablinasian is a word
Woods made up to
describe his Caucasian-
Black-Indian-Asian
heritage
4. Tiger Woods
Woods made his remarks on the
Oprah Winfrey TV show.
When asked if it bothered him, the
only child of a black American father
and a Thai mother, to be called an
African-American, he replied;
"It does … I'm a 'Cablinasian’ … ‘I'm
just who I am’
But how easy is it to be ‘just who you
are’ in the global age?
To what extent can we choose our
identities?
5. Many black Americans were unhappy with Woods, and
he was accused of being a ‘traitor’ and of ‘selling out’.
His comments caused quite a storm
Read the Time magazine article ‘I’m just who I am’ by Jack White
www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,986278,00.html
However, not everyone feels free to choose their identity
Former US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, commented ‘In
America … when you look like me, you're black’
6. Tiger Woods - one-man globalization process?
Woods’ comments may have caused a
‘mini-racial fire storm’ to quote the
Time article
But the question of Woods’ identity has
a resonance beyond the confines of US
race relations
He has been seen by some as
embodying globalization. Read the
article ‘Global Tiger’
www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=2582
Do you think this article overstates the
case for Woods being a symbol of
globalization?
7. How easy is it to choose an identity?
Former Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsli Ali
has been highly critical of the status of
women in some Islamic cultures.
She received death threats after saying
she was renouncing her religion and no
longer wanted to be considered muslim.
Read an article about Ayaan Hirsli Ali
entitled ‘Taking the fight to Islam’
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsp
hilosophyandsociety/story/0,,2005267,00.html
How free was she to choose her identity?
8. Multi-racial USA?
In the US new categories were added to the 2000
census
The reason was there has been a great increase in the
numbers of mixed-race children in the US
It was the first time options for multiracial Americans
were provided e.g.
American Indian and Alaska Native
American Indian and Alaska Native and White
American Indian and Alaska Native and Black or
African American
9. if current demographic trends persist, midway
through the 21st century whites will no longer make
up the majority. Blacks will have been overtaken as
the largest minority group by Hispanics
Since 1970, the number of multiracial children has
quadrupled to more than 2 million, according to the
Bureau of the Census
‘an explosion of interracial, interethnic and
interreligious marriages will swell the ranks of
children whose mere existence makes a mockery of
age-old racial categories and attitudes’
According to the Time article cited earlier:
10. As with Tiger Woods’ declaration of racial independence,
there are those who opposed the move to change the
census categories
For example, the NAACP was
against the addition of multi-
racial categories
Why do you think they adopted
this stance?
Read the article ‘Do the
multiracial count? ‘ by Gregory
Rodriguez for some clues
http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2000/02/
15/census/index.html
11. Identity and belonging
At root, the issue of globalization and
individual identity comes down to this
There exists a major tension between
the need to establish group solidarity
and the increased opportunities for
individual choice
While Tiger Woods celebrates the
latter, Ayaan Hirsli Ali struggles with
the former
12. Who am I?
To what groups(s) do I belong?
These questions presume a high degree of individual
choice
In the latter part of the C20th there was a shift away
from nation and class as core identities, towards a
‘politics of identity’ based around lifestyle preferences,
consumption, and individual choice
Fixed identity has been replaced by a search for
identity
13. These shifts have been linked to globalization which has
stimulated the ‘power of identity’, to use Castells’ phrase
Castells says that: ‘In a world of global
flows of wealth, power, and images, the
search for identity -- collective or
individual, ascribed or constructed --
becomes the fundamental source of social
meaning’
Read an interview with Castells on this
topic:
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Castells/castells
-con5.html
14. Global homogeneity or global
difference?
In previous weeks we have seen how
globalization is sometimes assumed to lead
to greater homogeneity (e.g. arguments for
Americanization)
Some thinkers (Robertson, Castells, Pieterse)
have emphasised how globalization can lead
to:
difference (glocalization)
the search for identity
hybridization
‘melange’ (an assortment of elements; a
mixture)
15. Global melange
Pieterse (2004) argues that
homogenization was in fact the
project of the nation-state
One impact of globalization has
been to loosen bonds of the
nation-state and allow for
greater ethnic diversity, minority
rights, and the right to difference
Hybridity and ‘melange’ are the
results of globalization
16. Ethnicity and globalization
Why has ethnicity become such an important
vehicle for the expression of collective
identity?
need to forge distinctiveness and identity in world
where identity is everything
mobility and migration; contact with others
across national borders
ethnic groups cannot be mapped onto nation-
states
UN protection of minorities, human rights:
encourage identity claims
‘divorce’ between nation and state
17. Ethnicity and collective identity
Sheila Croucher (2004: 146) argues
that ‘globalization creates incentives
for individuals and groups to cling to
or form ethnic attachments and
provides mechanisms that facilitate
doing so’
Ethnicity is not a rejection of
globalization or regression to pre-
modernity …
Ethnicity is a strategy for coping
with disorientation
18. According to Appadurai
Ethnicity was less important when
ethnic communities were scattered. It
now has the potential to be more
important because they are better
networked
‘… ethnicity, once a genie contained in
the bottle of some sort of locality
(however large) [e.g. the nation-state],
has now become a global force, forever
slipping in and through the cracks
between states and borders’ (1996:41)
19. Fundamentalism and globalization
It is often supposed that Islamic Fundamentalism is
opposed to globalization. For example, in Afghanistan
the Taliban tried to ban satellite TV, and electronically
reproduced music
Read the article, ‘Taleban telly ban’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/128921.stm
20. But, it would be a mistake to conclude that the
Taliban were trying to dodge globalization
A more plausible explanation is that they were
trying to create a space for themselves within
global culture
As Beyer points out, ‘the central thrust is to
make Islam and Muslims more determinate in
the world system, not to reverse globalization.
The intent is to shape global reality, not to
negate it’ (quoted in Robins, 1997: 42).
21. Concluding thoughts: linking individual
identity and collective belonging
You may be familiar with the term
metrosexual - a heterosexual male
who has a strong interest in
appearance and style
‘metrosexual men are muscular but suave,
confident yet image-conscious, assertive yet
clearly in touch with their feminine sides. Just
consider British soccer star David Beckham. He
is married to former Spice Girl Victoria “Posh”
Adams, but his combination of athleticism and
cross-dressing make him a sex symbol to both
women and men worldwide (Khanna, 2004)
22. Is Europe a ‘metrosexual’ superpower?
Just as modern metrosexual men mix traditional
masculine traits such as strength with an eye for
fashion, Europe wields influence around the globe
through soft power and finesse (Khanna, 2004).
Just as metrosexuals are redefining masculinity,
Europe is redefining old notions of power and
influence.
Read ‘The Metrosexual superpower’, by Parag
Khanna
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=4366
23. Final points
Globalization has created the need for identity: it is
particularly important in a world that is becoming
more similar in many important respects
It is not simply that everyone needs identity, but that
everyone needs to assert their identity in order to be
a global actor
Ethnicity can provide an important vehicle for identity
assertion (beyond nation and class)
Such collective identities (and sense of belonging) can
come into conflict with individual assertions of identity
(right to be different)
In the same way as it creates sameness, globalization
can also create ‘melange’
24. References
Appadurai, A. 1996: Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of
Globalization (Minnesota Univ. Press)
Croucher, S. 2004: Globalization and Belonging: the Politics of
Identity in a Changing World (Rowman and Littlefield)
Khanna, P. 2004: ‘The Metrosexual Superpower’ Foreign Policy, 16
August http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=4366
Pieterse, J.N. 2004: Globalization and Culture: Global Melange
(Rowman and Littlefield)
Robins, K. 1997: ‘What in the world’s going on?’ in P. Du Gay (ed)
Production of Culture/ Cultures of Production (Sage)
NB:Read my review of the books by Pieterse and Croucher at:
www.politicalreviewnet.com/polrev/reviews/PSR/R_1478_9299_1435_1004840.asp
