Week 5.

1: Reading Journal
Michael Torres

Introduction (58 words)

Globalization and Human Integration: We Are All Migrants
Jan Nederveen Pieterse is a Dutch-born scholar whose work centers on global political
economy, development studies and cultural studies. He is a professor of Global Studies and
Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This article will be discussing how
globalization involves a trend towards human integration and the long-term prospective that
allow this to take place.

Main Ideas (855 words)

a. Intro
- does globalization involve a trend towards human integration?
- In relation to ideological bias leading to domination, (2nd coming of Christianity,
Marxism, Westernization) these happen at the end of a history
- arguing that globalization involves a trend toward human integration based upon
it being a long term historical process, power and hierarchy analysis,
multidimensional sets. Of processes that unfold unevenly in different dimensions,
diasporas as trends toward human integration
- long term perspectives on globalization leading into utopian/prophetic views of
human unity
b. Globalization as a Deep Historical Process: (pp. 26-29)
- Historians and anthropologists see globalization as a long-term process
- Ancient populations move across continents/ long distance cultural trade/ world
religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam/ diffusion of technologies like
agriculture, military advancements, literacy, sciences, and philosophies
- What matters is the underlying sense of history in relation to space
- Global integration phenomenon’s in European journeys: expansion, imperialism,
colonialism, and decolonialization
- “consequences of modernity” – human integration stands or falls with the fate of
modernity
- The practice of barbarism poses a threat to human destiny
- Contextualizing modernity’s means to recover collective histories and migrations of
our identity that wire our planet present day
- Large population movements allow for interethnic mingling and crisscrossing gene
pools/ also provides the spread of disease
- European/American mingling had a devastating impact on Native American
communities
- Women’s bodies in issues surrounding integration and borders (headscarf’s, veiling,
beauty pageants)
c. Utopian Visions: Human Unity as a Theme (pp. 29- 32)
- Prophecies and utopias have evoked human unity
 - Visions of common humanity have been evoked in the shift from tribal to universal
religions
- Advocates for localism oppose globalization or its current shape
- Cultural mingling has arisen from the junction of rivers and deltas
- Human memory retains the façade, but overlooks the background noise/
remembers the peak and not the climb
- Unity is not always level: there is a hierarchy that circles the core accomplishments.
There is a center of true believers and down the line makes room for the outcasts at
the bottom of the totem pole.
- China as Middle Kingdom/ Roman Catholic—have both been mandalas of unity and.
power—given both inclusion and exclusion
- Political movements have taken on human integration
- Worker movements have raised awareness for unity and struggle
- Women’s movements merged with anti-slavery movements
- Taking a shortcut to human unity can have hierarchical implications/ taking human
integration seriously means addressing human inequality
d. Uneven Globalization: (pp. 32-34)
- Exclusion refers to the way third world countries are not included in societal
advancements
- The import-export intensity is much higher in Africa than it is in the US.
- Ads have been made to have the humans desire, but this has not given them the
ability to want the course of action, keep it as a statue of mind
- Electoral politics set up barriers to exclude welfare recipients, asylum seekers, and
refugees.
- Global inequality poses a profound moral challenge
e. We are all Migrants: Migration and Human Integration: (pp. 34-41)
- We are all migrants because our ancestors have travelled to the places where we
have come from
- Our perspective on history shapes our perspective on migration
- Economic achievements are conventionally attributed to nations, whereas
contributions from migrants, foreigners, and minorities are ignored
- Nation-state pathos makes room for ethnicity to have a seat at the table/ economic
analysis how a long thread of history that make way for credit to diasporas,
minorities, and ethnic groups.
- Leading perspectives on globalization tend to be one sided, polemical, and
conservative with their implications
- We see nations as a grid that undergoes various deep-rooted and ongoing human
migrations and diasporas
- Nation-state grids gradually make way for a combination of different organizations
and forms of government—attempting to merge migrating mindsets and make room
for cultural creativity
- The key question is how immigration allows for economic development
- Transportation of human bodies and dissemination of human capital have become
increasingly separate forces
 - The above point overlooks the true meaning of migration and the value these
individuals hold
- Trust between ethnic groups lowers transaction costs which allows for potential
higher payoffs
- Crisscrossing and mingling allows for more opportunity and more diversity in
lifestyle choices and economic opportunities
- Free movement of capital vs. the restricted movement of people and labor
- Uneven development has to do with wage rates, labor conditions, ecological
standards, and brain drain in developing countries
- Diasporas and transnational communities utilize differentiated political boundaries
as a means for profit and benefit (transnational enterprises/ criminal organizations)
- Transitioning to the “New World enterprises” means addressing what entails in
these economic formats: ghettos and social gaps
- Utopian visions of human integration have lots of spirit but are not specific on how
the transition will undergo itself
- Intercultural relations have been crucial to “national accumulation
- Migrations, diasporas, multiculturalism, decentralization, and the emergence of
nongovernmental organizations and social movements are slowly altering and
prefiguring different political distributions.

Quotes
Present day problems of integration are in the spotlight behind an abundance of deep historical
upbringing and policy
“…human integration belongs to a deep dynamic in which shifting civilization centers are but
the front stage of history against a backdrop of much older and ongoing intercultural traffic.”
(pp. 27)

Saying that the destiny of modern civilization unifies all separate fragments to a unified idea
“Then the world was an archipelago of fragments that existed in bits and pieces until modernity
and the moderns unified it.” (pp. 27)

“Are all nations communing? Is there going to be but one heart to the globe? -Walt Whitman”
(pp. 29)

Without your cross-cultural foe to compare your accomplishments to, nothing is really an.
Accomplishment at all without a means to comparison and a existing power dynamic
“In this sense none of the achievements of the world’s civilizational centers are local or regional
achievements: they are interregional. Achievements that are incomprehensible without their
cross-cultural infrastructure.” (pp. 30)

How human hierarchy preaches unity through positive and negative reinforcement:
“They have inspired gestures of cross-cultural translation, hybridization, and. unification as well
as crusades, witch-hunts, genocides, holocausts, at times claiming the same paradigms, which
turn out differently depending on whether one emphasizes the unity of the hierarchy” (pp. 31)
Economics do not just move based on human existence and presence in a nation, but a much
more complicated social format:
“Here the general perspective is that markets are socially embedded, economics is institutional,
and what makes economies tick is not just the individual skills and endowments (human capital)
but social networks.” (pp. 37)

The diversity of an economic community will present a layout for how they interact with the
society
“Ethnic economies interweave regions spatially while interethnic economies weave links across
segmented social formations” (pp. 40)

Opinion (120 words)

This was a very interesting reading regarding the ways in which people integrate and
merge ideas and communities. There were so many levels to this article, all pertaining to the
advancement of society and how that takes place. The emphasis on power dynamics in this
article was very important to see that this unity may exist, but it is embedded in a preexisting
hierarchical structure. I was able to conceptualize what multiculturalism means and how people
are able to integrate with one another, and how economics is able to play a role in the whole
process. Money seems to still be the center of a lot of integration, and the question becomes
what side of the dollar are you on?