Eriksen - Globalization

KEY CONCEPTS SERIES
ISSN 1747-6550
The series aims to cover the core disciplines and the key cross-disciplinary ideas
across the Humanities and Social Sciences. Each book isolates the key concepts to
map out the theoretical terrain across a specific subject or idea. Designed specifically
for student readers, each book in the series includes boxed case material, summary
chapter bullet points, annotated guides to further reading, and questions for essays
and class discussion.
Design: The Key Concepts

Mark Westgarth and Eleanor Quince
Fashion: The Key Concepts

Jennifer Craik
Film: The Key Concepts

Nitzan Ben-Shaul
Food: The Key Concepts

Warren Belasco
Globalization: The Key Concepts (1st Edition)

Thomas Hy/land Eriksen
Technoculture: The Key Concepts

Debra Benita Shaw
The Body: The Key Concepts

Lisa Blackman
New Media: The Key Concepts

Nicholas Gane and David Beer
Photography: The Key Concepts (1st Edition)

David Bate
Photography: The Key Concepts (2nd Edition)

David Bate
Globalization
KEY CONCEPTS SERIES
ISSN 1747-6550
The series aims to cover the core disciplines and the key cross-disciplinary ideas
across the Humanities and Social Sciences. Each book isolates the key concepts to
map out the theoretical terrain across a specific subject or idea. Designed specifically
for student readers, each book in the series includes boxed case material, summary
chapter bullet points, annotated guides to further reading, and questions for essays
and class discussion.
Design: The Key Concepts

Mark Westgarth and Eleanor Quince
Fashion: The Key Concepts

Jennifer Craik
Film: The Key Concepts

Nitzan Ben-Shaul
Food: The Key Concepts

Warren Belasco
Globalization: The Key Concepts (1st Edition)

Thomas Hy/land Eriksen
Technoculture: The Key Concepts

Debra Benita Shaw
The Body: The Key Concepts

Lisa Blackman
New Media: The Key Concepts

Nicholas Gane and David Beer
Photography: The Key Concepts (1st Edition)

David Bate
Photography: The Key Concepts (2nd Edition)

David Bate
Globalization
The Key Concepts
Second Edition
THOMAS HYLLAND ERIKSEN
B L O O M S B U R Y
LONDON • NI::W DELHI • NEW YORK • SYDNEY
Bloomsbury Academic
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Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Pie
First edition published in 2007
This second edition published in 2014
©Thomas Hylland Eriksen, 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted 1n any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval
system, without prior permission 1n writing from the publishers
Thomas Hylland Eriksen has identified his right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Ac t, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on

or refraining from action as a result of the material 1n this publication can be
accepted by Bloomsbury Acaderrnc or the author.
British library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978-0-85785-727-9

PB: 978-0-85785-742-2
ePDF: 978-0-85785-581-7
ePub: 978-0-85785-765-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Eriksen, Thomas Hylland.
Globalization : the key concepts I Thomas Hylland Eriksen. - Second edition.
pages cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-85785-742-2 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-85785-727-9 (hardback)
ISBN 978-0-85785-765-1 (epub)
1. Anthropology. 2. Globalization.
3. Globalization-Social aspects. 4. Culture and globalization. I. Title.
GN27E69 2014
306-dc23 2013042234
Typeset by Apex CoVantage, LLC, Madison, WI, USA
Printed and bound in Great Britain

Contents
Preface 1x
Introduction: A Shrinking Planet
1 Disembedding 19
Globalization and Distance 21

Towards a More Abstract World 21
Abstract Time and Temperature 23
Money as a Means of Communication 25
Abstract Music 26
Printing and Factories 27
Nationalism as a Template for Globalization 29
other Disembedding Mechanisms 31
Disembedded Friendship 32
Neoliberal Economics and Disembedding 33
Critics of Disembedding 35
2 S peed 39
Time-space Compression 41
Accelerated Change 43
Friedman's "Flatteners" 45
Acceleration in the Media 47
Bourdieu's Pessimism 48
Simultaneity 49
Some Further Implications of Acceleration 52
The Unevenness of Speed 53
3 Standardization 57
Some Standards of a Global Modernity 58

Some Contemporary Forms of Standardization 59
Obsolescence 61
Bilingualism and Standardization 63
vi CONTENTS
The Globalization of Nothing 64

McWorld and Its Discontents 66
MS Word 67
The Shipping Container and Standardization 70
Resistance to Standardization 71
4 Connections 75
Criticism of Methodological Nationalism 77

The Network Society 78
Communication Networks 79
A Networked Global Economy? 81
Globalization from Below 83
Global Governance? 86
Translation 87
Remittances and Cheap Calls 88
Soccer and Globalization 90
Delinking, Chosen, and Enforced 93
A World of Slums 95
Connectedness and Disjunctures 96
5 Mobility 99
Transnational Migration 1 02
Transnational Connections 1 04
Outsourcing the Nation-state? 1 05
The Growth of Tourism 1 06
Perspectives on Tourism 108
The Tourist and the Refugee 110
Long-distance Nationalism 111
Gendered Migration 11 2
Nostalgia 1 13
6 Mixing m
Forms of Mixing 1 1 9
Hybridity and Creolization 1 21
World Music 123
A Mixed Family in Mauritius 1 25
A Model 1 29
CONTENTS vii
7 Risk 133
Natural and Manufactured Risks? 135

Perceived Risk and Real Consequences 1 37
Invasive Species 1 38
Climate Change 1 39
Climate Change and Global Democracy 1 41
Wavering Trust in Expert Systems 1 42
Dealing with Global Risks Locally 145
Globalization and Wars on Terror 147
Human Rights and Security 148
8 Identity Politics 1 53
The Politicized Concept of Culture 1 56

Identity Politics as a Response to Globalization 158
A Grammar of Identity Politics 159
Indigenous Strategies 161
Reembedding in Diasporas 1 64
Trust and Social Capital 1 65
Neonationalism and lslamism: Two Sides of the Same Coin? 167
Human Rights and Identity Politics 168
9 Alterglobalization 173
Protest Movements 1 75
The Transnational Occupy Movement 178
Alterglobalizing Strategies in the South 179
The Slowness Movement 181
From the Arab Spring to the Snowden Affair 182
Afterword: An Overheated World 1 87
Bibliography 191
Index 201
Pref ace
M
ll y office desk is large and stu rdy, ergonomically adjusted to suit a person of
my height and constructed by world-class Swedish engineers from the fi nest
mock ha rdwood and rea l steel. With the flick of a switch, it can be raised (if I want
to stand while worki ng to save my back) or l owered (it I were to lend my office to a
shorter person). Yet, lately it has been groan i ng audibly. The reason is simple: The desk
is burdened not j ust by the usual pile of half-read books and exam papers; it carries the
additional weight of a good-sized l ibrary on global izati on, sorted roug h ly i nto about a
dozen wavering stacks. These books and a rticles, which comprise o n ly a small traction
of the total n u mber of vol u mes dealing with global ization and tra nsnational i sm si nce
around 1 990 (as wel l as a few older ones). form the b u l k of the source material used
to write this book-one i s remi nded of the old pun about a scholar being a library's
means to create a nother l i b rary-together with countless journal arti cles, newspa per
clippings, downloaded texts, and a reasonable col lection of personal observati ons
j otted down on scraps of paper. Even to begin to summarize the contents of each book
and every important a rticle wou l d be a hopeless, endless (and rather boring) job. And
then there a re all the other texts, which I haven't read and probably never wi l l . I am
rem i nded of my countryman Tor Age Bringsvaerd's s hort story about the man who
collected the fi rst of September, 1 973 ( 1 988). Of cou rse, although i f he was at it for
years, he went i nsane long before he was finished."
Thi s is how the preface for the first (2007) edition of this book bega n . As I began
to take notes for it in February 2006, pondering where to beg i n to tackle the i n every
way huge topic of global izati on, an event in the outside world came to my rescue, as i s
so often t h e case with u s academics. I had j ust b e e n read ing two very different books
about globa l ization . The American journalist Thomas L . Friedman. i n his ambitious The
World Is Flat (2005: 7), described an i n creasingly i ntegrated world market where " the
playing field had been leveled " i n the sense that I n dian, C h i nese, North Atlantic, and
other companies were competing with few i m pediments: H is i ntegrated world was
a place where capita lism had won and where the fittest wou l d s u rvive, l i ke it or not.
Worryi n g about the future of the American job ma rket Friedman noted the emergence
of C h i na as a rising power in the global economy, and he spoke about the I nternet and
global financial markets as guarantors for g l obal economic growth .
The other book was James Lovelock's The Revenge of Gaia (2006), a deeply pessi
mistic book about c l i mate change and environ mental destruction , where the author
argued that the Earth's self-reg u lati n g mechanisms were beginning to falter i n the
face of mass ive h u man energy use, with unforeseeable but doubtless enormous
x PREFACE
consequences. A different take on global ization from Friedman's upbeat assessment

of global capita lism, Lovelock's book indicated a n i m portant way i n which global i zation
creates u niversal vul nerabil ity.
Th i n k i n g about these books and how to compare them, I glanced at my morning
paper only to be met by a picture from a heated demonstration i n a Middle Eastern
city. The reason for this demonstration, and subsequent acts of arson . consumer
boycott, rioti ng, and a brief dipl omatic crisis. was the publ ication, some months earlier,
of twelve cartoons depicting the Prophet M ohammad i n a leadi ng Danish newspaper.
Few of the cartoons could be described a s offensive in thei r content, but there is
a general ban against depictions of the Prophet i n Sunni Islam, and many M us l i ms
outside (and not least i nside) Denmark felt that their dissemination was a deliberate
act of h u m i l iation . Regardless of his motivation for commissioning the cartoons, the
Danish editor coul d not have a nticipated the reactions, fann i ng out across the M us l i m
world and, through i t s repercussions, damaging relations between Denmark a n d
several M us l i m cou ntries.
Reflecti ng on the impl ications of the cartoon controversy for our attempts to
understand global ization, it occurred to me that the affa i r had demonstrated that not only
are politica l , econom ic, cultura l, and ecological issues global ized these days, but so are
emotional ones, in this case. the feel ing of h u m i l iation and offense. One can no longer
publish a critique of I slam (or Judaism, or H induism, or O rthodox Ch ristian ity) i ntended
for a local readership assured that it wi l l not be read and possibly misu nderstood
anywhere else. Not a l l messages travel freely and swiftly in a globalized world, but all
have the potential to do so.
We live in a shrunken world, a world of contacts, frictions, comparisons, communication,
and movements, which are sometimes unrestricted by distance. At the same time, and
partly for that very reason, boundary making of various kinds has gained a new and
heightened significance through attempts to stem and regulate such flows, and besides,
many human activities continue to take place without any consequences beyond the local.
The aim of this book is to outline some of the main dimensions of globalization, to highlight
its dual (local/nonlocal) character, and to i ndicate some ways in which they are being studied
and critiqued. Far from being a comprehensive overview of the area, this book is an attempt
to open more doors than it closes and to point the reader in directions that I have myself
found fruitful .
The best part o f a decade after the completion o f t h e fi rst edition o f t h i s book ,
cha nges and new developments i n t h e world have m a d e a fa i rly comprehensive
revi sion and updati n g necessa ry. Let me j u st mention a few things. The rise of
C h i na as a world econ omic power, evident a l ready then, is now making its i nfl uence
felt in all parts of the global syste m . The political up heava l s in North Africa and the
M iddle East ( " the Arab Spri n g ," a s it was known i n the begin n i ng ) , starting just
before Christmas 2010, have created a new pol itical configuration i n that part of
the world, fueled to a great extent by transnational commun ication tech nologies.
C l i mate change, again a major sou rce of anxiety a decade ago, is cu rrently a ch ief
preoccupation across the world as it conti nues to spread u ncertainty and perceived
P R E FA C E xi
changes i n m a ny places . F i n a l ly, the financial crises of the early twe nty-fi rst centu ry,
from the subprime cris i s starting i n the U n ited States in 2008 to the E u ro cri s i s ,
wh ich has s e n t ripples throughout t h e world s i n ce 201 0 , a re a constant remi nder of
the volatil ity a nd u n p redicta b i l ity of the world economy, as are the i n creas i ngly wel l
organized reactions agai nst g l oba l n e o l i bera l i sm , sometimes spoken of a s the new
social m ovements and epitomized in recent years through the Occupy movement
centered in the U n ited State s .
Yet, t h e speed o f change, and i t s direction, va ries . N o t everything h a s cha nged
equally or even perceptibly. For example, countries l i ke C uba and N o rth Korea rema i n ,
i n different ways, partly disconnected from t h e world o f neol iberal global izati o n . The
then emerging regional powers of B razil, South Africa, and I nd i a rem a i n e mergi ng as
I write, and the global m i l itary hegemony of the U n ited States remains unchallenged.
N ot many people have been directly i nvolved with this book, but those who have
two anonymous referees a n d Berg's Tri stan Palmer in the first editio n , five external
readers as wel l as B loomsbury's Sophie H odgson and Louise B utler for the second
edition-have helped me i m p rove, sharpen, and professionalize the text, and for
this I am g ratefu l . Kristin O psahl Alvarez tracked down and copied a vast n u mber of
relevant a rticles for the first edition-tha nks, Kristi n ! Of more enduring , i f less di rect,
sign ificance, is my association with the Transnational Flows group at the U n iversity of
Oslo (2001 -2004), di rected by Marianne E . Lien, my collaboration on the comparative
a nth ropology of h u m a n secu rity with colleagues at the Free U niversity of Amsterdam
(2003-2006), under the leadership of Oscar Salem i n k, and my enduring pa rticipati on
i n various i n tellectual projects over the years with Oscar H erner a n d M a l mo U ni versity
C o l lege. S i nce late 201 2 , I have d i rected a comparative project on the crises of
globalizatio n , " Overheati ng;· a nd the reg ular conversations a n d seminars taking place
i n the research group conti nuously produce new i n sights. M a ny others cou l d have
been mentioned, but one wi l l have to do: It was Eduardo Archetti who put me on the
track many years ago, a n d u ntil his premature death in J u ne 2005, we discussed the
topics featured in this book (and many other things) so incessa ntly that I sti l l feel him
peering over my shoulder, eager to offer h i s views a n d criticisms, as I try to write about
g l oba l ization.
Oslo, a utumn 201 3
Introductio n
A Sh rinki n g Pl a n et
Although the term globalization is recent and came into widespread use only in the
early 1990s, the phenomena to which it refers are older, since transnational connections
have existed far longer. However, global consciousness, the awareness of being part of
global networks, is recent as a mass phenomenon. Globalization refers to transnational
connectedness and encompasses important economic, political, cultural, and environmental
dimensions. It creates new opportunities and constraints, possibilities and vulnerabilities.
In most parts of the world, there is a continuous tension between globalizing and localizing
tendencies, and this relationship constitutes the central dialectic of globalization.
T
he very popularity of the word globalization signals a need for caution. Although the
first usage of the word can be traced back to the early 1 960s (Steger 2009), it was
scarcely used before the late 1 980s, even in academic circles. Today, you can hardly open
a newspaper without encountering the term. It may easily appear to be a fash ionable
label used to designate phenomena one has the vaguest ideas about but that somehow
represent newness and a new stage in the history of modernity. G lobal ization has
rapidly become a basket concept, which seems to include anyth ing from cli mate cha nge
to terrorism and petty market trade i n the Global South. Yet to discard the concept of
globalization o n such grounds would be foolish. There i s a real need for a common,
generic term to describe the manifold, ambiguous, complex ways i n which the world is,
and increasi ngly so, i nterconnected. H owever, used by itself, the word globalization is
empty o r at least fuzzy. Before moving to some s ubstantial areas of globalization resea rch
i n the subsequent chapters of this book, it is therefore necessary to do some sorting and
sifting, to deli mit some fields of enquiry, and to propose a theoretical approach .
G lobal ization i n Earl ier Ti mes
T h e fact that t h e term globa li zation i s n e w d o e s n o t m e a n that various pa rts o f the

world have not been i nterconnected before-nor that people were not thinking and
2 G L O B A L I Z AT I O N
theorizing about globa l i nterconnectedness in earl ier periods. Perhaps the p h i l osopher
G .W.F. H egel ( 1 770- 1 83 1 ) was the fi rst theorist of global ization proper, s i nce he did
not merely talk of con nections between disparate areas and places but about the
emerging consciousness about such connections. Th rough his famous concept of
the world-spirit ( Weltgeist), a n abstract entity i mma nent i n all peoples but unevenly
developed, Hegel saw the possi bil ity of imagining a l l of human ity a s a kind of
commun ity. H owever, H egel's older contemporary I mmanuel Ka nt ( 1 724-1 804) had
a l ready developed, chiefly in his late essay o n eternal peace ( Kant 2001 [ 1 795]), an idea
of cosmopo l itanism that demanded equ itable and respectful dialogue between the
peoples of the world, regardless of their differences. In these phi losophical reflections,
we see the i ncipient notion of a global conversation, which, i n the view of ma ny, is
being rea l i zed now, not least thanks to the technologically induced shrinking of the
world i n contemporary times. The philosophies of Kant and Hegel were developed i n
the same period a s modern nationalism, a n d as w i l l later become clear, the ideology of
nationalism, a lthough it is often contrasted with and seen as an enemy of globa l i zation,
shares many of its characteristics.
The nineteenth century was an era of colonial expa nsion, sci entific discovery, and
industrial ization i n the N o rth, and accompanying these processes were new forms
of thought, new models of the world. Karl M a rx's political p h i losophy was certai n ly
gl oba l in its scope and ambitions, and nineteenth-century cu ltural h i storians in the
West tended to include all of h u ma n ity i n their vast treatises, which often had an
evolutionist bent, placing the author's own society at the top of a developmental
ladder. Than k s to industrial development, colonial expa nsion, and technological change
(the steamboat first appeared i n the 1 780s but became wi despread only i n the 1 830s),
the growth i n i nternational trade was form i dable i n that centu ry. Another im portant
n i neteenth-century i nventi on, the telegraph ( 1 839), made it possible for the fi rst time
i n human history to move a message independently of an object physically carrying it.
With the open i ng of the fi rst functioning tra nsatlantic cable in 1 866, messages could
be sent from London to New York i n a matter of mi nutes . I t goes without saying that
such innovations changed the perception of space and distance. In terms of speed of
commun ication, N ew York was now closer to the London telegraph office than a ny
suburb o n ly a few mi les away.
Tech nological development in both main forms of communication tech nology
that tra nsmitting messages a n d that transporting physical objects-continued in the
twentieth century with the i nvention of the a i rplane, the radio, and so on. In the 1 920s,
the M a rxist theorist Leon Trotsky argued that socialism i n one cou ntry was impossible
si nce the world was too interconnected for separate development at the national level
to be feasible, and he a gitated in favor of a world revol ution. The Second World War
was , despite its n a me, the fi rst truly global wa r that i nvolved fighting i n , and troops
from, a l l continents (the F i rst World War was mainly E u ropea n ) .
I n the first postwar decades, g l obal i nterconnectedness conti nued t o i ntensify. The
number of tra nsnational companies grew from about seven thousand i n 1 970 to about
eighty thousand i n 2 0 1 3 , as did the nu mber of trans national N G O s (nongovernmental
organ i zations)-from about one thousand i n 1 9 1 4 to more than forty thousand in 201 3 .
I N T RO D U C T I O N 3
The U n ited N ations grew from relatively modest beg i n nings in 1 945 i nto an i m mense
conglomerate of s u borga n izations with offices i n nea rly all cou ntries. I n ternational
travel became easier, cheaper, and more widesprea d . I n the 1 960s, the Canadian
media theorist M a rshall McLuhan coi ned the term " global v i l lage" to designate the
new mass media s ituati o n , where television i n particular, i n h i s view, would create
shared fra m es of reference a n d m utual knowledge between people across the g l obe
( M c Luhan 1 994 [ 1 964] ) . In this period, g lobal change-economic, enviro n mental,
politica l-became the s u bject of many new scholarly books . M any used the term
development, i ntimati n g that the poor countries wou l d eventually catch up with the rich
ones ( e . g . , Rostow 1 960) . Others, especially voices from the pol itical left and/or the
Thi rd World, preferred to use the word i mperia l i s m , suggesting that the rich countries
were actively exploiting the poor ones and preventing them from developing ( e . g . , Amin
1 980; Fra n k 1 975). The term Westernization, usually used i n a derogatory way, became
common . Around this time, the h i storical sociologist I mmanuel Wa llerstein developed
his i nfluential world-system theory ( 1 974-79), which traced the devel opment of the
contemporary world system to the i ntercontinental trade beg i n n i ng i n the fifteenth
century. In Wallerstein's vi ew, a permanent i nternational division of labor subsequently
developed, d ividing the g l obe i nto the core (the rich countries), the periphery (the poor
countries) , and the semiperiphery (cou ntries l i ke Russia, B razi l , and C h i n a ) . Ela borati ng
on world-system theory, C h ristopher Chase-Du n n a n d Thomas H a l l ( 1 997) take a
longer view than Wal lerstein, describing the development of transnational system s in a
perspective spa n n i n g ten thousand years a n d showing that a mu lticentered world was
finally becom i n g i ntegrated at the outset of the n i n eteenth centu ry, in the sense that a l l
major centers were b y then i n regular contact. Focusing o n cultura l processes as wel l as
economic ones, the a nthropologist Eric Wolf's Europe and the People Without History
( 1 982) marked a decis ive departure from a nthropology's tendency to study ostensi bly
isolated, small groups. The book, which ana lyzes i mperia l ism from the perspective of
the conquered, s howed that most i ndigenous peoples " stopped being i ndigenous a
long time ago" ( Lewellen 2002: 1 4) a n d explores the process of colonia lization as it
was perceived and experienced not by the colon izers but by the colon ized.
G lo bali zation Today: A Com pressed World
Various parts of the world were interconnected, and there was considerable awareness
of this, long before the recent coinage of the term global ization . The H e l l e n istic
E m p i re , founded through the conquests of Alexa nder the G reat (323-30 s.c.E . ) , and
the Roman E m p i re (ca . 3 0 s.c.E.-476 c . E . ) are the best known exa mples of expa nsive
tra nsnational networks from European a ntiqu ity, but C h i nese, M o ngols, a n d other
steppe peoples connected groups across the E urasian continent and beyond, the most
famous trade route bei n g the Silk Road . As the centuries went by, trade, conquests,
cu ltura l borrowings, and migration i ncrea s i ngly brought people across the world i n
contact with each other, di rectly o r indirectly. The late n i neteenth century, when the
4 G L O B A L I ZATI O N
B ritish E mpire was a rea lm where " the s u n never set," ma rked a high point i n early
modern globalizati o n .
Yet. it c a n be argued that there i s something new t o t h e present world, that i s to say
the world that began with the end of the Cold War in 1 989-9 1 , which goes a long way to
explain the meteoric rise of public i nterest in global izatio n and tra nsnational phenomena
more generally. Three factors, roughly coinciding i n time, may be mentioned here:
• The end of the Cold War itself entailed a broadening and deepening of global
integrati o n . The global two-bloc system, which had lasted si nce the 1 940s,
had made it difficult to think of geopolitics, transnational com m u nication, and
i nternational trade i n terms not dictated by the oppositi o n between the U n ited
States and the Soviet U n ion and their respective allies. With the dissol ution
of this conflict. the world seemed to have been left with a one-bloc system
(notwithstanding the conti n ued existence of a few states, such as N orth Korea,
which conti nue to stay largely aloof) . The world appeared to have become a
single ma rketplace.
• The Internet, which had existed i n embryonic form s i nce the late 1 960s, began
to grow exponentially around 1 990. Throughout the 1 990s, media buzzwords
were about bandwidths, websites, porta ls, the new economy, and its business
opportu nities. The World Wide Web was i ntroduced i n 1 992-93, a round the
same time as many academics and businesspeople grew accustomed to using
e-mai l for their daily correspondence. Cell phones became ubiquitous i n the
rich cou ntries and the m i ddle classes of the poorer ones . The impact of this
double delocal ization-the physical letter replaced by e-ma i l , the fixed landline
replaced by the wireless mobile-on the everyday l ife of mill ions of people has
been consi derable, but it rema ins undertheorized.
• Identity politics-national ist, eth nic, rel igious, territorial-were at the forefront
of the international agenda, both from above (states demanding homogeneity
or engaging in eth nic cleansi ng) and from below ( m inorities demanding
equal rights o r secession) The Salman Rushdie affa i r, itself an excel lent
example of the globalization of ideas, began with the issuing of a fatwa by
Iran's ayatollah, Khome i n i , fol lowing the publ ication of Rushdie's al legedly
blasphemous novel The Satanic Verses ( 1 988) . I t soon beca me apparent that
Rushdie could move freely nowhere in the world si nce the fatwa had global
implications. Only two years later, Yugoslavia di ssolved, with ensuing civil wars
based on ethn i c differences. In the same period, debates about imm igration
and multicultu ra l i s m came to domi nate pol itical discourse in several Western
countries, while the H i ndu nationali sts of the B J P (Bharatiya Janata Party, or
" I ndian People's Party " ) came to power i n India.
These three dimensions of globalization-increased trade and transnational economic

activity; faster and denser com munication networks ; and i n creased tensions between
I NTRO DUCTI ON 5
(and with i n ) cu ltural groups due to i ntens ified m utual exposu re-do not s uggest that
the world has been fundamentally transformed after the late 1 980s, but that the
driving forces of both economic, politica l , and cu ltural dynamics are transnational
and that this is now widely acknowledged. As a pioneeri ng theorist of contemporary
globalizati o n , Roland Robertson s ucci nctly puts it: " G loba lization as a concept refers
both to the com pression of the world and the i ntensification of consciousness about
the world as a whole" ( 1 992: 8 , emphasis mine).
The compression of the world, i n all of its forms, brings us closer to each other
for better and for worse. The consciousness about these connections gives a sense
of both opportunities and of vulnerabil ity. Thi s dual aspect of globalization-increased
i ntercon nectedness and i ncreased awareness of it-can be studied from a myriad
of empirical vantage points. It wou l d be perfectly feasible, with i n the compass of
globa l i zation studies, to write a dissertation on, say, E u ropea n a n d American reactions
to the Asian bird flu i n 2006. The i mpact of, and local perceptions of, global ization a mong
the small, until very recently ill iterate and stateless peoples in M elanesia, has long been
a subject in anthropol ogy (see M artin 201 3 for a recent excellent treatment). H u man
geographers write about the displacement of people i n Indi a as a result of cl i mate
change. Sociologists study the growth of s l u ms in Africa. Anthropologists a n d others try
to figure out the effects of the phenomenal rise of the Chi nese export economy and its
impl ications, locally as wel l as in China itself. Thousands write about migratio n , again from
a variety of perspectives. Others are concerned with the distribution of economic power
in the global economy, or the distribution of symbolic or defi nitional power in the g lobal
media world; some write about standardization of goods and services as a n o utcome
of the globalization of the economy ; others write about the spread of certain consumer
preferences, yet others about the global tourist industry and the commodification of
cu ltural identity; others again study i nternational law, with human rights as a main
dimension of global ization, or the antiglobalization or a/terglobalization movement, which
opposes the i nequal ities and power disparities created through processes of economic
global ization. Just to mention a few subject areas . As far as academic discipl i nes are
concerned, g lobal ization is a central topic i n sociology, pol itical science, cultu ra l h istory,
geography, anthropology, media studies, education, law, cultural studies, and so on. The
examples in this book, I should emphasize, a re meant to indicate variations over a (large)
theme and do not claim to be representative in a statistical sense.
What G lobal ization is N ot
Before o utl i n i ng some centra l a n a lytica l dimensions of globa lizati o n , it seems perti nent
to mention a few notions often associated with g l obal ization, either simpl isti ca l ly or
wrongly:
• Globalization is really very recent and began only in the 1980s. This view
betrays the beholder's poor knowledge of h istory. World-systems have
6 G LO BA L I ZATI O N
existed earlier i n the sense that people a l l over the world have pa rticipated,
often i nvol untarily, i n political and economic systems of a huge, often
i ntercontinental scale. The European colonial era i s the most obvious i n stance,
but one might a rgue that the Roman E mp i re, encompassing as it did most
of the known world (for E uropea ns), or the Aztec E mp i re, shared many of
the characteristics of today's g lobal ization ( Friedman 1 994) . I ndeed, Nayan
Chanda (2007) begins his compe l l i ng na rrative about the " traders, preachers,
adventurers and warriors " who shaped g l obal ization, with the exodus from
Africa and pays considerable attention-rightly so-to the mobi lities of people,
goods, plants, and ideas during colonialism. H owever, the i n habitants of earlier
world-systems were rarely aware of each other beyond thei r own experience,
o r only d i m ly so through the presence of rare objects from afar and tall stories
told by travelers. As a form of h u ma n consciousness, globa l i zation is new as
a mass phenomenon. The labor market situatio n in Oslo has been known to
thousands of Pakista ni vil lagers for decades, and reggae music in M elanesia,
advertising i n Central Africa, and the rhetoric of the pol itical opposition in
South Korea all indicate the existence of a g lobal discourse, a shared (but not
uniform) communication system. In this cultural sense, g lobalization is recent
as a mass phenomenon, a n d the n u mber of people who a re unaware of the
existence of television, chewing g u m , and basic human ri ghts i s decreasing
every year.
• Globalization is just a new word for economic imperialism or cultural

Westernization. This view reduces the vast range of tra n snati onal p rocesses
to certain economic ones. Although it is ta utol ogically true that rich cou ntries
a re dominant, the s ituation i s not static. N ot only C h i n a , but I n dia, South
Korea, a n d other formerly poor countries a re emerg i n g as equal players,
and regional powers s uch a s South Africa and B razil a re both exploited a n d
exploiters i n t h e globa l econ o my. However, t h e main problem w i t h this view
is its negl ect of the noneconomic d i mensions of globa l i zati o n . The di rection
of tra n snati o n a l fl ows i s not u n i lateral: Some things flow from north to
south, others from south to north, and there i s a l so considerable movement
between east and west and within the south . Th e m i l l i ons of p i rated C D s
a nd DVDs sold i n M exico h ave b e e n i mported, i l legally or semilegal ly, from
C h i n a (Ag u i a r 201 2 ) . The violent uprising in M a l i , begi n n i n g i n spri ng 201 2 ,
was i deologically i n sp i red by i deas originating i n the Arab pen i n s u l a . The
l argest group of Somali refugees l ives in neighboring Kenya . And the m a i n
groups of l a b o r m i g rants i n South Africa c o m e from oth e r African countries,
notably Zi mbabwe and N igeri a . Weste rn izati on is n ot a good synonym for
global ization.
• Globalization means homogenization. Th i s view is always simpl istic and usually

m i s lead i n g . F i rst, the partici pation in globa l , or transnationa l , processes often
I NT R O D U C T I O N 7
entails a vitalizati on of l ocal cultura l expressions, be it African art Caribbean

popular m u s ic, or I n dian novels, which depend on a n overseas market for their
s urviva l . Second, la rge segments of our everyday lives are hardly touched by
g lobalizatio n . Although Taiwanese, l i ke people from the N o rth Atlantic, wea r
jeans a n d fiddle with touch phones while eati ng burgers a n d dri n king C o kes,
they do not thereby become E uropeans or America n s . H owever, as will be
argued in a later chapter, it is true that simi larities between discrete societies
develop as an i ntegral dimension of globa lizati o n .
• Globalization is opposed to human rights. On the contra ry, the g l obal spread of
h u m a n rig hts is one of the most spectacularly s u ccessf u l forms of global ization
witnessed in the world. It i s true, of course, that transnational companies
operating i n poor countries do not necessarily recognize workers' rights, b ut it
i s only tha n ks to the globalization of political ideas that l ocal commu n ities and
organ i zations can argue effectively against them and canvas for s upport from
transnational N G O s a n d governments overseas.
• Globalization is a threat to local identities. At the very best this i s a

truth with serious modifications. S i nce tendencies towards globalization
( u nderstood a s the d i ssolution of boundaries) usua lly lead to strong, loca l i zing
cou nterreactions favoring local food, l oca l customs, and so o n , some theorists
have followed Robertson's ( 1 992) lead in talking about glocalization as a more
accurate term for what is going o n . Local identities are usually strengthened
by g l obalization because people begin to emphasize their u n i q ueness overtly
only when it appears to be threatened. The emergence of identity pol itics,
which explicitly a i ms to protect and strengthen l ocal i dentities, is a reactio n
to perceived dom inance from t h e o utside and d i ssolving bounda ries. O n the
other hand, it i s evidently true that local power i s often weakened as a result
of g lobal izati o n . I t nonetheless rema i n s i n d isputable that g lobal ization does not
create g lobal person s ; people conti n ue to l ive i n particular places with a u n i q ue
mix of the old a n d the new, the near and the distant, change a n d conti n u ity,
a n d these places do not become identica l overnight, or i n deed ever.
G l o balize rs and Skeptics
N ot everybody who writes about the contempora ry world agrees that it has entered a
disti nctively global era. Some, in fact a rgue that the extent of g l obal i ntegration was
just as comprehensive, and in some ways more encompassing, i n the belle epoque
of 1 890- 1 9 1 4 than it i s today. Others claim that the nation-state remains, even today,
"the pre-e m i nent power container of o u r era " (G iddens 1 985: back cover; he wou l d
later revise h i s positio n , cf. G iddens 1 999). Yet others point out that a large n u mber
of people, and huge swathes of social and cultural l ife, are relatively u ntouched by
tra ns national processes. I t may b e useful , followi ng David Held and Anthony McGrew
(2000: 38; see a lso Steger 2009), to distinguish between globalizers and skeptics, to
highl i ght some of the debates a n d the positions t a ken by different scholars .
According t o the s keptics (see, e . g . , Gray 2005; H i rst a n d Thompson 1 999), we
are witnessing a process of internationalization and regionalization rather than the
emergence of one i ntegrated world of rapid communication, transnational networks,
and global financial capita l , which is the view of globalizers. S keptics argue further that
the nati on-state rem a i n s the most i mportant political entity, while globa l i zers claim
that state sovereignty i s on the wane a n d that m u lti lateralism and tra nsnational pol itics
are replacing it. Wh ile skeptics have i dentified the development of regional economic
blocs l i ke NAFTA ( N orth American Free Trade Agreement) and the EU, globa li zers see
the world economy as "a single playi ng-fi e l d " ( Friedman 2005: 7) with diminishing
obstacles to tru ly g l obal competition. Skeptics see a conti n uation of the classic N o rth
South divide i n terms of prosperity and power, while global izers argue that i nequa lities
are chiefly g rowing with i n and not between societies. Wh ile s keptics believe i n the
continued or i ndeed i ncreasing power of national identities and c ultures, globa lizers
describe hybridities and cosmopolitan orientations as an o utcome of i ntensified
i nteractio n .
T h e s keptics do n o t deny that massive changes a r e taking place, b u t they emphasize
continu ities with the modern world of the nation-state at the levels of pol itics, economy,
and identity, wh i l e globa l izers are concerned to show that the world is going t h rough a
series of q u a l itative changes.
There i s n o reason to take an unequ ivocal position here. Few are si mply globa l1zers
(or even hyperglobalizers) o r s keptics, and both positions can often shed light on
the issues. For example, the extent of global sol idarity in environmenta l and human
rights q uestions is no doubt enhanced by extensive travel and global commun ication
and media, and this lends credibil ity to the view that cosmopolitanism and cultu ral
hybridity ( mixing) resu lts from i ncreased interconnectedness. Yet at the same ti me,
identity politics based on rel i gion, eth n icity, or national ity a i med to strengthen social
and c ultural boundaries is also on the rise. Both phenomena coexist side by side and
are possible responses to the opportun ity space created by i ntensified transnational
contacts. There can be no effects of say, global capitalism, the I nternet, or pol iticized
Islam, that a re not mediated by human u nderstandings and experiences, and they vary.
M o st e mpirical generalizations about global ization are therefore fa lse. At the same
time, it i s possible to delineate a framework for g lobal o r transnational processes,
objective cha nges, or features of the world that people everywhere have to relate to,
but they do so in different ways.
A related debate concerns the mora l , or normative, d i mension of global izatio n :
I s it chiefly good or i s i t mostly b a d ? T h i s is an even more i m possible dichotomy to
relate to than the ( hyper-)global izer vers u s the s keptical one. Neolibera l capitalism,
characterized by the deregu latio n of markets and a strong emphasis on free trade
(in theory if not always in practice), has its winners and losers ; it produces wea lth as
wel l a s poverty. Neolibera l i s m also necessa rily leads to local reactions from persons,
g roups, and comm u n ities who resist its flattening a n d homogenizing tendencies,
in sisting on basing their economy o n local needs and skills rather than globa l markets
( see Ha nn and Hart 2 01 1 ) . I ndeed, al ready i n the 1 940s, the economic h i storian Karl
Polanyi ( 1 95 7 [ 1 944]) saw what he described as a " double movement" between global
sta ndardization and local a utonomy in the economy. M i g ration regimes, whether
restrictive or l i b e ra l , create both o pportunities and constra i nts. Even global cli mate
change, virtu a l ly unequivocally seen as perilous, creates new o pportu n ities-for
example, for farmers in cold regions. The effects of global ization a re, thus, not good
or bad but complex and influence people's l ives differently i n different societies and
diffe rent g roups in the same society.
Ove r h e a t i n g as a Meta p h o r
A number of key features of contemporary globalization can b e captured through

the metaphor of overheating . In physics, heat and speed are synonyms. and
the present globalized world is one of i ntensified tensions and frictions l i n ked with
an increase in the speed of change. One need only count the present number of
transatlantic flights or the number of transpacific telephone connections to realize
that the webs of connectedness are hotter, faster, and denser than in any previous
period, with repercussions virtually everywhere. There are areas in rural West
Africa that until a decade ago had no paved roads but that now experience traffic
jams; there are villages in New G u i nea that had existed for millennia i n relative
isolation until the 1 970s but whose inhabitants are now wage earners, voters, and
students-and there are mil lions of I ndians who logged on to Facebook for the fi rst
time last year.
Overheating is a way of talking about accelerated change. It is the kind of change
that can be depicted as exponential growth. The rise of the Brazilian economy, the
growth of Chinese cities, the increase in the number of cruise ship passengers,
e-mai l servers, television channels, or transnational remitta nces-these are just
some examples of global processes that have accelerated in the last few decades
and are, in ways that are still not fully known or understood, transforming the planet.
The first subject area that comes to most people's minds when the term
overheating is mentioned is climate change, which will be discussed in a later
chapter. Although the average global temperature has only risen by 0.8 degree
Celsius ( 1 .44 degrees Fahrenheit) since the early twentieth century, the amount of
C02 has grown far more significantly, and many climate researchers believe that an
exponential growth in temperature change is imminent. However, overheating also
fits developments in the fi nancial economy, where pundits and dealers occasional ly
speak literally about overheated markets, economic meltdown, and the need to
cool down the economy. This is a way of describing a situation where too many
transactions are taking place at the same time, leading to a loss of overview and
u npredictable outcomes. Moreover, in the realm of identity politics, to mention a
10 G LO B A L I ZAT I O N
third example, the metaphor also often seems appropriate. Violent clashes, hateful
exchanges, and mutually exclusive claims to scarce resources, which are all too
common in th is twenty-fi rst-century world, all result from perceived frictions, which
in turn are the outcome of increased contact.
An overheated world is one of frictions and tensions, simply because there are
more of us, with more activities, projects, opportunities, and technologies than ever
before in h istory. We are now 7 billion; a century ago, there were only 1 . 7 billion of
us. I n research on traffic, it is sometimes poi nted out that there essentially exist
only three kinds of traffic-free flow (when there is scarcely anybody else on the
highway), synchronized flow (when you have to take others into consideration), and
traffic jams. We may think of the contemporary world as one characterized mostly
by synchronized flows at a h igh speed, where the occasional crash is, perhaps,
inevitable.
Di mensions of G lo balization
Whether w e look a t global capita lism, trends i n consumer tastes, transnational

migration and identity politics, or online communication, the globa l izing processes
of the early twenty-first century have a few salient characteristics in com mon. These
features a re dealt with in detai l i n the main chapters of this book, and I shall only briefly
mention them here:
• Disembedding, i ncluding delocalization . G loba l ization i m p l i es that distance is

becoming i rrelevant, relative, or at the very least less important. Ideas. songs,
books, i nvestment capita l , labor, and fashions travel faster than ever, and even
if they stay put, their location can be l ess important than it would have been
formerly. This aspect of global ization i s driven by technological and economic
changes, but it has cu ltural and political implications . Disembedd i n g , however,
also incl udes a l l ma n ners through which social l ife becomes abstracted from
its loca l , spatially fixed context.
• Speed. The speed of transport a n d com m u n i cation has i ncreased throughout

the twentieth century, a n d this acceleration conti nues. It has been said that
there are n o delays any more i n a n era of instantaneous communication over
cell phones, I nternet servers, and television satel l ites. Although this is s u rely
a n exaggeration-delays exist, even if only as uni ntended consequences
speed is an important feature of globa l izati o n . Anything from inexpensive plane
tickets to cheap calls contribute to i ntegrating the world, and the exponential
growth in the n u m bers of I n ternet users s i n ce the early 1 990s indicates that
dista nce no longer means separation. H owever, acceleration is u n even , and
relative slowness may be j ust as sign ificant as relative speed. Different parts of
societies a n d cu ltural worlds change a t different speeds, a n d there are places

and countries where change ta kes place at a different, more sluggish rate than
elsewhere .
• Standardization. Conti n u i ng the processes of sta ndardization begun by

nationalism and national econom ies, global ization enta i l s comparabil ity and
shared standards where there were formerly none. The rapid i n crease i n the
use of English as a foreign language is suggestive of this development, a s i s
the worldwide spread of similar hotels and s hopping centers, as wel l a s t h e
growing web of i nternational agreements and ind ustry standards .
• Connections. The networks connecting people across continents are

becoming denser, faster, and wider every year. M utua l dependence and
transnational con nections lead to a need for more i nternational agreements
and a refashioning of foreign policies and create both fields of opportu nities,
constraints, and new forms of power.
• Mobility. The entire world is on the move, or so it m ig ht someti mes see m .

M i g rati on, busi ness travel, international conferences, and n o t least tourism
have been growing steadily for decades, with a nu mber of i m portant
i mp l ications for local commun ities, politics, and economies.
• Mixing. Although cultural crossroads, where people of different origins met,

are a s a ncient as u rban life, their n u mber, size, and diversity i s growing
every day. Both frictions and m utual i nfluence resu lt. Additionally, at the
level of culture, the i n stantaneous exchange of messages characteristic of
the i nformation era leads to probably more cultu ra l mixing than ever before
in h u ma n h i story. However, cultural m ixing does not necessarily lead to the
breakdown of boundaries between identities.
• Risk. G lobal ization enta i l s the wea ken i ng, and someti mes obliteration, of
boundaries . Flows of anyth ing from money to refugees are i ntensified in this
era . This means that territorial polities have difficulties protecting themselves
against unwanted flows . Typical g lobal ized risks i ncl ude A I D S and other
epidemics, transnational terrorism, and cli mate cha nge, but there i s a l so
i ncreased attention to ecological d i s ruptions caused by i nvasive species, l i ke
the Caribbean cane toad in Australia or the B u rmese python in Florida. M ost
of these risks ca n not be combated efficiently by single nation-states, and
on a more general note, it has often been poi nted out that the planet as a
whole lacks efficient pol itical instru ments a ble to deal with and govern the
technol ogy- and economy-driven processes of g l obal ization .
• Identity politics. Pol itics founded not i n ideology or quests for u n iversal rights
but in the mai ntenance and strengthen i ng of particular collective identities
a re related to g lobalization i n two main ways. F i rst, identity pol itics, whether
nationalist, ethn ic, religious, or regionalist, a re d i rect responses to globalizing
12 G LO B A L I ZATI O N
processes, wh ich seem t o threaten the local and unique by i ntrod ucing new,
often standardizing or un iversalistic va lues, ideas, and practices. Second,
identity pol itics i n itself has a un iversal istic dimension i n that the grammar,
or rhetoric, used to promote the rights of particular groups has i m portant
s i m i larities across the world .
• Alterglobalization. Reactions to g loba l neoliberalism were i n itially described

i n the media and by analysts as antiglobal ization, which i s a simplistic and
misleading term (see G raeber 2001 ). The new social movements, ra nging from
ATIAC i n France to the Occupy movement i n the U n ited States , the S l u m
Dweller Allia nce i n M u mbai, a n d /os indignados in S p a i n , are not opposed
to global connectedness as such but reject the narrowly profit-seeking
neoliberalist version of globalization , which they see a s dehumanizing and
oppressive. What these diverse orga n izations have in common i s resistance
to the disembedding tendencies of global ization, and they may be descri bed
collectively as reembedding movements . I n fact, a l l the key features of
globalization mentioned above have their countervail ing forces opposing them
and positing alternatives. The fragmented, fleeting social world made possible
through d isembedding processes is counteracted through strong networks
of moral commitment, concerns with local power and community i ntegration,
and a " human economy" em bedded i n social l ife as an a lternative to neol iberal
capitalism operating at a global level ( H a rt 201 3 : 1 ) .
M oreover, acceleration i s counteracted through social movements promoting

slowness i n many guises, sta ndardization through u n iquely fas hioned one-of-a
kind goods and services, transnationa l i nterconnectedness through localism and
nationalism, movement through quests for sta b i lity and continu ity, mixi n g through
concerns with cu ltural purity, and vul nerabi l ity through attempts at self-determi nation
and relative isolati o n .
G loba l ization i s n o t a unidirecti onal process. I t has no e n d and no i ntri n s i c p urpose,
and it i s neither uncontested, una mbiguous, nor ubiquitous. If we want to get the
whole picture, it m ust i nclude both benefactors and victi ms, both the active global izers
and those who are merely global ized, both those who are ca ught up in the w h i rlwind
of global processes and those who are excl uded. H uge, atrocious slums mushrooming
all over the poor parts of the world a re products of trans national economic processes
( Davis 2006), but they are generally seen as the debris of the global economy-th e
people l iving there cu rsori ly defined as problems n o t resources.
Ways of Looking at G lobalization
A few further distinctions s h o u l d a l s o b e made i n itial ly. T h e examples i n t h i s book deal

with economic, political, cu ltu ra l , aesthetic, and environmental aspects of global ization,
I NT R O D U CTI O N 13
b u t the boundaries drawn between s u ch domains a re largely a rtificial a nd will be

dispensed with when they are not needed. It should a l so be kept i n m i nd that different
threads, or doma ins, in transnational processes do not necessa rily move i n the same
di rections, at the same levels of i ntensity, or at the same speed. This means that
a l l societies are unequally affected by different tendencies . Such disj u n ctures or
discrepancies will be explored further.
G lobal ization can take place, and can be studied, from above or from below
A problematic but necessa ry disti nction, this dichotomy refers to the state. to major
i nternational organization s , and to powerful business enterprises on the one hand a nd
to i nterpersonal relationships on the other hand. I shall s how that the i nterpersonal
global ization from below is fa r more encompassing and more important in shaping the
world than often assumed.
A distinction between objective and subjective global izati on, also not unproblematic,
must also be made i n itially. Objective globalization means that something i s being
incorporated i nto a global, or wide-ra nging, tra nsnational system without necessa rily
being aware of it, whereas subjective g lobalization amounts to the acknowledgement
of such processes ta king place (wh ich they may or may not; citizens ofte n blame
globalization for changes wrought local ly) .
Fina lly, and this is a main point in this book, global ization does not enta i l the
production of global uniformity, or homogeneity. Rather, it can be seen a s a way of
organizing heterogeneity. The simi la rities dea lt with, for exam ple, in the chapter on
standardization are formal and abstract and do not necessarily lead to h omogeneity
at the level of content or experience. The local continues to th rive, a lthough it must
i n creasingly be seen as glocal--t hat is, e n meshed in tra nsnational processes.
The growth of urban s l u m s throughout the G lobal South i s a n indirect res u lt of
econom ic g lobal izati on, i ust as the relative disconnectedness from the I nternet in
Africa is a signifi cant fact alongside the growth i n text messages in C h i na, from zero
to eighteen b i l l i o n a month in less than ten years. The networked capitalist world is
a framework, or scaffolding, for a l m ost any serious i n q u i ry i nto cultu ra l and social
dynamics, a nd it is characterized by a n i ntensification of processes of change, which
ma kes it. in important ways, volatil e and unpredictable.
Seven Key Debates about G lobal ization
Research on g l obalization i s sprawl i n g and m ultidi scip l i nary. It i s not the a mbition of this
book to sum it up or even to do j u stice to the vast scope of global ization studies (most
of which have been published s ince 1 990) . That would plainly have been i mposs ible.
Yet. it may be kept i n mind that much of the research, and indeed m uch of the public
debate i n most countries, a bout globalization is concerned with a few central q uestions:
• First. a chiefly academic q uestion: Is global ization new or old? I have a l ready
commented briefly on this. The a nswer has to be sphi nx-l i ke : it depends on
14 G LO BA L I ZAT I O N
you r defi nition . Sprawling, but well-i ntegrated political systems with thriving
trade, i nternal migration, standa rdized measures, and a common high cu lture
have existed i n several continents wel l before the modern era . However, there
a re so many characteristic features of our present age-even if we l i mit it to
the post-Cold Wa r era-that it merits treatment on its own terms. O n e of the
leading theorists of the i nformation society, Manuel Castells, mentions i n a
lengthy footnote towards the end of his monumental The Information Age
that students have someti mes asked h i m what is new about the world he
describes. His a nswer deserves to be q uoted i n full:
Why i s this a new world ? . . . Chips and computers are new; ubiqu itous, mobile
telecomm un ications are new, genetic engi neeri ng is new; electron ically
i ntegrated, global financial ma rkets working in real time are new; an inter
l i n ked capitalist economy embracing the whole planet, and not only some
of its segments, is new; a majority of the urban labor force in knowledge
and i nformation processing in advanced economies i s new; a majority of
urban popu lation in the planet is new; the demise of the Soviet Empire, the
fading away of communism, and the end of the Cold War are new; the rise
of the Asian Pacific as a n equal partner i n the global economy i s new; the
widespread challenge to patriarchalism i s new; the universal conscious ness
on ecological preservation is new; and the emergence of a network society,
based on a space of flows, and on timeless time, is h istorica l ly new. (Caste l l s
1 998: 336)
• A few years later, h e could have added the advent of deterritorial ized warfare
and humanly induced cli mate change to the list. Be this as it may, Caste l l s
a d d s that it does n o t rea l ly matter whether a l l this is new or not; h i s p o i n t is
that this i s our world, and therefore we s h ould study it.
• A second question rai sed in the debates over global ization, academic
and nonacademic, concerns the relationship of globalization to neol i bera l
economics-that is, the view that free trade wi l l eventually lead to prosperity
everywhere and that states should encumber the economy as l ittle as
possible. Severely criticized (see, e . g . , G ray 1 998; Klein 1 998; Rodri k 201 1 ;
Soros 2002; Stiglitz 2002;, a mong very many others) for not del ivering
the goods-many countries that have complied with measures imposed
by i nternational agencies l i ke the World Bank and the I M F ( I nternational
Monetary Fund) have experienced a steep decl ine in de facto sta ndards of
living-neol i bera l i s m is often associated with, i ndeed sometimes treated
as a synonym for, global ization ( Kiely 2005). Here it must be said that such
a usage narrows the concept too much. The global spread of h u ma n rights
ideas i s no less a feature of global ization than the gl obal financial ma rket; the
vacci nation progra ms of the WHO (World Health O rgan ization) are no less
global than the moneyl ending of the World Bank, and the sma l l-sca le lending
programs i nitiated by 2006 Nobel Peace La ureate M ohammad Yun us and

his Bangladeshi Grameen Bank have spread to other countries; one could
go on. G lobal governance (see Held et a l . 2005; Scholte 201 1 ) is sometimes
posited a s an alternative to an a narch ic market economy, which is, in any case,
i m perfect i nsofar as poor countries rarely get full market access in the rich
ones. G l obal i zation is form not content; it can be filled with neol ibera l ma rket
economics, but this is not the whole story.
• A third , related debate concerns the relationship between global ization and
democracy. Many scholars, politici ans, and comme ntators are concerned
about the loss of political power experienced by natio n-states when so m uch
economic power is diverted to the trans national a renas (see, e . g . , Sassen
1 998; Rodri k 201 1 ) . Cl ea rly, there are some rea l issues to be tackled here:
The institutions of the nation-state arguably lose some of their clout when
capital and wealth are d isembedded and become transnationa l . Yet, the spread
of democratic ideas, i n stitutions, and practices are a l so part of the global
proces s . I n oth er words, one cannot say that globalization is either favorable or
detri mental to democracy; it is n e cessary to be more specific.
• A fourth, important debate deals with the relationship between poor and
rich countries: Do the poor become poorer and the rich richer as a result of
econ o m i c globalization? Aga i n , there can be no si mple, unequ ivocal answer.
Who benefits in the long (or for that matter short) run from the g lobal ization.
of economies ? The an swer is far from clear. Some countries m i red in poverty,
notably i n Africa, are among the least globalized i n terms of i ntegration
i nto the world economy. The ir exports are modest, and foreign i nvestment
i s cons idered risky and therefore i s rare. Some rich countries, not least in
Western Europe, begin to notice the competition from poorer cou ntries
(notably C h i na and central-eastern E u rope) as a n u npleasant experience. In
other cases, it can be argued that c u rrent trade regimes, s u ch as the ones
negotiated by the WTO (World Trade O rganizati o n ) , help rich cou ntries to
conti nue exp loiting poor ones by buying cheap unprocessed goods from them
and selling them expensive industrial produ cts back. This would fit with the
dependency theory developed by Andre G under Fra nk, Sa mir Amin, and other
Marxist schola rs, as wel l as its close relative, Immanuel Wal l e rstein's world
system theory (see Amin et a l . 1 98 2 ) . However, this description fits the older
neocolonial trade reg i me better than the cu rrent one, where China is fast
making i n roads into markets in Asia and Africa with its i n expensive ind ustrial
goods and willi ngness to invest i n i n dustrial enterprises . As argued by Da niel
Cohen (2006), the poorest cou ntries are not so much exploited as neglected by
trans national i nvestors . It has been proved conclusively that inequalities have
grown in most of the world si nce the 1 980s, but it is u n clear whether this is a
result of globalization or of do mestic policies a i m i ng to deregulate markets and
encourage investment.
• A fifth, no less important, theme is that o f cultural dynam ics : Does

g l o bal ization lead to homogen ization o r to heterogen ization-do we become
more s i m i l a r o r more different due to the i ncreased transnational movement
and commu n icatio n ? In one sense, we become more s i m i lar. I n dividualism,
which we here take to mean the belief that i ndividuals have rights and
respon sibilities regardless of their place in wider social configurations, is a
central featu re of global modern ity. It is also easy to argue that similarities in
consumer preferences among the world's middle classes i ndicate flatte n i n g ,
or homogenizati o n . Yet . at t h e s a m e time, local adaptations o f u n iversal
or nea rly u niversal phenomena show that gl obal modernities always have
local expressions a n d that the assumed s i m i la rities may either conceal real
differences i n meaning o r that they may be supe rficial with no deep bearing on
peopl e's existential condition . Aga i n , the question i s phrased too s i m p listically
to have a mea ningful yes/no answer.
• Related to this problematic is a sixth area of debate-name ly, that to do with

identity politics. Does globalization, through in creasingly exposi ng u s to each
other's l ives , lead to enha nced sol ida rity, tolerance, and sympathy with people
elsewhere , or, rather, does it lead to ferocious cou nterreactions i n the form
of stubborn identity pol itics-nati onalism, religious fu ndamenta l i s m , racism,
and so on? This question has, perhaps, a sh ort answer. G l obal ization does
ma kes it easier for us to understa nd each other across cultural divides, but it
also creates tens ions between groups that were formerly iso lated from each
other, and it creates a need to demarcate un iqueness and sometimes historical
rootedness . The more simi lar we become, the more different from each oth er
we try to be. Strong group identities may serve several purposes-economic,
pol itical, existential-in a world otherwise full of movement and turm o i l .
Divisi ve a n d exclus ionary identity politics a r e a trueborn c h i l d of global izati on,
but so i s transnational sol idarity.
• Finally, an im portant question concerns how European (or Western, or North

Atlantic) globa lization i s . Th e conventi onal view is that g l obalization i s largely
fuel led by the economic, techn ological, and pol itical deve lopments of Western
Europe. Those who take the long view may begin with the Renaissance,
the Ita lian city-states, and the E u ropean conquests of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries; those who write about the present may emphasize
transnational corporati ons, computer technology, and the dynamics of
capita l i s m . However, oth er perspectives may be useful and indeed necessary.
If we look at history, the powerhouses of tra nsnati onal economies have
been located i n many place s . Andre G under Frank ( 1 998), a long-standing
collaborator with Wa llerste i n , increasingly saw the latter's world-system theory
as overly Eu rocentric and showed, in one of his last books, that large-scale
trans national ma rkets were flourishing in Asia before and during the European
expansionist period, centered o n China and pa rts of I nd i a , and leading to both
m i gration waves and c u ltural exchange. O n ly with the last period of E u ropean
colonial ization i n the n i n eteenth century did that conti nent become truly
domi nant i n the world economy, according to Fra n k . N on-Eurocentric h istories
of the world, such as Felipe Fernandez-Armesto's Millennium ( 1 995; cf. also
Ferna ndez-Armesto 2000; Goody 2010; Morris 201 0), also tend to emphas ize
important i nterconnections in the past outside E urope. If a M a rtian were to
visit the Earth in the year 1 300, Fernandez-Armesto ( 1 995) says, the Martian
wou l d not be able to predict the rise of E u rope as the center of global power.
There were thriving civil izations in M esoamerica, in the Andes, in West Africa,
i n the Arab world, i n I ndia, and in C h i na, eas i ly s urpassing stagnant E u ropean
societies in tra ns national trade, cultural achievements, and political might. As
poi nted out by Jack G oody (201 0). if it i s true that Asia is cu rrently about to
achieve dominance i n the g lobal economy, that would only entail a new spin on
the h i storical oscil lations between Eastern and Western hegemony.
If we restrict ourselves to the present. the picture is also less straightforward

than a superficial look might suggest. In popu lar c ulture as wel l as l iterature, major
achi evements of global sign ificance come from outside the West; I ndian films
( Bo l lywood movies) are popular i n many cou ntries, as a re M exican and B razilian soap
operas, Argentine tango, and Japanese manga comics. Major alternatives to Western
ideologies, s u ch as pol itical Islam, a re expanding, and C h i na and I ndia, which combined
have 40 percent of the world's populati on, have economic growth rates far surpassing
those of the North Atlantic countrie s . The division of the world i nto core, periphery, and
semiperiphery, th us, is a model that needs to be tested and does not a l ways yield the
expected resu lts .
* * *
We shall return to these and other debates as we go along. Before we move o n , I should
point out that u n l i ke many introductions to global ization, this book does not suggest
what to study in the sense of providing a catalogue of s ubsta ntial topics deemed
particularly i mportant by the a uthor. Rather, it s uggests where to look and, to some
extent. how to look for it. The d i mensions of globalization presented in the chapters that
fol l ow-my key concepts-can be mined for insights through i m mersion i nto diverse
empirical fields. In the fol lowi ng chapters, I will outl i ne the main characteristics of
globalization : I t standardizes, modernizes, deterritorializes, and, by dialectical negation,
localizes people, s ince it i s only after having been globalized that people may become
obsessed with the u n iqueness of the i r l ocality. I emphasize that although gl obalization
is driven by powerful economic and tech nologica l forces, it ta kes place between
people; the tra nsnational webs of the world depend on i nterpersonal trust, and people
often u se the opportu nities offered by globa l izi ng processes i n u nexpected ways.
G lobal ization c reates a s hared grammar for talking about diffe rences and inequal ities.
H u ma n s everywhere a re i ncreasingly entering the same playing field, yet they do
not participate i n equal ways, and thus frictions and confl i cts a re an i ntegral part of
globalizing processes. This, too, will be evident in the chapters that follow.
• G loba lization entai l s both the i ntensification o f tra nsnational connectedness a n d the
awareness of such an i ntensification .
• Global ization i s largely d riven by technological a n d economic processes, but i t is mul
tidimensional and not unidirectional.
• G lobal ization enta ils both processes of homogenization and processes of heteroge
n izatio n : it makes us more similar and more different at the same time.
• G lobalization is a wider concept than Westernization or neoimperialism and includes
p rocesses that move from south to north as wel l as the opposite.
• Although g loba lization is old in the sense that tra nsnational or even global systems
have existed for centuries-indeed for millennia-contemporary globalization has
disti nctive traits due to enhanced communication technology and the g lobal spread
of capita l ism.
Q u est i o n s
• D iscuss d ifferences and simi larities between contemporary globalization a n d the

colonial world-system of the n ineteenth century.
• I n what sense does the author claim that the post-Cold Wa r world entai l s a new
phase of globalization ? Do you agree ?
• How can identity pol itics be said to be an outcome of global ization ?
• What is the difference between globa lization a n d Westernization 7
• What is meant by glocalization ?
• What does the a uthor mean by overheating?
F u rt h e r Read i n g
Chanda, Nayan (2007) Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers,

and Warriors Shaped Globalization. N ew Haven, CT: Ya le U n iversity Press.
An enterta ining and erudite account of g loba lization , which takes the long
perspective of several thousand years, with a consistent focus o n the i nd ividuals
that made the g lobally con nected world come about, and their motivations
from missionary zeal to personal greed.
Robertson , Roland ( 1 992) Globalization: Socia/ Theory and Global Culture. London:
Sage. A collection of highly influential essays by one of the architects of current
globalization theory, the book discusses conceptualizations of the global, the history
of the global system, and introduces the term glocalization to overcome the artificial
dichotomy of the global and the local.
Wolf, E ric ( 1 982) Europe and the People without History Berkeley U n iversity
of California Press. A history of the last five hundred years, written from the
perspective of the colonized peoples, offering an alternative and challenging view
of the processes of globalization , so often seen from a Western perspective.
1
D is e m b e d d i n g
Disembedding is the most abstract of the key terms of globalization, and this stands
to reason, since it in fact refers to the historical movement towards a more abstract
world. When something is disembedded, it is moved from a concrete, tangible, local
context to an abstract or virtual state. Money is disembedded value; clock time is
disembedded time; writing is disembedded language. For globalization to integrate
people all over the world into a shared system of communication, production, and
exchange, some disembedding common denominators are necessary
I
n Augu st, 1 989, I visited San Juan, Puerto Rico. I was in the middle of anthropological
fieldwork i n Trinidad and took a brea k i n order to familiarize myself a l ittle with the
wider Caribbean regi o n . At the ai rport, I was on my way to a n exchange office when
I came across a n ATM with a V I SA symbol up front. Tentatively sticking the card i nto
the mach i n e and typing my P I N code, I was u n certa i n as to what to expect, but after
a few seconds, the mach i n e duly presented the req u i red greenbacks and-even more
impressively-a recei pt. which tol d me my exact (meager) ba n k balance. M y money
no longer had a phys ical form; it had been moved to cyberspace (a term coined five
years earlier in William G i bson's novel Neuromancer, 1 984) The money had been
disembedded, removed from a tangible, p hysical context.
As a rule, a nything that ca n be accessed anywhere is disembedded . It could be
a clip on YouTube, an i nternational agreement. a stock exchange rate, or a soccer
game (provided its main audience watches it on TV and not at the stad i u m ) . One main
contemporary form of disembedd i ng is deterritorialization, which takes place when
someth i n g is " l i fted out of" its physical location ( G iddens 1 990: 2 1 ) . Before we delve
more deeply i nto the concept and its i mp l ications for the real world , let us consider a
famous example of deterritorialized warfare.
When, in September 2001 , the then U . S . president George W. B u s h a n nou nced
his " wa r on terror;· it may have been the fi rst time i n h i story that a n actual war was
20 G L O B A L I ZAT I O N
proclaimed o n a nonterritorial entity. U nlike metap horical wars o n drugs o r wars on

poverty, this was meant to be a war fought with real weapons and real soldiers. The
only p roblem was that it i nitially a ppeared to be uncertai n where to deploy them,
si nce terrorism was potentially anywhere. The ostensible goal of the war was not to
conquer another country or to defend one's boundaries against a foreign i nvasion but
to eradicate terrorism-that is, a nonterritorial entity.
The ca use of the declaration of war was the terrorist attack on the U nited States,
where three civilian ai rpla nes were h ijacked by terrorists belonging to the m i l itant
M uslim a l-Qaeda orga n ization and flown i nto the World Trade Center and the Pentagon .
A fourth plane, with an uncerta i n destination, crashed en route. Rather than seeing
this as a large-sca le crime. the U . S. government defined the event as the beginning
of a war. However, it was not to be a war between territoria lly defined u n its, s uch as
nation-states. Several of the h ijackers l ived and studied i n the U n ited States. Most
of them were of Saudi origins , but they were not acting on orders from the Saudi
state. The orga nization on whose behalf they acted seemed to have its headq uarters
i n Afghanistan, but the members were scattered-some l iving in N orth America, some
i n E u rope, some i n Pakistan, and so o n .
The nation-state h a s unambiguous boundaries; i t is defined in Benedict Anderson's
famous terms as being i magined as " inherently limited and sovereign" ( 1 99 1 [ 1 983] : 6).
Wars are fought by the military, whose mission it is to protect the external borders of
the country. A nation-state thus has a clearly defined inside and outside. The events of
September 1 1 were a shocking reminder that the boundaries of a nation-state are far
from absolute. Nations are effectively being deterritorialized in a number of ways through
migration, economic investments, and a number of other processes, and the war on
terror illustrates that this is now also the case with war. America's enemies can in fact
be anywhere in the world and operate from any site, since American interests are globa l .
A few days after the September 1 1 events, a thought-provoking p hoto was
reproduced in newspapers worldwide. It depicted military guards watching over the
entrances to N ew York's G rand Central Station . The image was a reminder of two
features of globalizatio n : The boundary between police and military becomes blu rred
even in democracies where the mi litary is not norma l ly visible in the streets and
suggests a partial collapse of the boundary between inside and outside. (Th i s bl urring
of the inside/outs ide bou ndary is also evident i n the m i l itary patrolling of EU borders
along the northwest African coast and the m i litary's role in typ ical transit areas, such as
the Canary Islands. The division of labor between police and mi litary is negotiable and
uncertai n in these regions . ) Second, this image i s suggestive of vul nerabil ity in a world
society where everyt h i ng travel s more eas i ly than before, including weapons and the
people carrying them .
The war on terror is i nstructive as a lesson in the form of a disembedding charac
teri stic of the global era, where the disembedding mechanisms of modernity, which
create abstract common denom i nators and thus conditions for global communication
and comparability, are used transnational ly. A main form of disembedd ing is
deterritorialization-that is. processes whereby distance becomes irrelevant.
DISEMBEDDING 21
G lobali zation a n d Distance
A minimal defi n ition of g lobal ization could delimit it si mply a s a l l the contemporary
processes that make dista nce i rrelevant. A major body of work in g lobal ization studies
is. accordi ngly, concerned with disembedd ing (Giddens 1 990) and its effects on socia l
l ife and the organ ization of society.
Disembedding enta i l s the " l ifti n g out" of phenomena (things, people, ideas . . . )
from their ori g i nal context. Writi ng, it could thus be said, disembeds language j ust
as an ATM disembeds money, and the wristwatch disembeds time. Th is concept
(and its c lose relatives) draws attention to the relativiza tion of space engendered by
development i n com m u n i cation tech nologies and the worldwide spread of capita l i s m .
I n t h e early n i n eteenth centu ry, newspapers in North America reported from the
Napoleonic wars in E u rope weeks and sometimes months after the event. N ews had
to be transported, erratically and u npredictably, by sail s h i p . Travel, even i n the relatively
developed Western E urope, was slow, c umbersome, and risky. M ost goods were, for
practical reasons, produced in physical proximity to the markets . With the development
of g l obal financial networks. tra ns national investment capita l, consumption mediated
by money in a l l or nearly a l l societies, and not least the fast and cheap mea ns of
transportation typified in the container ship, goods can travel , and often do travel, fa r
from their site of prod ucti o n . When it doesn't matter where someth i ng was made or
done, it has been disembedded.
However, disembedding has a deeper and more comprehensive meaning; it does not
merely, or even p rimari ly, refer to the s h ri n king of the globe as a result of com m u n i cation
technology and global capitalism. Anthony G iddens defines disembedding as "the
' lifting out' of social relations from local contexts of i nteraction and their restructu ring
across i ndefin ite spans of time-space" ( 1 990: 21 ) . Put i n everyday language, it could be
described as a gradual movement from the concrete and tang ible to the abstract and
virtual. Think of the global fi nancial system a s a n example. Va l ues registered on a stock
exchange, or the val ue of a particular cu rrency, a re somehow related to tangible goods
and services but in a n abstract and genera l way.
Disembedding processes are associated with modern ity and a re indeed a central
feature of it. Some i mportant disembedding processes evolved in premodern times,
but the central a rgu ment of this chapter is that global modernity, or the global ization
of modernity if one prefers, ca n be descri bed a s a series of d isembedding processes
with a transnational and potentially global reach.
Toward s a More Abstract World
The most i mportant disembedding revo l ution of premodern times was arguably the
invention of writi n g . Through writi n g , and especially phonetic writi n g (alphabets rather
than pictograp h i c systems. s u ch as h ieroglyphs), u tterances were separated from the
utterer a n d could, for the first time i n h u ma n history, travel i ndependently o f a given
person. The u ttera nce became a permanent, moveable t h i n g . First developed i n what
is now Turkey and M esopotamia, writing was i nvented independently i n Mesoamerica
and China.
Writing made it possible to develop knowledge i n a cumu lative way, i n the sense that
one had access to, and could draw d i rectly on, what others had done. One was no longer
dependent on face-to-face contact with one's teachers . They had left their thoughts and
discoveries for posterity i n a material, frozen form . The quantitative growth i n the total
knowledge of humanity presupposes the existence of writing. Thomas Aqu i nas ( 1 22 5-74)
could, working in a E u ropean monastery in the thirteenth centu ry, spend a lifetime trying
to reconcile two important sets of texts-the Bible and Aristotle's philosophy-which
were a l ready then considered ancient. Explorers travelling in the B lack Sea area in the
sixth century c . E . could compare their observations with Herodotus's descriptions from
the fifth century B . C . E . Mathematicians and scientists could draw on Euclid's Elements
and written works by Archimedes as points of departure when setting out to develop
new insights. Writing makes it possible to stand fi rmly and rationally on the shoulders
of deceased and remote ancestors (Goody 1 977). This would also be the case i n other
parts of the world with writi ng systems; the mature versions of Chinese philosophy,
I ndian mathematics, and Mayan astronomy were clearly the results of long, cumu lative
efforts presupposing a technology capable of freezing thought.
A nonliterate society has a n oral rel igion where several versions of the most
i mportant myths usually circulate, where the extent of the religion is li mited by the
reach of the spoken word, and where there is no fixed set of dogma to which the
fa ithful must adhere. A l iterate society, on the contrary, usually has a written religion
(often i n the shape of sacred texts), with a theoretica lly u nlim ited geographic reach,
with a clearly deli neated set of dogma and principles, and with authorized, correct
versions of myths and narrative s . S u ch a religion can in principle be identical in the
Arabian Peninsula and i n Morocco (although it is never this simple i n practice; local
circumstances impinge on it, and oral traditions never die completely) . The three
great religions of conversion from West As ia (the Abrahamic religions) have all these
characteristics, which they do not share with a s i ngle traditional African rel igion. ( I n real
l ife, nonetheless, oral and l i terate cultures mix in one and the same societies. The orally
transm itted little traditions live side by side with the fixed great traditions; the former,
often dismissed as s uperstitions or heresies, have proved remarkably res i lient over the
centu ries, even in societies dom i nated by powerful, l i terate traditions . )
A nonl iterate society, further, h a s a j udicial system based on custom a n d traditi on,
while a literate society has a legislative system based on written laws. M oral ity i n
the nonliterate society depends on i nterpersona l relations-it i s embedded i n tangible
relationships between i ndividua l s-while morality i n the l iterate society i n theory is
legali stic-that is, embedded i n the written legislatio n . Even the relationship between
parents and ch ildren is regulated by written law in our kind of society.
In a nonliterate society, knowledge is transmitted from mouth to ear, and the
inhabitants are forced to train their memory. The total reservoir of knowledge, which is
DISEMBEDDING 23
ava i lable at any particular point i n time, is embodied i n those members of society who
happen to be a l ive . When a n old person dies in a smal l , nonliterate soci ety, the net loss
of knowledge can be considerable.
M ost nonl iterate societies are organized on the basis of kinship, while l iterate
societies tend to be state societies where an abstract ideology of commun ity, such as
national i s m , functions as a kind of metaphorical kinship. In certa i n nonstate societies,
the " religions of the Boo k " ( C h ristian ity, Islam, and J udaism) have h i storica l ly worked in
a similar way, creating a disembedded, or abstract, commu nity encompassing persons
who will never physica lly meet
At a pol itical level, the general tendency is that nonl iterate societies are either
decentralized and egal itarian, or chiefdoms where political office is i n h erited. Literate
societies, on the other hand, are strongly centralized and tend to have a professi onal
administration where office is, i n principle, accorded fol lowi ng a formal set of rules. In
genera l , l i terate societies are much larger, both i n geograph i c s i ze and i n population ,
than nonl iterate ones. And while t h e i n h abitants o f nonl iterate societies tel l myths
about who they are and where they come from, l iterate societies have h istory to fill
the same functions, based on archives and other written sources ( Levi-Strauss 1 966
[ 1 962]).
Writing, in this way, has been a n essential tool i n the tra nsition from what we
could call a concrete society based on i nti mate, personal relations h i ps , memory,
local religion, and ora l ly transmitted myths, to an abstract society based on formal
legislation, a rch ives, a book religion, and written h istory. I shall mention four other
innovations in commu nication tech nology, which , together with writi n g , indicate the
extent of d i sembedding i n the social life of modern societi es.
Abstract Time and Tem peratu re
The mechan ical clock was developed in the E u ropean medieval age, partly due to
a perceived need to synchron ize prayer times in the monasteries. (The cal l s of the
M us l i m muezzin and the Christian church bells are contemporary reminders of
this initial function of timing technology.) Calenda rs a re older and were developed
i ndependently in many more soci eties than writi n g . In genera l , however, calendars in
non modern societies were not a tech n ical aid to help societies ma ke five-year plans
and i ndividuals to keep track of their daily sched ules and deadli nes but were rather
l i n ked with the seasons, ritual cycles, astronomy, and the agricultural year. The clock
i s more accurate and more m i n ute ( l iteral ly) than the calendar. It measures time as
well as cutting it into qua ntifiable segments. In spite of its i n itia l ly rel igious function,
the clock rapidly spread to coordinate other fields of activity a s wel l . The Dutch t h i n ker
H ugo G roti us ( 1 583- 1 645) formulated a moral maxi m , which i l l u strates this G rotius
i s widely known for h i s contributions to pol itical p h i losophy, but h e is also sometimes
mentioned as the fi rst postclassic E u ropean to defend a moral principle completely
divorced from rel igion: " Pu nctual ity i s a virtu e ! " ( " Time i s money" i s a later refi nement
of this pri nciple, sometimes attributed to Benja m i n Fra n k l i n . )
I n the same way a s writi ng external i zes language, clocks external i ze time. Time
becomes something existing independently of human experience , someth ing objective
and measurable. This was defin itely not the case in traditional societies, where
i nhabitants live withi n an event-driven time structure in their everyday existence. Events
regulate the passage of ti me, not the other way around. If a traveler, or an ethnographer,
to a n African vil lage wonders when a certa i n event will take place, the a nswer may be:
" When everything i s ready." Not i n other words, "at a quarter to five ." But today, there
are no clear-cut distinctions. Even in societies where clocks and timetables have made
their entry long ago, it may wel l be that they are not directly connected to people's
everyday l ife . A colleague who carried out anthropological fieldwork i n the Javanese
countryside told me that one day, he needed to take a tra i n to the nearest town . So
he asked a man when the tra i n was due. The man looked at h i m with the proverbial
puzzled expression and poi nted to the tracks: " The tra i n comes from that directi on,
then it stops here, and after a little while it contin ues i n the other direction." End of
accou nt.
Clock time turns time i nto an autonomous entity, something that exists i ndependently
of events. An hour may exist ( i n our mi nds) in an abstract way; it is an empty entity
that can be fi lled with a nyth i n g . Hence, it is common to speak of clock time as empty,
qua ntified time. It is chopped up i nto i n accurately measured pieces, l i ke meters and
decil iters . These entities are presupposed to be identical for everybody, anywhere and
anyti me. Living i n our kind of society sometimes g ives us the feel i ng that we were
somehow obl iged to sign a contract the moment we were born, committing us to
l ifelong faith i n clock-and-calendar time.
M echa n ical time measurement turns time i nto a n exact objective, and abstract
entity, a straitjacket for the flows and ebbs of experienced time perhaps-for this
kind of time will a lways pass at varying speed ; a s everybody knows, five m i n utes can
last anything from a moment to a n eternity. The p h i l osopher who has developed the
most systematic assault o n thi s quantitative time tyran ny is, doubtless, Henri Bergson
( 1 8 5 9- 1 94 1 ) . I n his doctoral thesis from 1 88 9 , Sur !es donnees immediates de la
conscience ( "O n the immediate givens of consciousness " ), rendered i n English as
Time and Free Will, he severely criticizes the q ua ntitative, empty time that regulates us
from the outside, i nstead of letting the tasks at hand fill the time from with i n .
The cl ock also has the potential to synchronize everybody w h o has been brought
withi n its charmed circle. Everyone who reads th is i s in agreement rega rdi n g what it
mean s when we say that it is, say, 8: 1 5 P . M . Everybody knows when to turn o n the
television to watch a particular program, and they do it s i m u ltaneously, independently
of each other. If the program has a l ready begu n when one tu rns it on, it i s not because
the TV cha n n e l fa i l s to meet its com mitments, but because someth ing is wrong with
the viewer's ti mepiece. Coordination of complex production in factories and office
environ ments wou l d also, naturally, have been unthinkable without the clock, as would
anything from public tra nsport to cinema shows.
DISEMBEDDING 25
The thermometer does the same to temperature as the clock does to time. U nder
thermometer-driven regi mes, it i s not acceptable to state merely that it feels cold
when one ca n wal k over to the thermometer and obta i n the exact n umber of degrees .
If it shows more than 20 degrees Celsius (68 deg rees Fahre n heit). it is n ot the a i r
temperature, a s i t were, but oneself that i s t o b l a m e .
M oney as a Mean s of Com m u nication
An even more consequential k i n d o f technology than t h e thermometer i s another

invention that p u l l s adherents and victims in the same direction-namely, money. I n
traditional societies, t h e concept o f both language a n d time exi st b u t writing a n d clocks
do not. S i m i la rly, money-l i ke i nstruments exist i n many kinds of societies, but our kind
of money, general-purpose money, i s recent and historica l ly cu lture bou n d . It does
roughly the same thi n g to payment, val u e measu rements, and exchange as clocks and
writing do to t i m e and language, respectively. They make the transaction a bstract and
i m pose a sta ndardized gri d onto a large area ( ulti mately the whole world). They p lace
i ndividual, m u ndane tra nsactions under a n i nvisible u mbrella of abstractio n .
S h e l l money, gold coins, a n d othe r compact va luables are known from a w i d e range
of traditional societies . They may, perhaps, be used as value standards to m a ke d i fferent
goods comparable-a bag of grain equals half a gold coin; a goat equals half a gold
coi n ; ergo, a sack of gra i n can be bartered with a goat. They may be u sed as means of
exchange; I can buy two goats with a gold coi n . They may even be u sed as means of
payment; I have killed my neigh bor, and I have to pay the widow and ch i ldren three gold
coins i n compensation. H owever, modern money i s a much more powerful technology
than anyth i n g comparable to what we know from traditional societies . Above all, it is
u niversal in its field of applicability. It may be that Lennon and M cCartney were correct
in their view that love is not a marketable commodity ( " Can't B uy Me Love" -although
it is easy to find cynica l sociologists who argue the contrary), but i n general, one s i ngle
kind of money functions as a u n iversa l means of payment and excha nge, and as a val u e
sta ndard . West African cowries h a d no val u e outside a l i mited area, and even there,
only certain com modities and services could be p u rchased with them. General-purpose
money i s legal tender i n an entire state of m i l lions of inhabitants, and if we belong
to a cou ntry with a convertible currency, that money is val i d worldwide. Regarded
as i nformation tech nol ogy, money has truly contributed to the creation of one world,
a l beit a world i n to which only people of means are i ntegrated. M oney makes wages
and p u rchasing power all over the world comparable, makes it possible to exchange
a ton of taro from New G u inea with electronics from Tai wa n , and it is a necessary
medium for the world economy to be possible at a l l . Whereas tra nsaction and trade
i n many societies depended on trust and personal relationships between seller and
b uyer, the abstract and u niversal money we are familiar with i mp ly a n external ization
of economic transactions. As long a s there is agreement over the economic val u e of
26 G LO BA L I Z AT I O N
the colored bits o f paper, I need not know either my debtors o r m y creditors personal ly.
With the recent move of money i nto cyberspace, which enta i l s that the same plastic
card ca n be used for economic transactions nearly a nywhere in the world, it becomes
even more abstract.
Abstract Music
A f i n a l example i s musical notation. All or nea rly a l l societies w e know possess some
kind of music, b ut notation was only i nvented a couple of ti mes-namely, in Europe
(ni nth century c . E . ) and C h i na/Japan (tenth century C . E . ) . H owever, it was only in Eu rope
that an expressed a i m of notation from the very beginning was to create an entirely
symbol ic language for com municati ng musical content-the C h i nese/Japanese
system was based on pictographs proper to the written language. In the begi nning,
the rudi mentary notes marked only ascent and descent of tone level. Eventually, they
became more accu rate, and in the eleventh centu ry, G u i do of Arezzo i ntroduced the
staff, which made it possible to mark specified i nterva l s . In the same period, the
notation system was standardized, and symbolic markers depicting tone duratio n were
also i ntroduced. At the beginning of the sixteenth centu ry, the system with which we
are fa miliar was la rgely in place.
Several aspects of musical notation a re relevant i n the present context. F i rst, written
music does the same to music as script does to language; it li berates music from
the perfo rmer and makes it possible to store music independently of people as well
as makes it possible for i ndividual players to learn a piece without personal contact
with another performer. O n ly those aspects of music that can be depicted in writi ng
are copied with a high degree of fidel ity across the generatio n s . Just as there i s an
indefin ite residue i n speech that i s not transmitted th rough texts, the same could be
said of music (fee l i ng and, until q uite recently, absolute tempo, are two such aspects ) .
Second, notes freeze m usic, j ust a s h i story freezes myths and clocks attempt t o fix
the variable flow of time. I n several E u ropea n countries, fol k music that had evolved
gradua l ly for centuries was suddenly transcribed and preserved in frozen form during
nati onal romanticism; as a res ult, it i s played today note by note as it was played, say,
in the mid-ni neteenth century (Sindi ng-Larsen 1 99 1 ) . Th i rd, notation lays the conditions
for another kind of complexity than what would otherwise have been possi ble. Tel l i ngly,
notation was developed in the same period as polyphony, a m usical i nnovation that
appeared only in E u rope. Neither the mathematical regularity of Bach's fugues nor the
very large n umber of voices in Beethoven's symphonies would have been possible
without an accu rate system of notati o n . The standard tone A440 (a pure A i s a wave
with the frequency 440) was finally defined i n 1 939, after havi ng fluctuated for hundreds
of years . It i s the equivalent in music to the gold sta ndard, G reenwich M ean Time, and
the meter rod i n Paris . A shared, abstract sta ndard i s assumed to be val i d for a l l persons
at all times.
DISEMBEDDING 27
Printing and Factories
The transitions from kinship to national identity, from custom to legi slation, from cowrie
money or similar to general-purpose money, from local re l igions to written religions of
conversion, from person-dependent moral ity to u n iversa l i stic mora l ity, from memory
to archives, from myths to h i story, and from event-driven time to clock time, a l l point i n
t h e same d i rectio n : from a small-scale society based on concrete social relations and
practical knowledge to a large-scale society based on a n abstract legislative system
and abstract knowledge fou nded in logic and science.
Two f u rther h istorical changes, with i m portant implications for both thought and
ways of l ife, need menti oning a s conditions for widespread disembeddi n g : printing and
the industrial revoluti o n .
Before t h e era o f pri nt-Johann G utenberg l ived from about 1 400 to 1 468-literacy
existed in many societies, but it was not particularly widesprea d . There were several
ca u ses for this; among other things, the fact that a book could be as costly as a small
farm. Both in E u rope and Asia, books were written by hand, la rgely by monks, but also
by professional copyists. Then G utenberg i nvented his printing press with movable
type, frequently seen as the single most i mportant i nvention of the last two thousand
years, and s udden ly, books became relatively i n expensive. This happened from 1 455
and onwards, to be exact; this was the year G utenberg pri nted the famous forty-two
l i ne B i ble. That is to say, books did not become really cheap yet. G utenberg's B ible cost
thi rty g u i lders, and the annual salary for a manual worker in his home area was ten
g u i lders . During the following decades, the new technol ogy spread rapidly to cover the
centra l parts of E u rope, and books became i ncrea s i ngly i nexpensive . The fi rst printi n g
shop h a d a l ready been founded in England by W i l l iam Caxton i n 1 476. Caxton was a
printer, editor, book salesman, and publisher (a common combination as late as the
nineteenth century), and h e contributed in no small degree to standardizing English
o rthography and syntax. Printing entailed standard ization i n other countries a s well,
i n addition to facilitati ng access to books written i n native languages, at the expense
of Lati n . The market was s uddenly much larger than the small el ite of Latin scholars .
Printing was a decisive factor for t h e emergence o f new science, p h i losophy, and
literature i n early modern times. It was crucial for both mass education and the creation
of civil society in E u ropean cities and led to conseq uences G utenberg could never have
foreseen . H i s main ambitions seem to have been to print B i bles and pay h i s debts .
The features of printing that are most relevant here are its contribution to the
spectacu lar growth i n information and its standardizing effects on language and
thought. C heap, printed books contributed to the standardization of both lang uage and
worldviews . An identical message, clothed i n identical l i n g u istic ga rb, could now be
broadcast to the entire m iddle class from Augsb u rg to B remen . Thus, a national public
sphere could emerge for the first time, consisting of equals who were preoccupied with
the same writers, the same political and theological q uestions, the same philosophical,
geographic, and scientific novelties. Printing was so i m portant for the development
o f democra cy a n d nationalism that Benedi ct Anderson gave the leading role to pri nt
capitalism in h i s h istorical drama about the rise of nationalism, Imagined Communities
( 1 99 1 [ 1 983]). Without this formidable system of production and di stribution, it is diffic u lt
to see how a person i n M arse i l les cou l d even dream of havi ng a mora l ly committed
fee l i ng of commun ity with a person in Lille. Seen as a tech nological device for creating
abstract communities-that is, solidarity and empathy between people who will never
meet in the flesh-print capital ism is king. An u nderlyi ng question for u s is, natural ly : if
print capitalism bequ eathed nationalism and democracy, what l ies i n store for u s after
a period s i m i larly dominated by the I nternet and digital satellite televi sion?
I t took a long time for l iteracy to become tru ly widespread even after the rise of
printi ng technology. In Sha kespeare's time, perhaps 1 0 percent of the popu lation in
England and Wales was literate. No cou ntry has a n i l l iteracy rate even approach i ng this
today. Eve n women i n conservative, patriarchal societies have a higher l iteracy rate
than the male i n habitants of Shakespea re's England.
I t was printing coupled with u n i versal pri mary education and mass media, l i ke
newspapers and magazines (including books published in monthly i nstal l ments), that
tru ly p u l led the minds of ordinary men and women i nto the new, abstract soci ety. This
soci ety consisted of an enormous n u mber of persons who were all cogs in a giant
mach i ne, and eventual ly, they could easily be replaced by others i n the prod uctive
process . Their knowledge and skills were not u n ique but standa rdized and therefore
comparable to others' knowledge and s ki l l s . With the harnessing of fossi l fuels and
the s ubsequent industrial revol ution from the late eighteenth century onwards, this
possibil ity was turned i nto practice for the first time.
D i s e m bedded N at i o n s
D isembedding means the l ifting out of social relations from their local embed
dedness. Thi nking along these li nes, and looking at identification and belonging,
one may imagine the development of state-sponsored virtual nations on the I nternet,
ensuring the continued loyalty and identification of citizens or ex-citizens l iving abroad.
I n terms of economics and strategic i nterests, such an enlarging of the national
interest makes perfect sense. The Chilean government discovered this potential in
the early 2000s. During the military dictatorship ( 1 973-90) . roughly a m i l l ion Chil
eans left the country, and the majority did not return after the reintroduction of
democracy. There are people registered as Chileans in 1 1 0 countries around the world,
even if many lost thei r citizenship after fleeing from the Pinochet dictatorship. In the
early 2000s, the government actively sought to reintegrate overseas Chilea ns and
their descendants, not by encouraging their return, but by enhancing their sense of
Chileanness, which might in turn benefit the state through i nvestments and Chi lean
activities scattered around the globe. Chile was officially made up of thirteen regions,
but increasingly, a fourteenth region, called the region of el exterior or el reencuentro
(the reu n ion) was mentioned i n official and unofficial contexts. I nitiatives were even
taken to allow Chilean artists living abroad to apply for government funding.
DISEMBEDDING 29
Another, more common way of using the I nternet to enhance national identities
that lack a territorial base is by nations lacking a state or exiles in political opposition.
On the I nternet (and with a growing presence on Facebook), various Tamil, Kurdish,
Palestinian, S i kh , and I ran ian websites bring news and host discussion forums
representing and aimed towards their scattered, deterritorialized constituencies,
thereby encouraging and strengthening strong collective identities among people
who would otherwise have been isolated from each other (Eriksen 2007b).
The use of the Internet by states i n order to stimulate and kindle national loyalty
among nationals living in diasporas is by now very widespread. S ince most debates
about immigration in the receiving countries deal with integration, this kind of measure
is bound to be perceived as a fragmenting force in the host countries. Yet, what
is interesting here is the fact that disembedding mechanisms have the potential of
making political boundaries congruent with cultural ones, as Ernest Gellner puts it i n
Nations and Nationalism ( 1 983)-even when both kinds o f boundaries are thoroughly
deterritorialized.
N ational ism as a Tem plate for G lo bal ization
Nationalism, often seen as an obstacle to globalization, is a product of the same forces

that are shaping the latter (see Sassen 2006) . H i storical ly, a n important part played
by nationalist ideologies in contemporary nation-states has consisted in i ntegrating
an ever larger n u mber of people cu ltural ly, political ly, and economically. The French
could not be mea n i n gfully descri bed as a people before the French Revolution, which
brought the l i e-de-France ( Parisian) language, noti ons of liberal political rights, un iform
pri mary education, and not least, the self-consciousness of being French, to remote
areas-first to the local bourgeoisies, later (in some cases much later) to the b u l k
o f t h e population. S i m i lar large-scale processes took place i n a l l E u ropean countries
during the n i neteenth centu ry, and the modern state, as well as nationalist ideology, is
h i storically and logica l ly l inked with the spread of l iteracy ( E ri ksen 2 0 1 0 ; Goody 1 977),
the quantification of time, and the growth of i ndustrial capita l i s m . The model of the
nation-state as the supreme political unit has spread throughout the twentieth century.
Not least due to the i ncreasing i mportance of i nternational relations (trade, warfare,
etc . ) , the nation-state has played an extremely i mportant part in the ma king of the
contemporary world . Social i ntegration on a large scale through the imposition of a
u niform system of education, the i ntroduction of u niversal contractual wage work,
sta ndardization of language, and so forth, i s accordingly the explicit a i m of national ists
i n the parts of the world often spoken of a s developing cou ntries. It may be possible
to achi eve some of these aims by contrasting the nation with a different nation or a
m i nority res iding i n the state, which is then depicted as i nferior or threate n i n g . This
strategy for cohesion i s extremely widespread and i s not a peculiar characteristic of
the nation-state as s uch: s i m i lar ideologies and practices are fou n d i n kinship-based
societies and a mong u rban m i n orities a l i ke . I nsofar as enemy projections a re dealt
30 G L O BA L I ZAT I O N
with i n the present context, they are regarded a s means to ach ieve i nternal, national
cohes ion, s i nce i nternational conf l i cts are not considered .
Nationalism as a mode of social organization represents a qual itative leap from
earl i er forms of i ntegratio n . Within a nation-state, all men and women are citizens, and
they partici pate i n a system of relationships where they depend upon, and contribute
to, the existence of a vast n u mber of i ndividuals whom they will never know personal ly.
The main social disti n ction appears as that between insiders and outsiders-between
citizens and noncitizens. The total system appears abstract and i mpenetrable to the
citizen, who must nevertheless trust that it serves his needs . The seeming contradiction
between the i ndividual 's im med iate concerns and the large-scale machi nations of the
nation-state is bridged through nationa l ist ideology proposing to accord each i ndividual
citizen particular val u e . The ideology s i m u ltaneously depicts the nation metaphorically
as an enormous system of blood relatives or as a religious com mun ity and as a
benefactor satisfying immediate needs (education, jobs, health, security, etc . ) . Th rough
this kind of ideologi cal techniq ue, nationalism can serve to open and close former
boundaries of social systems. Some become brothers metaphorically; others, whose
membership i n the nation (and consequently, loyalty) is debatable, become o utsiders.
U n l i ke the situation i n premodern societies, nationalism com m u n i cates mainly through
abstract media (written laws, newspapers, mass meetings, etc . ) , whereas kinship
ideology is com municated i n face-to-face i nteractio n . The former presupposes the
latter as a metaphoric model ( E r i ksen 2010; see also Smith 1 99 1 ) .
Nationa lism i s ideal ly based o n abstract norms, not o n personal loyalty. Viewed
as a popular ideology, nationa l i s m is inextricably i ntertwi ned with the destiny of the
nation-state. Where the nation-state is ideologically s uccessfu l , its i n habitants become
nati ona l i sts-that is, their identities and ways of l ife gradually grow compatible with
the demands of the nation-state and s upport its g rowt h . Where nationa lism fai l s to
convince, the state may use violence or the threat of violence to prevent fission. The
monopoly on the use of legiti mate violence is, together with its monopoly of taxation,
one of the most i mportant characteristics of the modern state; however, viol ence i s
usually seen as a last resort. M ore common a r e political strategies aiming t o i ntegrate
hitherto distinctive categories of people c u ltural ly. Since national boundaries change
historical ly, and si nce nations can be seen as sh ifting collectivities of people conceivi ng
of their c ulture and h istory as shared, this is an ongoing process . Eth n i c groups can
vanish through a n n i h i lation, or more common ly, through assimilation. They may also
conti n u e to exist and may pose a threat to the domi nant nationalism i n two ma i n ways ,
either as agents of s u bversion (they do, after a l l , represent alternative cultural idioms
and val ues-th i s was how the Jews of Nazi G ermany were depicted) or as agents of
fission (which was evidently the case with Baltic national ists before 1 99 1 ) .
N ational ist strategies a re tru ly s uccessful only when the state s i m u ltaneous ly
increases its sphere of influence and responds credibly to popular demands, thereby
sti mulating national sentiment from below. It is ta utologica lly true that if the nation-state
and its agencies can sati sfy perceived needs in ways acknowledged by the citizens,
then its inhabitants become nationalists. The main threats to national i ntegration are
DISEMBEDDING 31
therefore a lternative social relationships, which can also satisfy perceived needs. There
are potential confl icts between the nation-state and nonstate modes of o rgan izati o n ,
which may fol l ow no rmative principles i ncompatible w i t h those represented by the
state. This kind of confl ict is evident i n every country i n the world, a n d i t can be stud ied
as ideologica l confl ict , provided ideol ogy is not seen merely as a system of ideas but as
sets of practices guided by such idea s . Typical exa mples are African countries, where
tribalism, or organ ization along eth nic l i n es, is perceived as a threat (by the nati on
state) or a s an alternative (by the citizens) to the universa l i st rhetoric and practices
of nationa l i s m . From the citizen's point of view, nationalism may o r may not be a
viable alternative to kinship or ethnic ideology (or there may be two nationalisms to
choose between-e . g . , an Ethiopian a n d a Somali one, in eastern Ethiopia)-a nd s h e
w i l l choose t h e option best s uited to satisfy her needs, b e they of a metaphysi ca l ,
economic, o r pol itical natu re. The success or fa i l u re o f attempts a t national in tegrati on
must therefore be studied not only at the level of pol itical strategies o r systemic
imperatives, but it must equally be understood at the level of the everyday life-world .
I n a word, the ideological struggles a n d the i ntrastate confli cts, a s wel l a s the context
specific optio n s for the good life, s hape and are s i m u ltaneously rooted in the immediate
expe riences of its citizens, and the a na lysis must beg in there .
Other Disembed d i ng Mec han isms
I n t h e rea lm o f production, t h e labor contra ct o f t h e capita l i st enterprise is a

disembedding i n strument sepa rati ng the labor power of the i ndividual from the entire
person . U n der a labor contract, workers were and a re, at least in principle, free to quit.
and thei r obl igations to the e m p l oyer are l i mited to their worki ng hours. Other examples
co u l d have been menti oned. The point i s that modern societies are characterized by
a particular kind of complexity, where the l i ves of in dividuals are compartmenta l ized
(B erger et a l . 1 973) i nto separate ro les or fu nctions a n d thereby become replaceable
with each other in particular doma i n s . This is not the only possible way of making
a soci ety work. I n dian caste society and traditi onal Australian worldviews a re two
specta c u l a r exa mples of social a n d cultu ra l complexity, respectively. N onetheless.
modernity is today i n a uniquely i m portant position; it is hegemonic on the verge of
beco ming un iversa l , and due to its disembedding and compartmentalizing functions,
it lays the fou ndations for g lobal networki ng . I t synchronizes and sta ndardizes an
enormous number of perso ns, a l l of them little cogs i n a great mach i n e ry. It draws
on a shared mechanica l time-structure, a global medium for economic tra nsactions
(mo ney). technologies of production and destruction based on a shared theoretical
science and easily transferable knowledge. Modern ity coordinates the movements
and thoug hts of an enormous number of people in ways that were both unknown and
unthinkable in n o nmodern societies. It divorces its resou rces from parti cular individuals
by externalizing time, language, economy, memory, morality, and knowledge. And it
32 G L O B A L I Z AT I O N
enables a nea rly infin ite social complexity in a world where bou ndaries a re in creasi ngly
relative and negotiable.
Many react critica lly to particular aspects of disembedding, seei ng it as dehumanizing
o r ali enat i n g , oppressive or ina uthentic-or they are si mply unable to reap its profits
for exa mple, by being excl uded from the formal labor market They are engaged in
various forms of reembedding, witnessed, for example, i n the i nforma l sector in the
economy (based on trust and in te rpersonal relationsh ips) or in local ide ntity pol itics
(emphasi zing the virtues of that which i s locally embedded) .
So far, I have considered some of the main conditions of modern ity, chiefly i n its guise
as the modern nation-state. H owever. with the repl icati on and diffusion of tech n o logies
and modes of organization across bou ndaries. what emerged during the twentieth
centu ry, and particu larly in its second half, was a world-system of natio n-states based
on many of the same premises . Thus, given these emerging s i m i larities across the
globe, contem porary globalization became feasible. It would neither be eco nomically
profitable nor culturally poss i b l e to create end uri ng reciproca l ties between non state.
n o n literate tribal groups and the economic mach i nery of the i ndustri a l i zed countries,
but with the increasingly tra n s national disembedding of com mun icati o n , trade, and
production. such ties have become both viable and widespread.
Giddens ( 1 990) distin g u ishes between two kinds of dise mbedding mechan i s m s
t h e creation o f symbolic tokens and the establishment o f expert systems. A typ ical
symb o l i c token is money, which travel s i n dependently of persons and goods (and is
i ncreas ingly located to the abstract rea l m of cyberspace) ; a typical expert system is
economic science, assu med to be context-i ndependent and va lid everywhere.
As mentioned, the increasi n g dominance of disembedding mechanisms and their
growing spatial ra nge can fruitfu l ly be seen as a movement from the con crete to the
abstract. from the i nterpe rsonal to the institutional, and from the local to the globa l .
The next two chapters, o n accelerat i o n a n d on standardizati o n , present featu res of
global ization that a re closely related to disembedd i n g .
Di se m bedded Friendsh i p
American col l eges a n d u n ivers ities have a long tradition of p u b l i s h i n g a n a n n u a l face

book, i ncluding names and mug shots of all stu dents. A kind of di rectory, the i ntention of
these face books was to make it easier for sophomore students to get acquai nted with
others. During the 1 990s, face books were i ncreasin gly turned into online cata logues,
and in 2004, the Ha rvard student Mark Zuckerberg used material from Harvard face
books, some of it acquired by hacki ng i nto the protected a reas of houses at Ha rvard,
to create a more comprehensive catalogue, includin g a comment field. I n spite of
legal difficu lties with the Harvard admin istrati o n , the site beca me an in stant success.
During the fol l owing year, the network was expanded to include other u n iversities as
wel l as h ig h schools, the user interface was developed beyond that of commenting
DISEMBEDDING 33
on photos, and in September 2 006, Facebook as we know it today was opened to the
general public. By autumn 201 3-less than seven years after its launch-Facebook had
more than a b i l l ion u sers worldwide.
M odeled o n face-to-face social relationships, but l i fted out i nto the v i rtual world of
cyberspace, Facebook can be described a s a n ongoing, deterritorialized conversation
between people who s ometimes know each other outside of Facebook , who a re
sometimes aware of each other outside of Facebook , and who someti mes know
each oth er only through their o n l i n e presence . The range of s ubj ects dealt with on
Facebook para l l e l s the breadth of socia l and cu ltural l ife itself. A typ ica l newsfeed on
my own account would i nc l ude a few photos of cute a n i mals and ch i l dren celebrating
their b i rthdays, a few political cartoons, news from env i ronmental organ i zations and
the gas i n d u stry i n Austra l ia (where I a m doing research ) , comme nts on recent news
i n Norway and the E u ropean U n io n , a few l i n ks to YouTube c l i p s , and a handful of
l i n k s to a cademic articles. I know less than half of my Facebook friends personal ly,
b ut I know someth i n g a bout them ( s u ch as thei r occupation, m u s i ca l tastes, or
a uth ors h i p ) .
What is peculiar about Facebook i n t h i s context i s not o n ly the fact that it i s totally
disembedded and deterritoria l i zed but that it i s ch iefly being used for reembedding
by sharing personal experiences, sponta neous thoughts, and j udg ments with friends,
physical and virtu a l . Of course, Web 2.0 (where the social media play a n i m portant pa rt)
encompasses far more than Facebook-Twitter (for m icrobl ogging), l nstagram (for
photo sharing), and Linked l n (for professional networking) are i nteresting in their own
ri ght-but Facebook is the most powerf u l and widely used med i u m of this kind. The
reason may be that it offers possibilities to s hare the whole ra nge of h u ma n emotions
with l i ke-minded (or not) people anytime, anywhere; or it may be, a s Daniel M i l ler says,
"the desire by nearly everyone on our pla net to be on the same network as everyone
else" (201 1 : 2 1 7 ) .
N eo l i beral Economics and Dise m bedd i ng
The term neoli beralism is often u sed to describe a particular kind of d isembedded
economic ideology and practice characteristic of the late twentieth and early twenty
fi rst centuries . It is commonly agreed that it began i n earnest with the pol icies of
deregulation and privatization i nstigated i n the U n ited States and the U nited K i ngdom
around 1 980, u nder Ronald Reagan and M a rgaret Thatcher's respective leaderships.
The structural adj ustment programs i mplemented by the I M F ( I nternational M onetary
Fund) in the so-ca lled developing world i n the 1 980s and 1 990s conformed to the
same principles, cutti ng down public expenditure and encouraging the development
of competitive markets wherever possible. Thi s set of policies, bel ieved to lead to a
hea lthy economic development, is generally known as the Was h i ngton Consensus,
as it was the outcome of a n agreement between the I M F, the World Bank, and the
U . S. Treas u ry Department. The i nfluential geographer and social theorist David Harvey
defi nes neo l i beralism as fol lows :
N eoliberalism is . . . a theory of political economic practices that proposes that

human well-bei ng can best be advanced by l i berating i ndividual entrepreneu rial
freedoms and skills withi n a n i nstitutional framework characterized by strong private
property rights, free markets, and free trade. The role of the state is to create and
preserve a n i n stitutional framework appropriate to such practices. (2005: 2)
Neolibera l pol icies have i n the s ubsequent decades been purs ued by govern ments
i n most pa rts of the world, fully or partly privatizing formerly public enterprises, such
as rai l ways and postal services, and encouraging an unha mpered market economy
(although restrictions are usually placed on i m ports i n the form of tariffs) .
The neol iberal view i s that the removal of h i ndrances to competition (such a s i mport
tariffs, strong trade u n ions, i nefficient and bureaucratic state i n stituti ons, unprofitable
activiti es) will eventually lead to prosperity and economic growth through the
workings of the market principle. Such a view of the economy is, for better or worse,
a disembedding vis ion si nce it sees the economy as l i fted out of social relations,
fol lowing its own logic and its own dynamic, driven by anonymous market forces.
Neoliberalism has been criticized from many quarters. Some have simply a rgued
that it did not del iver the goods and that deregu lation and s l i mming of the public sector
sent countries l i ke Argentina i nto a prolonged crisis. Others have poi nted out that
neoli beralism did not so much lead to increased prosperity as to i ncreased i nequal ity
( H arvey 2005). Yet, others see the economy as a socially embedded kind of activity,
which cannot and should not be viewed as a n abstract and v i rtual thing ( H a rt et a l .
2 0 1 0) . Others have warned against the i nsta b i lity o f a financially driven world economy;
the concept " casino capitalism," previously coined by the i nternational relationist S u sa n
Strange i n 1 986, was frequently u s e d d u r i n g t h e financial c r i s i s beginning in 2008.
Final ly, some critics of neoliberalism argue that a deregu lated global market cannot
coexist with national democracies ( Rodrik 2 01 1 ) . The reason is that national pol iticians
would have m i nimal space for maneuveri ng and few effective tool s for social planning
i n a deregulated world economy where the local fortunes depend on global processes.
I n spite of these and other objections and criticisms of neoliberal ist ideology and
practice, privatization, deregu lation, and calls for marketization are sti l l widespread
around the world . The disembedded market economy i s a key feature of contemporary
global ization, although-as will be made i ncreasingly clear in later chapters-it
encounters resistance, and alternatives to it are being developed.
The G ated C o m m u n ity as a Form of D i s e m b ed d i ng
S
egregation in cities has been studied widely by urban sociologists, anthropologists,
and not least geographers. The term gated community, often used in l iterature,
describes an urban area, which is guarded, usually by a private security company,
DISEMBEDDING 35
and closed off, usually physically, from the surrounding city. The people inhabiting
the gated community are economically privileged and have closed off their local area
in order to control their interaction with the surroundings, seen as threatening and
dangerous. Naturally, the gated commu nity is a feature of cities that are strongly
class-divided. I n habitants of the gated community have their own infrastructure,
wholly or partially; they send their children to private schools and buy imported goods
in expensive shops. In an analysis of the development of a gated community, or
fortified enclave, in Managua, Nicaragua, Dennis Rodgers (2004: 1 23) describes them
as "disconnected worlds that are the antithesis of public space, in that they constitute
a withdrawal from the fabric of the city, leadi ng to its fragmentation." The social
form of the gated community leads to the exclusion of others from formerly shared
spaces and l imits the interaction between the enclave's i nhabitants and outsiders. It
definitely contributes to a fragmentation of the city and a lso has consequences for the
political life in that the very notion of a shared public space i s challenged. Inhabitants
of gated communities consume pretty much in the same way as middle- or upper
class citizens in rich countries; they watch cable television and communicate online
from home. Their integration into the world economy is indisputable-many work
in international agencies or transnational companies-but their level of participation
in the domestic publ ic sphere is debatable and often very i nsignificant. The spread
of gated communities throughout the poorer countries-Rio de Janeiro, Nairobi,
Johannesburg, Santiago de Chile, G uatemala City, and so on-suggests not only a
disembedding of an urban form from its physical location but also the emergence of
a global middle class, transnationally integrated through shared ideas, practices, and
lifestyles. but with a weakening tie towards the local and domestic.
This example suggests a development that is complementary to and signifies the
opposite of the example of the fourteenth Chilean province: while the Internet and
increased transnational interaction can serve to reintegrate diaspora Chileans into the
imagined community of the nation, the growth of gated communities in third-world cities
signifies the detachment of groups, which are physically located to the nation-state, from it.
C ritics of Disembed d i ng
An especially gri m i nterpretatio n of d isembedding processes sees them as resu lting i n

fragmentatio n , a li enatio n , and a nonymity, u ltimately removing every trace of t h e local
and particular. I n a n original essay on non-places, the anthropologist Marc Auge ( 1 992)
describes a condition he labels supermodernity ( la surmodernite). which conti n u o us ly
produces uprootedness and a l ienation because it obl iterates and neglects h i storica l ly
rooted places imbued with particularity. Auge's non-places are frictionless and lack
resi stance . They com m u n icate through a rudimentary pidgin lang uage devoi d of
particular experiences . H e writes that we l ive i n a world where one i s :
born i n a c l i n i c a n d d i e s i n a hospital, where transitional poi nts-l uxuri o u s o r

dehumanising-proliferate (hotel chai n s a n d temporary shacks, hol iday resorts,
refugee camps, slums soon t o b e demolished o r which are i n a condition of

permanent decay), where a network develops which is tied together by means
of transportation which a re also dwelli ngs, where the routine user of shopping
centres, ATM s and credit cards carries out his transactions without a word, a world
where everything encourages lonely i ndividual ity, the transition, the provisi onal and
temporary. ( 1 992: 1 00-1 0 1 , my translati on)
I n the abstract, generalized world described by Auge, the local and peculiar is lost.
Auge's countryman Pa u l Viril i o ( 1 996, 2 000) goes even further, i n seei ng disembedd ing
processes a s heralding the death of civil society. I n Virilio's view, a main cause of social
fragmentation and alienation is contemporary communication technology. Whereas
some of the disembedding communication technologies, notably the book and the
newspaper, were important for the creation of civil societies by creating shared frames
of reference for people who would never meet physica lly (Anderson 1 99 1 [ 1 983]), the
contempora ry, transnati onal, and i n stantaneous commun ication technologies (such as
the I nternet) dissolve it in Vi ri li o's view. H e describes a world where people no l onger
need to-or even want to-meet their neighbors , where they are enterta ined and
i nformed online, and where communication with others is also increasingly o n l i ne,
deterritorial ized, disembedded, and detached from ongoing social life . As a result,
Viri l i o fears that the everyday conversation about soci ety, the l ittle compromises
and convers ions taking place i n di scussions about anything from sports to politics,
fade away because the organization of society no longer creates conditions for such
interactions.
There i s i n the social sciences a long tradition of criticizing modern societies, and
not least the features we have described as disembedding processes, for alienating
people, and reducing the conditions for existential secu rity, i ntimacy, self-reliance, and
autonomy. M ost of the leading pioneers of social theory, including Marx, Durkheim,
and Tonnies, contrasted the abstract, large-sca le, industrial societies of their own day
with the concrete, sma l l-scale, agricu ltural societies that had preceded them . Some of
thei r argume nts ca n be refound in contemporary debates about g loba l izati on, which i s
i n a certai n sense j ust modernity writ large, or, i n t h e words o f Arj u n Appad urai ( 1 996),
simply " modernity at large." H owever, the era of global modernity i s i n i mportant
ways different from the m odernity defi ned and described by the sociological classics.
Notably, the economy and com munications have become i n creasingly global ized-or
deterritoria lized-without a s i m i lar development in politics. The " democratic defi cit"
of global ization i s a much debated topic (cf. Held et a l . 2005), and in the view of the
critics, the national public, and pol itical spheres a re being marginal ized. Some call for a
strengthening of national power, while others argue in favor of transnational governance
through i nternational organizations and regional entities, l i ke the E u ropean U n ion. Yet,
others have faith i n the potential of grassroots move ments-that is, organizations from
below, as a lternative ways of i nfluencing both l oca l and transnational politics.
Through presenting some of the disembedding mechanisms of modernity at some
length, this chapter has shown how contemporary globalization i s a development
presupposing the implementation and dissemi nation of a series of disembedding
DISEMBEDDING 37
processes, wh ich have created abstract societies, now increasingly tra n snational in
their ongoingness.
• Disembedding ca n be defined as " the ' lifting out' of social relations from local con
texts of interaction and their restructuring across indefinite spa ns of time-space."
• Disembedding refers to a main trajectory of globalization-namely, the i ncreasingly
abstract character of communication and objects, whereby thei r origin becomes ob
scured and their currency more and more widespread.
• Writing (often in the form of printi ng), money, clock time, and standardized mea
surements are some of the most important disembedding mechanisms in modern
society.
• The disembedding mecha nisms of contemporary global or transnational systems rely
on electronic information and commu nication tech nology ( I CT) for their efficacy.
• Critics of contemporary disembedding see the " l ifting out" of social relations as a
recipe for a lienation and fragmentation.
Q u esti o n s
• I n which ways does disembedding occur a s deterritorial ization? G ive some

examples and discuss the consequences.
• Mention three main forms of deterritorialization that a re integral to modernity, and
indicate how they are necessary conditions for contemporary global ization.
• I n what way does the author see musical notation as connected to globa lization ?
Do you agree ?
• How can nationalism be said to be a product of the same forces that are shaping
global izatio n ?
• What a r e some o f the main d ifferences between contemporary globalization a n d
the modernity o f the nation-state ?
F u r t h e r Read i ng
Bauman. Zygmunt ( 1 999) Globalization-The Human Consequences. N ew York:

Columbia U n iversity Press. Written by the famous Pol ish-E nglish social theorist
known for his theoretical analyses of modern ity and postmodern ity, this book
describes new forms of i nequal ity, surveillance, and risk resulting from tighter
integration .
Gellner. E rnest ( 1 990) Plough, Sword, Book. Chicago: U n iversity of Chicago Press.
There are many books trying to explain the transition from tribal to modern
society, and this is among the very best. The author looks at familiar dimensions,
such as technological changes and population growth, but he also places great
emphasis on writing and scientific thought.
G iddens, Anthony ( 1 999) Runaway World: How Globalization is Reshaping our

Lives. London: Routledge. This is a compact and informal book, based on a
lecture series, h ighlighting some important aspects of disembedding and global
modernity but emphasizing the positive aspects of global ization, such as human
rights, the spread of feminism, and cosmopolitan ideas.
2
Speed
As a result of the need for instantaneous responses, particularly

because of the speed implied by the telephone, telex, fax,
electronic signals and so on, the future increasingly appears
to dissolve into an extended present.
-J O H N U R RY, SOCIOLOGY BEYOND SOCIETIES, 1 28
Acceleration is an important dimension of globalization. Faster transportation and

communication have been preconditions for the current globally interconnected world.
As production and consumption have sped up, capitalism has continued to grow and
to conquer new markets, which are thereby incorporated into global networks of
communication and exchange. The most spectacular kind of acceleration witnessed
in recent years is arguably that taking place in instantaneous communication. The
number of people online in the world has grown spectacularly and continues to do
so. At the same time, acceleration takes place unevenly, both between societies and
regions and within groups and societies. Different parts of a culture change at different
speeds, and there are groups, activities, and places that hardly change at all, forcibly or
through neglect or active exclusion.
A
s I sat by my desk i n relative peace and q u iet a fine spring morn i ng some years
ago, I was interrupted by three s i m ultaneous and identical e-ma i l s marked with red
tags ( Priority: H igh ! ), fol l owed by a physical visit by our secretary, who actual ly wal ked
a round i n the corridor, knocking on doors and wa rni n g the occupants of i m m inent
danger. (After we got e-mai l in the early 1 990s, we hardly saw o u r secretary a ny more,
and so we i mmediately u nderstood that the situation had to be very seri o u s . )
I t s o o n became clear that t h e reason for thi s u n usual and dramatic behavior was
neither a fire o n the ground floor, a general strike, a n attempted coup d'etat by the
mil itary, n o r even a spontaneous wave o f suicides among u niversity employees protes
ting against the decay of o u r i nstitution, but a small computer program that had settled
on many of our hard disks . A viru s ! The virus program had arrived as an attach ment
to an e-ma i l entitled " I LOVEYO U;' which conta ined a n i mploring request for the
recipient to open the attached " love letter from me to you ." If one did-and many
did, understa ndably, given that they had been promised an u nconditional declaration
of l ove-a malign virus would begin deleting fi les, messing u p data, and then movi ng
on to other innocent computers via the victi m 's electronic address list. A surprising
nu mber of col leagues received the virus before lunch on that day, genera l ly from
different sources, and many got it twice o r even three times.
The virus, which in a matter of hours had been nickna med " The Love Worm;· was
first observed in Hong Kong late in the evening on Wednesday, May 3, 2000 ( local time) .
When the American populati on began to get out of bed a little while later (and it was
Wednesday morning in the U n ited States), the vi rus began to move across the world
with astonishing speed. Within the next couple of days, it had settled-a mong many
other places-at the U n iversity of Gothenburg ( Sweden ) , a weekly Oslo newspaper,
and the N orwegian I n stitute of I nternati onal Relations, and a rrived from individual
computers i n all three places to my des ktop computer on the Thursday morn ing. As
people began to return home from work on that fateful Thursday, the leadi ng a ntivirus
companies had a l ready developed remedies, which were freely available on the Web.
The viru s was virulent and epidemic from the very beg i n n i n g (other, real-world v i ruses,
such as that which carries bubonic plague, may be endemic for years before tu rning
vicious), and the entire epidemic lasted less than three days . Within that span, between
60 and 80 percent of the computers in the U n ited States were estimated to have been
infected to a g reater or lesser degree . On Thu rsday even ing, C N N on line reported that
the Scandi navian photo agency Scanpix had lost 4,500 i mages, in spite of i m peccable
secu rity routi nes.
I n a couple of days, the epidemic dissemination a l l over the world was brought to
an abru pt end, fol l owi ng the spread of loud warnings in v i rtual ly all the world's media.
A week later, the v i rus makers were arrested by the Filipino police.
One cannot help but compare this epidemic with earlier major epidemics in European
history. The most famous and most consequential was the Black Death ( 1 347-5 1 ) .
Probably originating in the steppes o f Central Asia, i t had a l ready caused mass death and
political fragmentation in large parts of Eurasia for a couple of years when it finally reached
Bergen in 1 349, arriving in the Baltic lands only the following year. It took the plague three
years to make the trip from Sicily to Riga, in spite of being extremely contagious. Except
for the immediate neighboring areas (West Asia and North Africa), no other continents
other than Europe were affected. I ndeed, the great plague of the 530s ( Keys 1 999) was
even more comprehensive in its reach-it started in East Africa and wrought havoc in
China, Arabia, and Europe-and it moved just as fast as the plague eight hundred years
later. Whatever was far away in space, in the fourteenth century as well as in the sixth,
was also far removed in time. The transport and communication technologies in Europe
had scarcely evolved in the intervening centuries.
SPEED 41
Acceleration is a central feature of g l obalization and i n deed of modern ity. Everythi n g ,

it seems, happens faster and faster, bringing disparate parts o f t h e world closer t o each
other, leading to frictions of the kind that we may ca l l overheating effects.
Ti me-space Compression
The concept of disembedding discussed i n the last chapter refers chiefly to the
reorga nization of social relations by virtue of processes that render society and cu lture
more abstract and detached from local c i rcu mstances. Although disembedding is a key
feature of modern ity itself, it was a rg ued that it is also an important condition for stable
tran snational con nections and globa l i zation, since it makes things, people, and ideas
more easily comparable and moveable than they were-and are-in societies where
most of what goes o n is embedded i n the local.
A close relative to Anthony G iddens's concept of d i sembedding is David H arvey's
term " time-space compression," developed in his i nfl uential book The Condition of
Postmodernity ( 1 989) . You may envision it as the squeezing together of time and space .
The forms of deterritorial ization briefly discussed in the context of disembeddi ng are
also instances of time-space compression.
There are many possible theoretical approaches to o u r near past, and the h istory
of modernity has kept generations of academics and students busy for more than a
century. Some concentrate on the devel opment of concepts and ideas, while others
emphasize economics or politics . The analysis of the past can be approached in other
ways a s wel l . For example, it can be hig h ly i l l u minating to view the history of the
last two h undred years as a h istory of acceleration. Strangely, this dimension is rarely
fo regrounded in the extensive l iterature o n global izatio n . The reason why this should
come a s a s urprise is si mply that global ization is tantamount to a particular form of
acceleratio n , which reduces the importance of distance, frequently obliterati ng it
a ltogether. In the era of wi reless com m u n ications, there is no longer a con nection
between d u ration and d i stance. I n 1 903, Theodore Roosevelt sent a round-the-world
telegram to hi mself, and it reached him in nine min utes (Anderson 2006: 3). Today,
s u ch an exercise wou l d not have made sense, but a century ago, it i ndicated that the
world had become a smal ler place; the space-time conti n u u m had been compressed
enormously compa red with the situation only half a century earlier, when there was no
way in which Roosevelt could have sent a telegram even to London.
Technological changes are necessary conditions for time-space compression. The
jet plane and the satell ite dish a utomatica l ly enable people to communicate fast in
both senses of the word, but thei r mere invention says n othing about the i r social
i mportance: Who has access to these technologies, how are they being u sed, and
how do they contri bute to tra nsforming economies and everyday lives worldwide.
When we study tech nological changes, therefore, they m ust always be placed in their
social context. One of the most i nteresti n g findings i n the interdiscipli nary research on
i nformation and com m u n i cation tech nologies i s that they have h ugely different social
impl icati ons and cultural con notations i n different societies.
Ha rvey defines time-space compression l i ke this:
[P] rocesses that so revol utionize the objective qual ities of space and time that we
are forced to alter, sometimes in q u i te radical ways, how we represent the world
to o u rselves . I use the word " compression" because a strong case can be made
that the h istory of capitalism has been characterized by speed-up in the pace of l ife,
while so overcom i ng spatial barriers that the world sometimes seems to collapse
i nwards upon us. ( 1 989: 240)
This " speed-up " i s then i l l u strated graphically (Harvey 1 989: 241 ) by looking at fou r
maps o f the world indicating t h e fastest ava ilable transport technology a t the time:
1 1 500-1 840 (best average speed of horse drawn coaches and sailing s h i ps was
1 0 mph) .
2 1 850- 1 930 (steam locomotives averaged 65 mph, and steam ships averaged
36 mph) .
3 1 950s (propeller ai rcraft, 300-400 mph).
4 1 960s (jet passenger ai rcraft, 500-700 mph).
A similar table s howi ng the acceleration i n the commu nication of messages wo u l d

b e no l e s s stri king, b u t l e s s tidy. For h u ndreds, indeed thousands o f years, t h e fastest
widespread mea n s of communication was the written docu ment, transported by a
horse (trained pigeons were u n usual). I nterconti nental commu nication could take
place n o faster than a sail s h i p . With the coming of the tra i n and steams h i p i n the early
decades of the n i neteenth century, the speed of commun ication i ncreased as much
as the speed of ground com m u n i cati o n ; h owever, l o ng before the steamboats had
fully replaced sail ships, a truly transformative innovation saw the l ight of day-namely,
the telegraph, which was first demonstrated in 1 838. For the first time in h istory, a
message could be transported without being embedded in a physical object. The first
tra n satlantic cable between N ew York and London was opened in 1 866; the first cable
from London to Bombay was opened in 1 870. H uge rolls of copper wire enmeshed in
waterproof g utta-percha rubber from M alaya were laid o ut across the ocean floor. No
wonder science fiction became a popular l i terary form only a few years later. Although
the telegraph was used chiefly for short messages, transmitted i n Morse code (now
obsolete, b ut learned routinely by Boy Scouts as late as the 1 980s), it revolutionized
the way people experienced time and space.
The s i gn ificance of the telegraph was recognized by contemporary commentators,
and the London Times wrote, i n 1 844, about the telegraph: " Si nce the discovery of
Columbus, nothing has been done in any degree comparable to the vast en largement
which has thus been given to the sphere of h u ma n activity " (quoted i n Chanda 2007: 62).
SPEED 43
S uddenly, a remote city could be experienced as very near if it was con nected by cable;
s i m i larly, towns o r villages i n the neighborhood a ppeared to be remote if they were
u ncon nected by telegraph . The tra i n and the telephone (invented in 1 877) s i m ilarly
contributed to changing the ti me-space contin u u m . As from the late n i n eteenth
century, one could n o l onger draw o n an i ntuitive connection between d i stance and
delay. Some towns and cities were connected fast through ground transportation,
i n stantaneously through the telegraph and telephone. This led, among other things,
to the sta ndard ization of time zones. Before the tra i n and the telegraph, there was
no reason why New York and Cincin nati s h o u ld keep synchron ized time, a s travel and
commun ication between the two cities took days anyway.
Accelerated Change
As one of the most original theorists of speed and power, Pa u l Virilio (2000), has often
sa i d : we now live in an e ra with no delays . Virilio has the I nternet fam i ly of tech nologies
i n mind, and i n thi s respect, he i s not overstating the point. (It should be q u ite clea r that
he i s not thinking of com muter trai n s i nto London, of rush hour traffic i n the greater
Los Angeles area, nor of citizens wa iting to speak to a civil servant on the phone . )
G lobal teleco m munications a n d other commun i cation based o n sate l l ites a r e placeless
and i mmediate. All the nodes connected through the I nternet a re , i n a certa i n sense,
everywhere and nowhere . I n practice, there i s no difference between sending and
receiving e-mail from M e l bo u rne o r from the office next door o r from watch ing a di rect
transmission from a soccer game in Bel g i u m , New Yea r celebrations in Kiribati, or a n
i nterview transmitted from o ne's local television stud i o . T i m e , regarded as a m e a n s t o
create distance and proxim ity, i s gone.
This fam i l iar fact has many u n intended consequences, some of which a re explored
by Vi ril i o , who talks of h i s own field of study as dromology, the study of speed and
acceleratio n . One of his special fields of i nterest i s the m i l ita ry. At the outset of the
twentieth centu ry, it would have taken weeks o r m onths to i nvade a cou ntry l i ke Poland:
The speed of wa r was identica l with the average speed of the cavalry. Although h orses
are fast a n i ma l s , they need food and rest, and they are further delayed by h i lls, swamps,
and rivers-not to mention intransigent vil lagers who a re liable to destroy bridges and
set traps. At the beginning of the twentieth centu ry, the tan k and the double-decker
a i rplane were i ntrod uced, and suddenly, the speed of war was i ncreased several times.
Then ca me the Spitfires and medium-range missiles, and today, a wa rli ke state can i n
principle i nflict u nspeakable damage o n a nother cou ntry i n a matter of m i n utes.
Techn o l ogies spread faster and faster. It took forty years for the radio to gain a n
audience of fifty m i l l i o n ; i n the case o f personal computers, t h e figure was fifteen , and
only fou r years after its introduction i n 1 992, fifty million people were u s i ng the World
Wide Web. By 2 0 07, the figure was about a b i l l i o n , but only six years later, i n 201 3, the
n u m ber of I nternet users had skyrocketed to 2 . 4 b i l l ion-probably to a g reat extent
t h rough the spread of I nternet services for mobile phones . This means that at the time
o f writi ng, more than a third o f the world's population h a s access to the I nternet . Sti l l ,
access t o t h e I nternet i s very u n evenly d i stributed . I n t h e N orth Atlantic reg ion-North
America and Western E u rope-the vast majority now has simple if not conti nuous
access, while the penetration i n Africa is only 15 percent. (As late as 2005, just
1 percent of Africans, bar South Africa, had I nternet a ccess . )
The new tech nologies c a n s p read i ncredibly fast to new area s . I n the late 1 990s,
text messages were u n known in C h i n a . I n 2006, between twelve and fou rteen b i l l ion
text messages were sent every month i n the same country. If this sounds l i ke a l ot
we should add that by 2 01 2 , the monthly n umber of text messages sent i n C h i na had
gone up to eighty-six b i l l ion .
Th e I n format i o n S o c i ety
A
cceleration h inges o n technology, a n d the acceleration o f global communi
cation depends on information and communication technology. In fact, these
technologies-from the cel l phone to the computer terminal-are now so pervasive
and so ubiquitous that many have taken to describing our era as an information
society, or a global information society.
S uch terms are not unproblematic, and at the very least, they need defi n i ng .
Quite obviously, every h uman society is a n information society in the sense that
information is important for the distribution of social rank, for survival, and so on. What
distinguishes the contemporary era from previous ones is chiefly that information is
rapidly becoming a central value generator for business and the most val uable raw
material in the world economy (cf Castells 1 996). This is not just the case in the
fi nancial economy, or in that part of the economy that deals in information (such as
software companies) but also in the industrial part of the economy.
I n other words, the information society is not a postindustrial society. Even i n
the most technologically advanced countries, such a s Germany and the U nited
States, a large proportion of their economic output consists in industrial goods.
What distinguishes the information society from industrial society is that in the
former, electronic information technology pervades the productive process and is an
important, integral part of it.
The transition from an agrarian to an industrial society did not entail the end
of agriculture but its transformation. Agriculture was industrial ized through new
machinery and, to some extent, new forms of production and distribution. Similarly,
the information society does not entail the end of agriculture nor industry, but their
informatization. Sennett ( 1 997) writes about a bakery in New England where the
employees are no longer capable of baking bread, since the productive process is
now managed via computer screens.
To take another, perhaps even more tel ling example: Before the so-called Y2K
scare in late 1 999, when it was widely feared that a huge n umber of mainframe
computer systems would break down on January 1 , 2000, because of simplified
programming in the past, among the most anxious of all professional groups in
SPEED 45
the North were gardeners. The temperature i n many greenhouses i s regulated by

thermostats ru n by computers. If the computers suddenly collapsed on N ew Year's
Eve, enormous amounts of flowers would freeze across the cold part of the world.
This is a way of describing the information society: it is a place where even the
greenhouses have to be compatible with the latest operating system.
Needless to say, the informatization of the economy, and of society as such, takes
place unevenly and chiefly in the rich countries and wealthy enclaves elsewhere.
Friedman's " Fl atteners"
In a widely read book about global ization with the tanta l iz i n g title The World is Flat,
Thomas Friedman ( 2 0 0 5) refers to o n e of h i s ea rlier books , p u b l i s h ed back i n 1 999,
by sayi n g that the g l obal ization processes that i n terest h i m were j ust beg i n n i n g
back t h e n . Spea k i n g of contempora ry g l ob a l i zation as " G lobal ization 3 . 0 ," Friedman
a rgues forcefu l ly that o n ly i n the fi rst years of the twenty-fi rst centu ry, momentous
changes have led to a m u ch more i n tegrated, " flatte r " world than the world of even
the last decade of the twentieth centu ry. O n e may s h ru g at this general ization
Friedman's m ost conv i n c i n g defense of the v iew is the common place that C h i na 's
economic i mpact on the world has g rown tremendously a n d very fast-but h i s
view i l l u strates a widespread fee l i n g , n o t altogether u nj u stified, that changes are
happe n i ng q u i ckly.
Friedman mentions ten flatteners, which have each contributed to leve l i n g the
p layi n g f i e l d . All of them are to do with i nformati o n and com m u n i cation tech nology
a n d with acceleratio n , ran g i ng from the explosion in twenty-fou r-hour parcel del ivery
( FedEx has the fifth-la rgest fl eet of a i rcraft in the world) and broadband connecti ons
to computerized l ogistics on a huge sca l e . Software developers i n I n dia, he n otices,
n o longer have to move to the U n i ted States to have a career, s i nce thei r geographic
location i s henceforth u n i m po rtant. H e also describes the Wa l-Mart s u pp l y cha i n in
some deta i l , s h owing how i t profits from deterrito r i a l i zed markets and remarking
that if Wa l-Mart had been a cou ntry, it wou l d have been C h i n a 's ei ghth-la rgest
trading partne r ! Friedman tells many other stories in h i s readable book, of i n novators
d rea m i n g u p new products, cutti ng prices, or speed i n g u p production or d istributi o n ,
a l l of t h e m i nvolving compute rs i n one way o r a n other. Partly, Friedma n's evolutionist
scheme (he rea l ly believes that the world i s movi n g i n o n e d i rection) i s l i ke a n
undialectical f o r m of Marx i sm-a M a r x i s m without contradiction-a n d partly, i t
i s a n extension of the theory of i nd ustri a l society developed b y sociologists and
eco n o m i sts i n the twentieth century. What i s new, i n h i s view, i s global s i m u ltaneity
u nder i nformational capita l i s m .
I n t h e doma i n s o f information technol ogy, consumption, and retai l trade, t h e world
i s doubtless becoming " flatter;· to use Friedman's term, although it should be kept
in mind that perhaps half the world's popu lation does not ta ke pa rt in t h i s . If we look
a t acceleration from a spatial point o f view, i t becomes evident that certain places
cha nge m u ch faster than others . The central nodes of any disembedded activity a re
characterized by a m u ch h igher speed than the rest of the system, and outside the
nodes-in u nconnected areas-the speed may approach zero . There are about 70
television sets for every 1 , 000 persons i n sub-Sahara n Africa (201 3). while the figure
for the U n ited States is 1 , 1 40 , and a large (if s h ri n king) part of the I ndian population
has never made a telephone ca l l . In spite of a certa in degree of deterritorial ization,
therefore, the central principle of world-systems theory i n dividing the globe i nto
center, periphery, and semiperiphery i s stil l relevant in many respects .
U nder a regime of accelerated change, obsolescence becomes an everyday thing. The
anthropologist Andreas H uyssen (2003) relates a story of a n attempt to buy a computer
in New York, when he encountered unexpected difficulties : " Whatever was on display
was relentlessly described by the sales personnel as already obsolete, that is, museal,
by compa rison with the immi nently expected and so much more powerful next product
l i ne (70) ." Approach ing parody, this anecdote nonetheless i l l u strates the i ncredible
speed of change in certai n doma ins, not least to do with consumption, commu nication,
and production. Commenting on accelerated consumption, Zygmunt Bauma n writes:
There is a natural resonance between the spectacular career of the " now '; brought
about by time-compressing technology, and the logic of consumer-oriented economy.
As fa r as the latter goes, the consumer's satisfaction o ught to be instant, and this i n
a d o u b l e sense. O bviously, consu med goods should satisfy i m mediately, requ i ring
no learn i ng of skills and n o lengthy groundwork; but the satisfaction should also
end-" i n no time;' that is i n the moment the time needed for their consu mption is
u p . ( 1 999: 8 1 )
We l ive i n a n era when the cigarette has replaced the pipe, cornfla kes have long
ago replaced porridge (both ciga rettes and cornflakes are now being replaced by
nothi n g , which ca n be consumed even faster-increasingly, American chi ldren don't
eat breakfast) , e-mail i s replacing paper-based correspondence, and the two-minute
newsreel is one of the hottest products i n the media field. The newspaper articles
become shorter, the transitions in films more frequent, and the time each of u s spends
responding to an electronic letter i s reduced proportionally by the n umber of e-mails
we receive. The restless and sh ifti ng style of communication that was i ntroduced with
MTV has become a n accurate image of the spirit of the age. Speed is an addictive
drug: H o rrified, we watch o u rselves groping for the fast-forward button in the ci nema,
the public l oses i nterest in s l ow-moving sports; i n my part of the world, ice s kating
and cross-country s k i i ng have serious problems of recru itment and a udience appea l ,
as people switch t o more explosive sports, s u ch as i c e h ockey a n d down h i l l skiing; we
fill the slow gaps by talking on mobile phones when wal king down a street or waiting
for a traffic l i ght to change; we damn the m u nicipal transport authority when the bus is
five m i nutes late, and consu mers are sti l l , after all these years, impatiently wa iting for
computers and I nternet connections that are sufficiently fast.
SPEED 47
With these examples i n m i nd, we should not forget that accelerating tech nologies
a re extre mely u n even ly d i stributed, although it needs to be poi nted out that i n this
respect, d ifferences are s h r i n k i n g . I n the time of the landline telephone, it may sti l l have
been true that M a n hattan had more telephone l i nes than s ub-Saharan Africa a n d Italy
as many as Latin America. I n the era of wireless mobile com m u n icatio n s , h oweve r,
this k i n d of arithmetic no l o nger works . It is true that i n the very poorest African
countries, such as Niger o r C had, fewer than fifty in a thousand have a telephone; but
in most countries i n the G l obal South, at least a quarter of the population have one
and, even more im portantly, most people know someone whose phone they ca n ask
to borrow.
Acceleration i n the Med ia
S i n ce its i nceptio n , j o u rna l i s m h a s always been a profession cha racterized by speed .

The notion of today's paper is both a symbol a n d a s i g n of modern ity. It is worth
n oth i n g if it is n ot current. Typical ly, the newspapers had their major breakth rough
in the late eighteenth centu ry, at the same time that c l ocks began to be used to
monitor work, which was also the same period that the French a n d American
revol utions i ntroduced their i ndividua l i stic freedom ideals, the steam engine began to
util ize fos s i l fuels to release h itherto u n known amounts of energy for h u ma n use, and
the industrial revolution began to transform la bor. There was n ow a critical mass of
people, especia lly i n the major cities, who felt a n acute need to keep u p to date with
contemporary events. Then, as n ow, a newspa per was ephemera l . Its l ife span lasted
exactly one day.
Other media are faster. Radio and television can update their content a ny time, and
this is also the case with the media, which may eventually replace the newspapers
namely, some kind of electro n i c publications based on text. ( I n this field, tech nolog ical
change happens so fast that there i s l ittle poi nt i n attempting to ma ke accurate
predictions, a n d it has been predicted regularly since the early 1 980s that the e-paper
o r e-book would soon fu lly replace the pri nted vers i o n s . )
I t ma kes n o s e n s e t o tal k about t h e l i fe s p a n o f a n I nternet newspaper: a ny item
su rvives o n ly a s long as it i s being accessed by a m i n imal n u m be r of readers, o r until
the staff has managed to update o r replace it. There is a whirling dance g o i ng on
between user c l i cks a n d editorial updates, and the more attun ed the edito rial updaters
a re to the u sers' prefe re nces, the more adverti s i n g they get. An average reader of
the lead i n g purely electro n i c newspaper i n Norway-the o n l y newspaper, i ncidental ly,
that does n ot have a paper version-spends forty-five seconds browsi n g the paper.
N ews addicts go there several ti mes a day, especia lly during dramatic events (civil
wa rs, hostage crises, soccer finals) . This kind of media i nsti l l s a new rhythm and a
n ew restl essness, a nd-not least importantly-new routines i n the consumption of
n ews.
Bourd ieu's Pessi mism
I n a profo undly pessimistic and critical essay about the misery o f television, Pierre
Bourdieu ( 1 996, my translation) develops a fa miliar, but far from u n i mportant, argument.
He a rgues that the fragmented temporal ity of television, with its swift transitions and
fast-paced journa lism, creates a n i ntellectual public cultu re, which favors a particular
kind of participant. Bourdieu speaks of these participants as " fast-thi n kers:' Whereas
the Belgian cartoon hero Lucky Luke i s fa mous for drawing his gun faster than his own
shadow, fast-t h i n kers are descri bed sarcastically as " th i n kers who thi n k faster than an
accelerating bul let." They are the people who are able, i n a couple of m i n utes of d i rect
transmission, to explain what is wrong with the economic poli cies of the Eu ropean
U n i o n , why one ought to read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason this summer, or explain
the origins of early twentieth-century racist pseudoscience. It is, nonetheless, a fact
that some of the sha rpest minds need time to reflect and more time (much more, i n
s o m e cases) t o m a ke a n accu rate, sufficiently nuanced statement on a particular issue.
Th is kind of thi n ker becomes i nvisible and virtually deprived of i nfl uence, according
to Bourdieu, in this rushed era . ( I n a banal sense, Bourdieu is obviously wro n g . Few
contemporary thinkers were, u ntil h i s death in 2002, more i nfluential than Bourdieu
hi mself, and clearly he did not regard h i mself as a fast thi n ker. )
Bourdieu's argument is congruent with t h e observation that media appeal has
become the most important capital of politicians-not, i n other words, their pol itical
message or cohesive vision. This is not a n entirely new phenomenon; i n the U n ited
States, the fi rst clear i ndication of this development came with John F Kennedy's
victory over R i chard M. N ixon in 1 960. Anyway, a result, i n Bourdieu's view, is that it i s
the people w h o speak l i ke machine g u n s , i n boldface a n d capital letters, w h o are given
a i rplay and i nfluence-not the sl ow and systematic ones.
What is wrong with this? Why should people who have the gift of being able to th i n k
fast and accurately b e stigmatized i n t h i s way? I n a word, what i s wrong about thi n king
fast? N othing i n particular, apart from the fact that some thoughts only function i n a
s l ow mode, and that some l i nes of reason i n g can only be developed in a conti nuous
fashion, without the interrupti ons of an impatient j ournal ist who wants to move on
(where ?) i n the prog ram . Bourdieu mentions a n example with which many acade mics
will be able to identify. I n 1 989, he publ ished La noblesse de l 'Eta t ( The State Nobility) , a
study of symboli c power and el ite formation i n the French ed ucatio n system. Bourdieu
had been actively interested i n the field for more than twenty years, and the book had
been long i n the m a ki n g . A j ournalist proposed a debate between Bourdieu and the
president of the a l u m n i organization of /es grandes eco!es; the latter would speak " fo r "
a n d Bourdieu wou l d speak " agai nst." "And;' he sums up sourly: " he [the journal ist]
hadn't a clue as to why I refused " ( Bourdieu 1 996: 2 3 ) .
I n genera l , news i s becoming shorter and shorter. A tired joke about t h e competition
for attenti on among tabloids consists i n the remark that when war eventually breaks
out for rea l , the papers wi l l only have space for the "W" on the front page. The joke
i l l ustrates the principle of diminishing returns (or fal l i n g marginal value). I n basic
SPEED 49
economics courses, teachers tend to use food and drink as exa mples to expl a i n this
principle, which i s i nval uable i n a n accelerating capita l i st culture: If you are thirsty, the
fi rst soda has very high val u e for you . The second one i s also qu ite val uable, and you
may even-if your thi rst i s very considerable-be w i l l i ng to pay for the third one. But
then, the many soda ca ns left i n the shop s uddenly have no val u e at a l l to you ; you a re
unwi l l i n g to pay a penny for any of them. Tender stea ks, further, are highly valuable if
you are o n ly allowed to savor them once a month ; when steak becomes daily fare,
its va lue decreases d ra matically. The marginal val u e of a commodity i s defi ned as the
val u e of the last unit one i s willing to spend money o r time and attention o n . Although
this principle cannot by far be applied to everything we do (a lot of activities, such as
saxophone playi ng, become more rewarding the more one carries on), it ca n offer
i mportant i n s ights i nto the situation described by Bourdieu and other cultu ral critics
how news, and more generally i nformation, i s bei n g produced and consu med .
Acceleration, seen from a general perspective, can be fruitfu lly understood as
a fu nctio n of capita l i s m . Growth i s necessary for capitalist operations to survive
in competition with others who also grow, and it can be achieved either through
conquering new ma rkets o r through i ntensification of consu mption i n existing ones.
Reducing product l ife span and i ncreasing the turnover rate i s one way of ensuring
growth; f i l l i n g vacant niches with new forms of consumption is another. Both have an
accel erati ng effect on consumption and, perhaps, life i n genera l .
S i m u ltaneity
As the anthropologist Johannes Fabian ( 1 983) fa mously poi nted out, there has always
been a marked tendency in the West to th i n k of peoples elsewhere as somehow
belong i n g to another time. That which i s distant in space i s thought of as being d i stant
i n time as wel l . Even if the notion that pri mitive peoples represented us at a n earlier
stage i n social evolution was abandoned by professional a nthropologists i n the early
twentieth century as a figure of thought, this idea remai n ed deeply embedded, even in
anth ropology itself, argued Fabian i n the early 1 980s. Th i s kind of a rg ument. although
it makes its appearance occasionally i n the media, would have been difficult to s usta i n
i n t h e academic comm u nity today.
There is a Gary Larson cartoon that depicts an u nspecified tribal group shouting at
the immi nent arrival of a group of people i n kha kis: "Anthropologists ! Anthropologists ! "
while they q u i ckly put their TV sets and PlayStations away i n order not to disappoint
the researchers. Today, even in the places thought of as most remote from Western
civi l ization, e-ma i l facil ities are rarely far away, and locals use cell phones if they can
afford to, which they i ncreasi ngly can . This does not mean that they a re fully i ntegrated
i nto the " flattened;' globalized world described by the l i kes of Thomas Friedman-in
many cases, they have no regular work, they have never been to a large city, they may
be i l literate (especial ly the women), and they continue to make most of their p urchases
i n the l oca l market-but that they a re con nected with the world of i n stantaneous
global com m u n i cation a n d of monetary exchange. With both i nformation tech nologies,
l i ke television, and com m u n ication tech nologies, l i ke e-mail a n d telephony, becom ing
deterritorialized, there i s a real sense i n which h u mans everywhere have become
contemporaries for the first time in h istory. H istorical events, such as the fal l of
Communism in Eastern E u rope, could be fol lowed day by day by people everywhere
( I was myself in Tri n idad in the a utumn of 1 989, and had it been two or three years
later, I could have disc ussed the events in H u ngary and Roman i a i n stanta neously with
my northern E u ropean friends over e-ma i l ) . The dramatic events u nfolding during the
Arab Spring of 201 1 , lead i n g to the toppling of reg i mes in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt (and
a horrible civil war i n Syria), were covered as they took place, a n d not j ust by foreign
and domestic journalists, but by a nyon e with access to a smartphone. Some of the
most memorable video clips from these dramas-techn ica lly inferior but emotionally
poignant a n d acute-were placed on You Tube by ordinary citizens.
Sti l l , it i s i mportant to keep i n m i n d that not everything i s i n sync with everyth i ng
else. F i rst, as James M ittelman (2001 : 7) points out, " the [global] system affects
its components in very d ifferent ways . G loba l i zation is a partia l, not a totalizing
phenomen o n . Countries and regions are tethered to some aspects of global ization,
but sizeable pockets rema i n removed from it." Hardly anywhere i s this more true than
in that aspect of g l obal izatio n of which I speak as acceleration . Although there has
been a n IT boom i n I ndia si nce the tu rn of the millennium, that vast cou ntry emerging
as a major power i n the production of i nformation tech nology, poverty re mains very
widespread i n I ndia today.
Second, we a l l l ive in a n u mber of different temporal reg i mes, the accelerated
simu ltaneity of g lobal i n formation society being only one, and our participation in it
varies from zero to consi derable. Moreover, even the super-efficient, successful Indian
computer engineer may occasiona l ly visit a H i nd u temple where time moves as
slowly as it did a thousand years ago or more. Although the general tendency i s that
everyth i ng fast spreads at the expense of everyth ing that i s slow (cf. Eri ksen 2001 c),
slowness conti n ues to exist, both beca use of the exclusion of m i l lions from the fast
world of global capitalism and I CTs (i nformation and com m u n i cation tech nologies),
and beca use sign ificant sociocu ltu ral domains a re scarcely influenced by it. Yet, for a l l
t h e ta l k o f acceleration a n d speed as markers o f global ization, there have been few
s ustai ned studies of the variations i n speed l i ved by people who are part of this.
Pop u l a r M u s i c and Te m p o ra l St r u c t u res
I
n a bold and daring book about the qualities of progressive rock, the North American
philosophy professor Bill Martin has tried, in his broad defense plea for classic
rock groups he admires (including Yes, Rush, and King Crimson), to explain what is
wrong with the computer- and studio-based dance music developed since the late
1 980s, i ncluding house, techno, drum'n'bass, and other genres that have little in
common, apart from the fact that they can be described as varieties of nonli near,
SPEED 51
repetitive, rhythmical dance music. This i s music, which i n his view, lacks progression
and direction, which-un l i ke, say, Beethoven , M iles Davis, and Led Zeppelin-is
not heading anywhere. Enjoyment of such music is generally undertaken through
entering a room full of sound where a great number of aural things are happening
and staying there until it no longer feels cool. Martin's preferred music is l inear and
has a n inner development. although it may often be partly improvised. About the new
rhythmic music, he has this to say:
As with postmodern architecture, the idea in this stacking is that. in principle, any
sound ca n go with any other sound. Just as, however, even the most eclectic
pastiche of a building must all the same have some sort of foundation that anchors
it to the ground, vertically stacked music often depends on an i nsisting beat. There
are layers of trance stacked on top of dance, often without much in the way of
stylistic integration. (Martin 1 998: 290).
Martin doubts that this music will be capable of creating anything really new. He
says, " The vertical-stacking approach implicitly (or even explicitly) accepts the idea that
music (or art more generally) is now simply a matter of trying out the combinations,
filling out the grid" ( 1 998: 291 ). There are layers upon layers on top of each other,
every vacant spot is filled, and there is little by way of internal i ntegration. Stacking
replaces internal development.
The listener's situation is radically different between rock/jazz and the new
rhythmic music. The latter goes on and on; the former has a beginning, a long middle
(internal development), and an end or climax. I nterestingly, I ndonesian gamelan
music has been a significant source of i nspiration to many of those who work with
repetitive m usic, among them the minimalist composer Steve Reich. This is music
developed i n a traditional, ritualistic culture with no l inear concept of development.
The link with gamelan music is far from uninteresting, considering the view to the
effect that a n essentially nonlinear way of being i n time is being strengthened in
contemporary culture.
I nterestingly, Manuel Castells ( 1 996: 306) writes about new age music as the
classical music of our era and describes it as an expression for "the double reference
to moment and eternity; me and the u niverse, the self and the net." Desert winds
and ocean waves create the backdrop for many of the repetitive patterns that make
up new age music. It is a droning, timeless, and lingering kind of music-an antidote
to the q uotidian rat race, but also perfectly symmetrical to it, since it brackets the
passage of time.
Put d ifferently: When growing amounts of information are distributed at growing
speed. it becomes increasingly difficult to create narratives, orders, and developmental
sequences. The fragments threaten to become hegemonic. This has consequences
for the ways in which we relate to knowledge, work, and lifestyle in a wide sense.
Cause and effect. internal organic growth, maturity, and experience; such categories
are under heavy pressure in this situation. The examples from music are just
illustrations. The phenomenon as such is more widespread, and journalism, education,
work, politics, and domestic life, just to mention a few areas, are affected by vertical
stacking, a result of acceleration.
52 G LO B A L I ZATI O N
Some Fu rther I m plications of Acceleration
The sociol ogist John U rry (2000) h a s written usefully about t h e contrast between
" glacia l " and " instanta neou s " time as two opposing temporal reg i mes, in a similar
vei n to what I have elsewhere (Eri ksen 2001 c) called cumu lative, l i near time versus the
time of the moment: G lacial time i s h i storical and developmenta l , while i nsta ntaneous
time is just n ow, with few connections with a past or a future. In a l ist of characteristics
of i nstantaneous time, U rry mentions the technological changes dealt with a bove, a
" heightened temporari ness of products, jobs, careers, natures, val ues and personal
relationships ;· " the growth of 24 hour tradi n g ;' and "extraordi nary i n creases i n the
avai labi l ity of products from different societies so that many styles and fash ions ca n be
consumed without havi ng to wait to travel there" (2000: 1 29 ) . All places now appear
to be contempora ry-but, as I have stressed before, we should pay more attention
to the places that are n ot and are, for obvious reasons, rarely dealt with i n studies of
globalization.
Pess i m i stic ana lysts l i ke Pau l Viri lio, who laments " the pol l ution of distances
and delays which make u p the world of concrete experience" (2000: 1 1 6), seem to
overemphasize everything that is fleeting and tra nsitory and are fascinated with the
extreme, at the expense of neglecti ng the m u ndane and everyday, where there may
be more conti n u ity. Yet, in spite of such objections, it is clear that global capita l ism, as a
system of production, of distribution , a n d of consumption, favors speed over slowness
beca use it is more profitable. As David Harvey sums up:
G iven the pressures to accelerate turnover time (and to overcome spatial barriers),
the commodification of i mages of the most ephemeral sort wou ld seem to be a
godsend from the sta ndpoint of capital acc u m u latio n , particularly when other
paths to rel ieve over-accu m ulation seems blocked. Ephemera lity and i nstantaneous
comm u n i cabi lity over space then become virtues to be explored and appropriated
by capita l ists for their own purposes. ( 1 989: 2 88)
I n this context, it is tempti n g to propose a whole series of contrasts that may

i l l u strate the tra nsition from i n dustrial to i nformational society, from nation-building to
globa l izatio n . We may, for example, depict the cha nges l i ke this:
Table 2 . 1 sums u p some of the critical concerns voiced by many writers about
acceleration and globa l i zati o n . To what extent these contrasts accurately depict the
contrast between two tempora l ities, one tied to the nation-state and i nd ustrialism and
one tied to global networks, neoliberal capitalism, and i nformationalism i s natura lly
subject to controversy, and this is not the place to give a final verd ict. What should
be n oted , h owever, i s that a l l these assumed tra nsitions point i n the same directio n ,
although t h e examples are taken from vastly different doma i n s ; the trend c a n b e
described as a movement from contin u ity a n d coherence (the book and t h e l ifelong
marriage as tel l i ng exa mples) to flickering fragmentation.
SPEED 53
Table 2 . 1 . Some possible dimensions o f the transition from industr i al to

infor mational society (adapted from Eri ksen 2001c).
I ndustrial society I nformational society
C D/vinyl record M P3, stream i ng
Book Web, handheld gadget
Single-chan nel TV M ultichannel TV, strea ming
Letter E-mail, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
La ndline telephone Mobi le telephone
. . . and while we are at it, why not also:
Lifelong monogamy Serial monogamy
The era of the gold watch The era of flexible work
Aging, maturing Eternal (or faded) youth
Depth Breadth
Linear, cumu lative time Fragmented contemporariness
Scarcity of information Scarcity of freedom from information
The U neven ness of Speed
I n the 1 980s and 1 990s, I carried out anthropological research i n Ma u ritius, a n island
about which it was often said that " it changed fast." Always part of a global system-it
had been a s ugar producing colony si nce it was fi rst settled in the early eighteenth
century-it s uccessfully went through a n economic diversification process from
the early 1 980s onwards . Tourism and textile industry were the new m a i n earners
of foreign cu rrency. From the early 1 990s, M au ritius was q u ickly i n corporated i nto
the new i nformational reg i m e . The speed of everyday l ife picked up. New h i ghways
ensured that commuters i nto the capital l ost less time travel l i n g to work than before.
Mobile tel ephony, ubiquitous by the mid-1 990s, ensu red fast and i n stanta neous
communicati o n . The a i rport was expa nded, fast-food outlets made their appearance,
and both productivity and consumption levels soared.
In 201 1 , I visited M a u riti u s after having been absent for some years . As a l ways,
I noticed changes: new s hopping malls, new brands, new bui ldings, a nd-most
spectacularly-an entire new town had been built during my absence, dubbed Cybercity
and located near the university. It consisted of a relatively modest (but imposing by
Mauritian standards) cluster o f high-rise buildi ngs, a s l ick new busi ness hotel, offices,
and restaurants. The patrons of the hotel bar were mostly youngish M auritians of a l l
eth nic communities, ta pping away o n their smartphones and sipping cockta i l s . The
scene gave the i m pression of fast change i n a society, which had, until recently, been
seriously eth nically segregated, rurally dominated , and tota lly dependent on sugar
exports.
Later, I visited some of my old hau nts-namely, a small town and a fishing v i l lage on
the coast. It was easy to see that change had not taken place there i n a way remotely
comparable to the b u i lding of the Cybercity. The physical environment was somewhat
more dilapidated than before, otherwise similar. There were few visible indicators of
cha nge, a lthough people did have flat-screen TVs and mobi le phones here as wel l , and
the cafes i n town were by now nonsmo ki ng. The contrast was nevertheless stri king
and a reminder that it i s i rresponsible to tal k merely about social and cultu ra l cha nge i n
a given place without specifying where that cha nge takes place.
From the 1 940s i nto the 1 970s, Zambia ( North R hodesia u ntil 1 964) went through
a series of changes widely regarded with opti mism and assu med to consist i n a
l i near process of development, with copper m i ning as the central export-o riented
industry. The country, and i n particular the Copperbelt, subseq uently went i nto sharp
economic decl ine and was del i n ked from g lobal networks i nto which it had formerly
been integrated. As early as 1 94 1 , the anthropolog ist Godfrey Wilson wrote about the
newly urba n i zed mi ners that they were moving from tribal to world society, a " h uge
world-wide community" ( 1 94 1 , quoted i n Ferguson 1 999: 234) Carrying out a re-study
of the same areas many decades later, James Ferguson ( 1 999) fou n d a popu lation
that was nostalgic for a kind of modernity that they used to possess, but had lost. In
some respects, Ferguson points out, the people of the reg ion were j ust as up to date
as anybody else, rega rding style, music, and other urban sensibil ities . But concern ing
their i ntegration i n the world economic system, and not least the bel ief i n progress
and development, they had been d i scon nected. Life had gone through a process of
deceleration.
When you think you have d iscovered s omething, you s h o u ld always look for its
opposite. An important paradox of enl ightenment is that when someth i ng i s lit up,
something else is left in the dark. And when someth ing accelerates, someth ing else
decelerates, either i n absol ute o r at the very least i n relative terms. Keepi ng u p with
cha nges ca n be difficult enoug h ; copi n g with enforced delinking, as the example from
the Copperbelt suggests, can be deeply demoralizing and h u m i l iating in a world where
change i n the guise of development and global i ntegrati on i s sti l l seen as meani ngfu l ,
va l uable, a n d rea l istic.
* * *
Every generation has a tendency to regard its own era as being u n i q ue, and with good
reaso n : All epochs are i n their way unique. At the same time, it can also be claimed
that m u ch of that which is perceived as novel , has in fact existed for quite a while
say, s i nce Plato, or si nce the Agricultural Revolution, s i nce Marco Polo, Columbus,
G utenberg , the Prophet M ohammad, or the Reformation (pick your choice). Regarding
SPEED 55
speed and accelerati on, o n e may object to those who stress the u n i q u e effects of jet
pla nes, mobile telephones, a n d the I nternet. that the most i mporta nt cha nges in the
h istory of modern world society took place when the te l egraph was i nvented, or the
steamsh i p , o r for that matter, the fast Roman two-wheel cha riot. In other words, seen
from this perspective, there i s l ittle or nothing n ew u nder the s u n .
This k i n d o f a rgument h a s its l i mitati o n s . Although the telegraph was an i nventi on
with e n ormous consequences, the I nternet signifies more than a mere footnote to
Marco n i . G lobal teleco m m u n i cations based o n rea l time creates a framework for
h u man existence that differs radically from a l l earlier tech n ologies beca use of the
huge, and growing, n u mber of n odes connected to each other in real ti me. Yet. it is
perfectly reasonable to regard the electro n i c revol ution a s a d i rect extension of earl ier
i n n ovations and accelerations. The great i nformational divides i n Western cultu ral
h i story-writi ng, money, printing, the clock-contributed to l iberating, as it were.
communication from its immediate context; writi ng made k n owl edge timeless a n d
c u m ulative. the clock m a d e time mechanical a n d u niversa l , and money m a d e va lues
comparable. Whether you are i n Canberra or i n Ka n p u r, a dollar, an hour, and a n ews
headline mean pretty m u ch the same. The circ umstances conti n u e to vary, but the
common denomi nators l i n k places together.
Standardization and time saving are true-born ch i ldren of the I n dustrial Revolution,
and it was during the d isruptions caused by industrialization that the foundations for
the tyra n ny of the moment were laid. O n ly in industrial society could the clock be used
to promote synchro n i zed efficiency i n a la rge a n d complex industrial work setti n g . It
was also i n thi s era that time and money were tightly coupled; p u n ctual ity had been
a virtue at l east s ince the time of Calvi n . but the notion that time saved i s money
made became a guiding pri nciple i n production only when industry replaced traditional
crafts on a large scale. The i n dustrial revo l utio n , wh ich began towards the end of the
e ighteenth centu ry, wou l d need the entire n i neteenth century to be completed in
the West. c u l mi nating in the i ntroduction of assembly lines a n d time recorders. The
twentieth century ended with the globalization of s i m u ltaneity, and this particular plot
th ickens as we move deeper i nto the twenty-fi rst century.
• Time-space compression refers to the squeezing together of time and space due to
economic and tech nological changes, and it appears as acceleration.
• Technologies that accelerate communication-from jet planes to cell phones-have
spread fast in the last decades, but unevenly, leading to the exclusion of vast num
bers of humans. largely in the Third World.
• Both the logic of capitalist growth and expansion. and the availability of technologies
of instantaneous communication, lead to acceleration in communication, prod uction,
and consumption.
• A consequence of accelerated communication is the enhanced knowledge, even if
skewed, of remote places and the global system i n most parts of the world.
Q u est i o n s
• Describe some consequences-personal, politica l , cultural, economic-of the

telegraph for transnational commun ication in the ni neteenth century.
• Mention a few areas where acceleration has been perceptible from your parents'
generation to yours, and discuss how this process relates to globalization.
• In what ways can acceleration of commu nication make people more vulnerable?
• Why are people who are excluded from accelerating processes likely to be
politically powerless?
• The author seems to argue that the acceleration of communication, and
the compression of messages into tiny packets of i nformation, is related to
globalization. How? And do you agree?
Castells, Manuel (2009) Communication Power. New York: Oxford Un iversity

Press. D rawing on his theory of the global network society, Castells argues that
ownersh ip, control, or influence over communication networks are the main
source of power in the present world.
Hassan, Robert, and Ronald E. Pu rser, eds. (2007) 2417: Time and Temporality in
the Network Society. Stanford, California: Stanford Business Books. This is one
of the few existing books that systematically explores the effects of the new
communication technologies on work, business orga nization, and l ife in general
in the West.
3
Sta n d ard i z atio n
The creation of comparability is a central feature of globalization (as well as

modernity). This is evident in as different areas as communication, identities, trade,
and politics. The establishmen t of global standards in measurements (notably
the metric system), political organization (the state system and parties), time
(twenty-four universal time zones), and language (English as a global means of
communication)-to mention some important dimensions-has accompanied and
facilitated the growth in transnational connectedness and has in some cases been
necessary for these ties to be possible at all. However, standardization also takes
place in less noticeable ways-for example, in the development of a global grammar
of identity politics, software, and the size of shipping containers.
I
magine a nonstandard world. You would l ive i n a town or village with your relatives,
with few prospects of moving a nywhere else. Everything you knew was handed
down by your older relatives; a l l s k i l l s were taught face to face. The l a ng uage you
spoke was m utually i ntel l igible with that of neighboring areas, but n ot q uite identica l,
and comprehension faded with distance. Trade with outsiders took place through
barter, but with i n your local a rea, certai n goods cou l d be exch a nged for shell money.
You r rel igion was associated with a ncestors and the nature s urro u n d i n g your home
area . There was n o script, n o money, n o calendars, a n d no stan dards of measurement
operating beyond the i mmediate neighborhood.
In the premodern world, most products a n d services were n o n standard. They did
not conform to a com m o n ly established n orm o r set of parameters. They could not be
mass produced, and if they travelled, they were recogn ized as exotic and precio u s .
Language, too, w a s mostly local, spoken o n ly i n a restricted a rea a n d with marked
dia lect differences between localities. With the com i n g of l iteracy and later pri nting, the
development of the modern state and its i n stitutions (Anderson 1 99 1 [ 1 983] ; Gell ner
1 983), standardization of phenomena s u ch as language, measurements, and law took
place a t the national leve l . The development of the banking system contributed to the
standardization of money and eventually other financial i nstru ments .
I n an important sense, globalization continues the work of nation building by creating
shared standards, comparabil ity, and bridging pri nciples of tra nslation between formerly
discrete and largely i ncommensurable worlds ( Barl oewen 2003; Eri ksen 2003; Meyer
et a l . 1 992) . Anything from consu mer tastes to measurements and va lues are now being
standardized at a globa l leve l . Th i s does not mean that everybody is equally affected (it
would be foolish to assume this), nor that standardization is a ll-encompassing . There is
considerable resistance against standardization i n a l m ost all its forms from people and
organizations who i nsist on remaining u n i q ue and l ocal ly em bedded. Accord ing to an
i nfl uential school in economic anthropol ogy, going back to the critique of disembedded
market economies in the 1 930s and 1 940s and associated with names s u ch as Marcel
Mauss and Karl Polanyi, it is i n the very nature of h u man commun ities to resist
commodification and disembedding of the economy from life i n general (Hann and
Hart 201 2 ) . I n spite of i m perfections and res i stance, it is indisputa ble that the range of
common denomi nators i s widening i n its scope and deepe n i ng i n its i mpact as a result
of the accelerated disembedding processes discussed i n the previous chapters and
that such emerging commonal ities i nfl uence l ives worldwide, for better and worse.
Some Standard s of a G lobal M odern ity
Standardizatio n i m pl ies comparabil ity. Shared measurements ensure that a buyer

i n a d i stant land gets the amount he or she has paid for; shared temporal ity makes
synchron ization and timetables possible; a shared (or convertible) currency makes
economic tra nsacti ons across space easy; a shared language makes com m u n ication
across borders possible. Some of the social and cu ltural features of modern ity are
preconditions for global ization-if rural Tu rks had not known about wage work, they
would not have migrated to Germany, and if middle-class B razi lians had been i l l iterate,
they could n ot have learned English at school-and I w i l l therefore q uickly outl ine
some of the most importa nt forms of standardi zation entai led by modern ity and
requ i red by global izati o n .
F i rst. a monetary economy has become t h e n o r m , if n o t a u n iversal practice, i n
most parts of t h e world . Such a n economy i s encouraged by states, wh ich receive
i mportant revenue through d i rect and indirect taxatio n . Even land and labor, which
tended not to be commodities in traditional societies, can now be sold and bought
al most everywhere. Notwithstanding the neol iberal deregu lation of recent decades,
states remain the most powerful absentee landlords , and the omnipresence of money
i ntegrates a n u n l i m ited n u mber of people anonymously into a vast system of exchange.
The temporal structure on which this depends i s l i near and i rreversible.
Second, formal education is nearly u n iversally recog nized as a n important means
for the achievement of ran k, wealth, and related benefits . This entails, among other
STA N D A R D I ZATI O N 59
things, literacy, the standardization of languages, and the suppression of minority

la nguages . Two h u nd red of the original two hun dred fifty Australian lan guages have
been erad icated, and most of the remaining ones are on the verge of extinction,
which is a testimony to the loss of cultural diversity resulting from unequal encou nters
between m odern states and indigenous peoples . Systems of higher education have
in creasingly been sta ndardized across the worl d , and si nce the turn of the m i l l e n n i u m ,
global ranking o f u n iversities-measuring their achievements i n research a n d teach i n g
outcomes-has become routi n e .
Third, political un its of sig nificant i mportance t o t h e ma1ority of mankind a r e political
parties, organ ized at a natio n-state level with local branches . Position in pol itical parties
is ostensibly ach i eved, not ascribed.
Fou rth , official ideologies in virtually every cou ntry in the world are nationalist in
character (although nationalism comes in many flavors), and i ndividual rights and duties
are to a great extent vested in citize n s h i p . For those who are deprived of citizenship
internally displaced people, certa i n eth n i c m i n orities, undocumented migrants-it thus
becomes very difficult to assert their rig hts . The natio n-states require thei r citizens to
adhere to an abstract ideology of metaphoric k i n s h i p and to make personal sacrifices
for the betterment of the a bstract commun ity of the country. I n return, the natio n-state
presumably offers protection, collective identity, and career opportunities.
This l i st could have been made m u ch longer, but I shall stop here. The main point
is that the fact of the modern natio n-state seems to create a un iform and universal
framework for social organization on a very large sca l e . Of course, ha rdly two persons
are affected by these and other dimensions of modern ity in the same way, but virtua lly
everybody has to cope with aspects of the nation-state and ca pita l i s m . Hardly anybody
is totally u naffected in the contemporary world.
Some Contem porary Fo rms of Stan dard ization
W h i l e traditional crafts were transferred d irectly from master t o apprentice, production

i n a factory i s so standa rdized that it idea lly only requ i res a few, general s k i l l s . One of
the aims of sta ndardization of s k i l l s is to make workers i nterchangeable. As the early
sociologists, from Marx to Durkheim, were concerned with, production in a factory
enta i ls splitting up the process so that each worker o n l y produces a tiny bit of the whole.
Criti cism to the effect that this led to a l ienation was ta ken up not just by Marx but by a
l ot of concerned observers i n the n ineteenth century-in other words, a generation o r
two before Henry Ford invented t h e modern assembly l i n e in t h e years before t h e F i rst
World War. Things wo uld, in other words, only get wors e . Or-perhaps-bette r: Like
books followi ng the pri nting press, man ufactured goods became cheaper and more
easily ava ilable as a result of mass-production and standardizatio n .
I ndustrial production synchro n i zes wor k a n d standardizes its products . A n item,
such as a smartphone. is identical with all other items of the same make and model,
and if i t i s u n ique, that i s because o f some defect (or because it i s a pirated copy) .
I n the society of craftsmanship, on the co ntrary, each object was i ndividually made
and u n i q u e . Mass-produced objects are interchangeable, l i ke the s k i l l s of an engineer;
the persons possessing them are interchangeable, and the skills can be appl ied to
new contexts with (at least theoretica l ly) min imal problems of tra nslation i nvolved i n
adapti ng them.
A world of sta ndardization is a world of many common denomi nators and
bridgeheads for com m u nicati o n .
Writi ng, money, wage work, t h e political party, and t h e state form a r e s o m e o f the
key d i mensions of sta ndardization making global integrati on possible. The clock, the
main sou rce of mechanica l time, is also i m portant. The tech nology of the clock led to
both the standardi zation of time u nits and the synchronization of large populations. The
larger the n u mber of people there were who needed to coordinate their movements
with m i n ute preci sion, the larger the n u m be r of regions there were that had been
compri sed by the new standards . When the last stretch of the Great Western Railway
was opened in J u n e 1 84 1 , the clocks in B ri stol were ten m i nutes behind clocks in
Lo ndon. There had been n o need for an exact synchronization of the inhab itants of the
two cities yet This need for synch ro nization came partly with the railway and partly
with the telegraph during the following decades. The railway reduced the twenty-h our
i o u rney from London to B ristol to four hours , but the telegraph soon red uced the time
req u i red to send u rgent di spatches al most to zero .
Th e present global system of twenty-fou r time zones was establ i shed in 1 884.
A maze of local time zones had made conversion diffi cult earl ier. Passengers had been
forced to set their timepieces in every city, and the need for a common standard had
been voiced for years when a n i nternational panel finally reached an agreement at a
meeting i n Washi ngton, D.C.
Like disembedding and acceleration, standardization takes place unevenly. Spea king
about the " nodes " of global communicati on, s u ch as a irports, conference venues, and
business hotels, the anthropologist U lf Han nerz ( 1 990) has proposed the term " global
switchboards." Those who meet there, originati ng from different societi es, speak a
shared language (often E n g l i s h ) a n d also have oth er things in commo n ; they conform
to a n u mber of shared cu ltural sta ndards. H owever, other members of their respective
societies have less in common with each other, and a re to that effect less standardized
on a global scale.
Standardization i s atte mpted in many areas, and the goal is a lways to create
comparab il ity i n order to enha nce com m u n i cation, trade, and various forms of
exchange . U n its of measurement have to be sta ndardized for goods from different
origins to be compatible, but standards a l s o concern the qual ity of ste e l , the size of
crates, the shape of cucumbers, and many other features of trading goods.
I n the realm of in terpersonal i nteraction, the plastic card and the bar code are two
everyday exa mples of g l o bal sta ndards that make it easier to cross boundaries. An
early-twenty-fi rst-centu ry, m uch-publ icized attempt at sta ndardization from a different
field, moreover, is associated with the so-called Bologna agreement i n E u rope.
S TA N D A R D I ZAT I O N 61
I n 1 999, m i n isters o f education from twenty-ni n e E u ropean cou ntries met to

d iscuss the future of higher education in the continent. This was the starting point of
a h i gh ly consequential and controversial restructu ring of higher education in E urope,
a i m i ng to standardize courses and degrees conti nent-wide, to enha nce comparabil ity,
student mobil ity, and to ensu re consi stent qual ity. As a result of the Bologna reforms,
many countries have had to change their degree system dramatically, to conform to
the req u i rements laid down for MA and BA degrees i nternational ly. The advantages
are obvious i n that they create a level playing field, making it easy for students to
take courses (giving them standardized c redit poi nts) at various u niversities in different
cou ntries, and the sta ndardized system of evaluation (using the Anglo-American A-F
scale) su pposedly ma kes degrees from different un iversities comparable.
H owever, there a re problems with s u ch attempts at standard izati o n . A g rade on a
BA course is not a meter; it has no objective standard of which to relate . As a res u lt
the g rades are used d ifferently i n d i fferent cou ntries (the grade A I happen to know,
i s qu ite rare i n the social sciences i n Norway) . There are also serious misgivings
about the a s s u med loss of local specifi city and old acade m i c trad itions i n several
cou ntries . The German M a g i ster degree entai led years of i ndependent study; it has
n ow been replaced by a two-year taught MA degree. As i s often the case, locals
protest against sta n da rd ization i m posed from a bove o r outs ide, but i n this case,
largely to no ava i l .
O bsolescence
A consequence of sta ndard i zation i s that many practices, knowledges, skills, and
crafts disappear. The nonstandard i s either marginal ized or rendered obsolescent, l i ke
beer bottles too tall to fit the standardized supermarket fridge shelves. H i storically and
today, this happens in many doma i n s . A fa mous anth ropological travelog ue, Claude
Levi-Stra uss's Tristes Tropiques ( 1 989 [ 1 955] ) , is largely b u i lt around the idea that entire
l ife-worlds are being rendered obsolete by moderni zation. The onslaught of modernity,
i n Levi-Stra uss's view, entailed the loss of unique ways of life, worldviews, and real-life
showcases of human variation as it were. A generation before Levi-Strau ss, another
great anthropologist, B ronislaw M a l i nowski , complained, a tad more cynical ly, that
anthropology, or eth nology as he sti l l cal led it is:
i n the sadly ludicrous, not to say tragic, pos ition, that at the very moment when
it begins to put its workshop i n order, to forge its proper tools , to start ready for
work on its appoi nted task, the material of its study melts away with hopeless
rapidity. Just now, when the methods and aims of scientific field eth nology have
taken shape, when men fully tra i ned for the work have begun to travel i nto savage
countries and study their i nhabitants-these d i e away u nder our very eye s . ( 1 984
[ 1 922] : xv)
N ostalgic laments about the disappearance o f u n ique c u ltura l forms are a common
feature of perceived global ization-indeed, a popular B ritish series about other c ultures
produced towa rds the end of the twentieth century was called Disappearing World. This
concern is not new; it is a part of modern ity's critical self-reflection and can be traced
at least back to the Romantic movement i n Germany around the year 1 80 0 . H owever,
the speed with which cu ltural worlds (and other things) are rendered obsolete is
greatly enhanced i n o u r i ntensively globalized era . The quaint and local is replaced with
that which i s comparable along a set of common denomi nators i n order to e n hance
i ntel l igibil ity, trade, exchange, a n d-many wou l d emphasize-exploitation. General
pu rpose money of the Western type, thus, renders shell money and copper sticks
obsolete; the great rel igions of conversion ( I slam and C h ristian ity) have conq uered
most of the societies that used to have local religions; formal education replaces
learn i n g by watch i n g , and h u ndreds of languages are predi cted to va n i sh with i n a few
decades. I n the contemporary N o rth Atlantic world, typical exa mples of obsolescence
wou l d refer to commodities s u ch as locally manufactured soft dri n ks ( i n the early
2000s, it was reported that Coke was for the first time the largest selling soft dri n k
i n Scotland, dethro n i n g the national beverage l rn-Bru , wh ich may eventually become
obsolete) and computer operating systems (there were lots of incompatible systems
in the 1 980s; now there are essentially th ree-Windows, MacOS, and Linux) .
E F L as t h e Med i u m of G l o ba l ba b b l e
A
lthough the global percentage o f native English-speakers i s declining, the number
of people using English as their main foreign language is growing. According to
the B ritish Council (2009), about 25 percent of the world's population speaks Engl ish
"to some level of competence," and they add, in a perhaps not overly disinterested
vein, that " demand from the other three-quarters is increasing. Everybody wants to
speak it."
You may be reading this in a language different from the one you use as an everyday
medium for carrying on with your life. As for myself, I ' m writing in a language that is
not the medium of my everyday trivia, and there are a lot of things I cannot say i n a
satisfactory way through the idiom of English. Exactly how these limitations affect
our communication is difficult to assess, but in general, English as a foreign language
( E FL) has certain characteristics not shared with English as a native language. In fact,
there are courses available for translating between plain English and E FL. One such
online course, or really a teaser for a course (McAlpine 2006), offers a great deal
of advice-not, this time, for the foreigner wanting to express himself better in a
foreign language but for native speakers wanting to be u nderstood by foreigners. As
everybody knows, English as a foreign language is not the same language as English
spoken by natives. More than one first-time foreign visitor to London, with top marks
in English from his or her school, has been shocked upon discovering that it is plainly
impossible to understand what the cockney cabman is saying.
STA N D A R D I Z ATI O N 63
The examples discussed i n the online course are i nstructive i n suggesting some
changes to be expected when an increasing amount of communication takes place
between people who are not using their first language:
• One is advised to use short sentences.

• One is advised to avoid false subjects, such as " It " in sentences like " It is
extraordinary how warm the weather is." I t is better to say " The weather is
extraordinarily warm:'
• Miniwords, or fillers, such as " get, go, lot, by, for, it, he, the, a, of;' are
discouraged as they can lead to confusion.
• Complex questions are discouraged. such as " You don't have the courage to
acknowledge that your allegations have no factual basis whatsoever. do you ? "
Rather, say, " Do you admit that you have made false a llegations? " (I like this
example. It prepares the native speaker for encounters he may expect with
foreigners.)
• Simila rly, double negatives are discouraged: "The results were not
displeasing " should be avoided. I nstead, say, "The results were pleasing."
• One is moreover advised not to use idioms such as "the tip of the iceberg;'
"just around the corner;' and so on.
• Plai nly, all kinds of ambigu ity are discouraged to avoid misunderstandings.
Negative words are also discouraged, as in " The shipment will not arrive until
late January " -it is better to say " The shipment will arrive in late January."
I n other words, authors of courses like this one encourage native speakers to
avoid colloquialisms and idioms. understatement, and metaphor. The result can be
described as a disembedded language, an efficient, simplified, practical means of
commu nication where there would otherwise have been none.
B i l i ngualism and Standard ization
A closer look at la nguage obsolescence may be i nstructive in showing the forces of

standardization and globa l ization at work. In a prestandardized world, it was diffi cult
to draw the boundary a round one language. I t was largely with p rinting and mass
educati on that languages were standardized i n the sense that a speaker from Bayern
( Bavaria) could easily com m u n i cate with, a n d relate to the same l iterary standard of
German ( Hochdeutsch) , as a speaker from Schleswi g . In other words, it is i mpossible
to fix the n umber of la nguages spoken i n t h e yea r 1 40 0 . Only i n Ita ly, a l i ng u ist m ight
have found forty disti nct languages or more.
Only a tiny minority of the world's several thousand languages underwent this
process of standardization. which was often a ssociated with the growth of a nation
state (Anderson 1 99 1 [ 1 983] ) . These l a ng uages often ousted or margina lized u nwritten
languages or even written languages with n o pol itical suppo rt . Nation building, i n this
way, fu nctioned as a great leveler.
In the early twenty-fi rst century, the work of the nation-state conti n ues, this time at
a h i g her pace and a larger scale. The total n umber of languages spoke n was estimated
to be six thousand at the turn of the m i l l e n n i u m (Crystal 2000). I nterestingly, only 4
percent of these languages acco u nt for 96 percent of the speakers. A quarter of them
have fewer than one thousand speakers . In a typical sequence, a language becomes
obsolete when the speakers fi rst become b i l ingual (adding a dominant, often national
language to their reperto i re), fol lowed by a decline i n the use of their original l a nguage,
largely for pragmatic reasons-the radio, the newspapers, and the people i n town a l l
u s e t h e domi nant l a nguage. It i s widely bel ieved that English is t h e main global leveler
here, i mposing its standards on people everywhere else; so far, this is an overstatement.
The vast majority of the people who are learn i n g English use it as a foreign l a nguage
or li ngua franca. Bahasa I ndonesia, the national language of I ndonesia (which is almost
identical to Malay), has probably eradicated more l oca l languages than E n g l i s h , to take
one example. H owever, the growth of bilingualism in English has been phenomenal
over the last few decades, and this i s a process of globa l i zation proper ( neither
imperialism nor nation building) si nce most of the countries that adopt E n g l i s h as a
second l a n g uage today have no shared colonial h i story with G reat Brita i n . M oreover,
English as a seco n d language is making i n roads n ot ch iefly among the small peoples
spea king languages with no literature and no public sphere but among speakers of
national languages l i ke D utch and Pol i s h , and even i n cou ntries such as Vi etnam and
Rwanda, where the second language used to be French . M a ny specialists envision a
future where English will gradu a l ly replace national languages i n certa i n domai ns-i n
academic publishing, this has a l ready largely happened-w h i l e the national languages,
often i n a hybridized form with many loanwords from English, conti nue to be used,
at least for some time, in other fields. To mention but one example, there i s great
pressure on E u ropean u n iversities now, especially in smaller countries l i ke Portugal
and F i nland, to offer cou rses i n E n g l i sh i n order to facil itate student mobil ity. Th us, we
have entered a period of l i n g u i stic sta ndardization, which i s not a result of nationalism
or i mperial i s m but of trans national networkin g .
The G lobalization of Nothing
I n a thought-provoking book about standa rdization called The Globalization of Nothing,

the sociologist G eorge Ritzer ( 2 004) contrasts what he sees as two pervasive
tendencies in the contemporary world: the grobalization of noth ing and the glocalization
of someth i n g . H e defines glocalization as that which is " locally conceived and controlled
and rich in distinctive s u bstance" (2004: 8), while grobal ization i s defined as " genera lly
centrally conceived, controlled, and comparatively devoid of d i stinctive s ubstantive
content" (2004: 3 ) . In other words, standardized, mass-produced goods catering to
STA N D A R D I ZAT I O N 65
an assumed common denomi nator of disembedded market tastes are the outcome
of grobal izatio n , while anyth i n g that cou l d n't have been produced a nywhere b ut i n a
particular location is defi ned as gloca lizati o n .
I nd i rectly fra m i ng t h e debate about standard ization, Ritzer says that there " is a
gulf between those who emphasize the increasing grobal infl uence of capital istic,
America n i zed, and McDonaldized interests and those who see the world growing
increasingly plura l i stic and indetermi nate" (2004: 80).
Concentrati ng largely o n consu mption, R itzer disti nguishes between the grobali
zation and g l ocalization of places. thi ngs, persons. and services. The more personal ized,
place-bound, and unique something is, the more g loca lized. For example, while a
craft barn represents the glocal ization of something, Disney World stands for the
g robal ization of noth i n g . A bar frequented because of its skillful bartender or because it
is where one's friends hang out is something, whereas hotel bars with new customers
every eve n i ng a n d a standa rdized, transnational selection of cocktai l s is a noth i n g . The
big and standardized stands for noth i n g , while the small and l oca lly fashioned stands
for somethi n g i n R itzer's account.
R itzer agrees that things are rea l ly more compl icated. H e adm its that " grobal ization
can, at times, i nvolve something (for example, a rt exhibits that move a mong a rt gal leries
throughout the world, Italian exports of food l i ke Parmigiano-Reggiano and C u latella
ham ) " (2004 : 99), and conversely, that the glocal can also produce noth i n g , s u ch as
tourist trin kets . H e even concedes that there are " people today, perhaps a majority, who
prefer noth i n g to something and who have good reason for that preference" (2004: 1 6) ,
thi n king a b o u t those-hundreds o f millions-who scarcely have t h e opportunity to
participate in the consumption of noth i n g . People in poorer cou ntries produce much of
the richer world's nothingness. but can scarcely afford any of it for themselves.
Inspired not o n ly by M a rc Auge's concept of non-places b ut also by Max Weber's
early twentieth-century theory of disenchantment and rational ization. R itzer esta blishes
a series of s i mple contrasts where everything mass produced, ready-made, and i nstant
appears dehuma nized and where everyth ing one of a kind (be it a product or an
employee) is "enchanted " and authenti c.
Many writers o n globalizatio n wou l d be incli ned to see R itzer's analys is as simplistic.
As poi nted out by Jean-Loup Amse l l e (2001 : 2 2 ) . even i n M c D onald's resta u ra nts. " as
one may discover by visiting its o utlets throughout the world, [they] do not sel l the
same products everywhe re ." In I ndia, where the fi rst M cDonald's o utlet was opened
i n New Delhi i n 1 996, 7 5 percent of the menu has been l ndianized. N otably, the
majority of the popu lation does not eat beef. and so the Big Mac was transformed i nto
a Maharaja Mac made with m utto n , and vegeta rian b u rgers were added to the men u .
M oreover, apparently identical products a n d services a re perceived i n d i sti nctly local
ways . Coca-Cola, an everyday produ ct i n most of the Western world, is associated
with weddings and oth er rituals-for example, among Luo of Western Kenya. Th e
M acinto s h computer, accordi ng to Amselle (2001 ) , became a symbol of identity
among French i ntell ectua l s resisti ng the global domina nce of M icrosoft (although the
Mac is, of cou rse. j ust a s American as M icrosoft) . In other words, rather than being
overru n by the grobal ization of noth i n g , loca l s i nvest the nothi n g with somethi ng i n
discri m i natin g , critical ways. A n d yet, R itzer h a s a point w h e n he a rg ues that the
tra ns national sta ndardization of commodities and services i s one i mportant d i mension
of globa l ization, even if the mean i n g of the products and servi ces thus dissemi nated
vary local ly.
McWo rl d and Its Discontents
One influe ntial writer on globa l ization who i s l i kely to be sympathetic to R itzer's
perspective is the i nternational relatio n ist Benja m i n Barber, whose book Jihad vs.
McWorld ( 1 995) has exerted maj or i nfluence i n s ide and outside the academy-it i s
even ru mored that it w a s read by B i l l C l i nton d u ri n g h i s presidency. Th i n king along
similar l i nes to Ritzer, Barber i s more i nterested i n the pol itical impl ications of
g l obalization than its commercial ones.
L i ke R itzer, Barber describes the emergence of a bipolar world pitti ng global
capita lism and consumerism agai nst local resistance and a lternatives. The word j i had
i n the title has led many to assume that R itzer's book is somehow about the West and
Islam, but he uses it as a generic term for all kinds of countermovements resi sting the
homogenizing effects of global flows.
M cWorld, in Barber's usage, " is a product of popular culture driven by expa nsionist
commerce" ( 1 995: back cover) It is a close relative to the old Marxist term " mo nopoly
capitalism;' which i s wedded to consumerism. Barber describes the spread of
sta ndardized popular culture, s u ch as MTV, at some length, showi ng that nearly a l l
cou ntries outside Africa h a d access t o MTV as early a s 1 99 5 . Today, t h e exa mple seems
dated s i nce YouTu be has taken over much of the music video market. In a general
way, nevertheless, the example i s relevant not only as a description of tra ns nati on a l ly
sta ndardized con s u mption but a lso as an i ndicator of economic power. Comparing
today's media magnates to earl ier i n dustrial tycoons, he rem inds the reader that
" theirs [the media moguls] is power not over o i l , steel, and ra i l roads-mere m uscles
of our modern i n dustrial bod ies-but over pictures, i nformation and ideas-the very
sinews of our postmodern worl d " ( Barber 1 995: 298; see also Castells 2009). Although
Barber shows how the oil oligarchy seems to sti m u l ate local countermovements i n
many countries, especially among local people who are not beneficiaries o f the giant
corporations, he also seems to argue that sta ndardized global media a n d information
produ cts lend themselves more easily to l ocal political protest-they seem to be
colonizing people's m i nds-than to i n dustrial products .
What is at stake for Barber, whose book is not j ust diagnostic but genuinely worried
in its tone, is civil society and with it democracy. In a world where citizens can choose
to either become i ntegrated i nto a blandly homogeneous global market or to join a n
a ntimodern resistance movement, he argues, there is l ittle room for the citizen as
a member of a public sphere del i berati ng over politics, ma k i n g compromises and
STA N D A R D I ZAT I O N 67
e n s u ring a fai r distribution of goods and benefits. Li ke many others, Barber is not
opposed to the market a s such, but says that the virtues of the global marketplace
" scarcely warrant permitti n g the market to become sovereign over politics, culture,
and civi l society " ( 1 995: 298) . Barber's j i had metaphor resembles R itzer's notion of
the glocalization of someth ing, but it differs through its chiefly pol itical content and
for being overtly antiglobal i st. L i ke all s i m pl ifications, Barber's dichotomous world ca n
be criticized, but as a very genera l description of a g lobal dynamics with manifold
local expressions, it stands u p to scrutiny q u ite wel l . As a matter of fact. many if not
most writers on the politics of g lobal ization employ some kind of dichotomous divide
between, on the one hand, u n iversa l ist globalizi n g processes and, on the other, local
alternatives o r resistance-" cosmopolitans and locals " ( Ha n nerz 1 990). " th e Net and
the Self" (Caste l l s 1 996). " system world and life-wo r l d " ( Beck 1 999), " fu ndamental i sm
and ambiva l ence" ( Ba u ma n 1 999) . These a re attempts to give some s u bstance to a
general d u a l i s m between the u niversal and the particu lar, which constitutes a central
tension i n a l l globa lizing processes.
MS Word
There is a healthy and vigorous body of literature dea l i ng with sta ndardization-some
of it laudatory, some of it critical, some of it j ust curious-but s u rprisingly little is
written about the med i u m of sta ndardization through which more than 90 percent of
that l iterature i s produced-namely, M icrosoft Word . This i s even more s u rprising given
that many critics of global homogen i zation through expanding markets are especially
concerned about i nformation technology and the med i a .
M icrosoft Word, which began its career i n 1 98 1 as o n e o f many word processors on
the market, eventually became market dominant (from around 1 990) and has virtua l ly
destroyed a l l competition in the world of Windows, where alternative word processors
a re difficult to come by and have to be Word-compati ble in order to have a commercial
potentia l . M ost Maci ntosh users, too, use Word.
Compa red to the a lternatives, there is noth i n g remarkable about Word as a
word p rocessor, except for its s ize (being part of a h u g e Office packa g e , it takes
u p a n extraord i n a ry a m o u n t of space on the h a rd drive ) . Its near-monopoly m ust be
u n d e rstood a s a d i rect res u l t of the dominant position of the associated operati n g
system , W i n dows. The strength of M i c rosoft was n ever i t s a b i l ity t o i n n ovate , b u t
it has s ki l lf u l ly devel oped i deas and concepts borrowed e l sewhere t o fit its own
mold and has ma rketed its alte rnati ve more efficiently than a nybody e l s e wou l d be
capable of doi ng-Excel resembles Lotus, Word in its early i nca rnatio n s resembled
seve ra l Maci ntosh word processors ( MacWrite, WriteN ow, etc . ) . I nternet Explorer
rese m b l es other web browse rs, and the very Wi ndows i nterface was i n its day
so s i mi l a r to the Finder (the Maci ntosh's gra p h i c i n te rface) that Appl e s ued for
plagiarism.
68 G L O BA L I ZATI O N
Word i s regu l a rly l a u nched i n new versions, always larger and l u mpier than its
predecessors, often requ i ring the user to buy new hardware. Even if a user resists and
wants to stick to her 1 995 version of Word, she will eventually have to u pgrade i n order
to be able to exchange docum ents with others .
H ow could it be that Word and Wi ndows steadily i ncreased their market shares
from the early 1 990s onwards, in spite of the existence of cheaper and possibly better
alternatives? One answer, which g ives an i nteresting spin on the discussion about
standard ization, is " path dependence" (David 1 992, 2007): The more people who use
a particular tech nologica l solution, the more difficult it becomes for a n a lternative to
ma ke headway, even if it is a better produ ct. N othing succeeds l i ke s uccess, and the
dissemi nation of an emergent standard creates snowba l l effects, through deals with
govern ment agencies, major corporati ons, and other big consumers.
The theory of path dependence has been criticized (see, e . g . , Liebowitz and M argolis
201 3) for lacking empirical evidence and for not ta king i nto account the possi bility
that consumers can change their minds. H owever, it should be said i n defense of the
theory that certa i n decisions are i rreversible, and in a g iven network of com munication
and exchange, shared standards often enforce, and reinforce, themselves. When a
standard rai l gauge (width of ra i l way tracks) has been decided, there is no turning back
afterwards . Nonetheless, the standards a re not ubiquitous, and the standard gauge is
used only by 60 percent of the world's rai lways . Travelers by tra i n from France to Spa i n ,
f o r exa mple, have t o change tra i n s on t h e border beca use t h e tracks have different
gauge. Several of the E u ropea n countries that chose nonstandard gauge did so for
military reasons, to prevent a l ien powers from i nvading by tra i n . This kind of argument
is interesti ng in the context of the contemporary debate over how to prevent terrorists
from entering one's country: the contrast shows how much more deterritorial ized our
present world i s than that of the mid-ni neteenth century.
M us l i m cou ntries and China have challenged the Christian calendar, genera l ly with
mixed s u ccess, while nobody, to my knowledge, has tried to posit alternatives to the
colonially i mposed g lobal system of time zones . M i crosoft's attempts to close the
open sta ndards on the I nternet i n the early 2000s (by creating thei r own version of
the HTM L programming language) would, if it had been successful, create the same
kind of path dependence as the clock and calendar standards: you could have stuck to
the old, open-source code, but i n the end you wou l d have few left to talk to.
This brings u s to one of the clear advantages of standardizatio n , seen from a user's
perspective. Shared standards for time, measurements, and word processing make it
easy to communicate across borders. It is easier to manage an organ ization where a l l
employees use a single software package t h a n one where people have chosen thei r
software eclectical ly. Compatib i l ity, support, and networking are factors here.
Using M S Word can be a frustrating experience for writers who are accustomed to other
word processors. It is difficult to turn its helper, spell-checker, and automatic formatting off
once and for all, and its menus are often counterintuitive. Fortu nately, conversion fi lters
are available for all nonstandard word processors (that is to say, all except Word itself-the
majority, as is well known, never has to learn the languages of m inorities).
S TA N D A R D I ZAT I O N 69
All word processors influence the way we write a n d thi n k by laying down i n ce ntives
and constraints . For this reason, the h i storical tra n s ition from Word Perfect to Word as
the globally dominant word processor is less trivial, from a c u ltu ral perspective, than
the sh ifti ng ma rket s hares between, say, Coke and Pepsi . The s i g n ifica n ce of Word's
global domina nce can be compa red with the tran s ition from parchment to paper, from
the q u i l l to the founta i n p e n : It influences l anguage, the style of worki n g , and the style
of thought. For this reason, an i nterest in software standards is not just motivated by
a n i nterest in sta ndard izatio n and global ization, but it also has wider i ntellectu a l and
pol itical i m pl ications.
The M e t r i c Sys t e m
B
ritons, Americans, a n d a few others have rebelled against i t for decades, but
the metric system i s the closest bid we are l i kely to get for a u niversal, coherent
global standard for all important measurements. B ushels, pounds, yards, and ounces,
and a myriad of locally defined measurement units across the globe, have been g iving
way to the metric system for two centuries, and the process seems to be nearly
complete by the early twenty-first century.
Now officially named the I nternational System of U n its ( S I ) , the metric system
began in France in 1 790 when a government commission defined the meter as one
ten millionth of a q uarter of the earth's meridian passing through Paris.
At the first international General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1 889, a
prototype meter bar was established, made of 90 percent platinum and 1 0 percent
iridium, measured at the melting point of ice. The meter is the standard from which a l l
other un its in the metric system derive. A liter (originally pint) i s defined as the volume
of a cube having a side equal to a tenth of a meter (a decimeter). The unit for mass,
the grave (now kilogram}, i s defined as the mass of one l iter of distilled water at the
temperature of melting ice.
The decimal system on which the metric system is based is another globally
accepted standard, a cultural one and not a god-given one, as i s the Celsius system
for measuring temperatures. Their almost u niversal acceptance (again, many Anglo
Saxons still swear by the Fahrenheit scale) is an i nstance of globalization; it has not
come about by itself.
Even the A formats for paper (common a lmost everywhere except in some
English-speaking countries) are based on the metric system . All formats are defined
such that the height divided by the width of the paper is the square root of two. The
rare format AO has an area of one square meter. Format A 1 is AO cut i nto two equal
pieces, and so on. This enta ils that the common A4 format is one-sixteenth the size
of AO-that is, one-sixteenth square meter.
The meter as such is a fairly random u nit, but all the other measurements of mass,
density, and so on follow logically from it, and it is also used in compounds with other
systems of measurements, creating standards such as kilometers per hour.
The Sh i pping Container and Standardization
Although globalization i s often a ssociated with t h e I nternet and satell ite television,
travel , the g l obal spread of computers, standardized consumer habits, and so on, it may
wel l be a rgued that the invention of the standardized shipping container in the 1 950s
was a n equally i mportant precondition for contemporary globalization a s the launch i ng
of the first communication satellites by the Soviets in 1 95 7 and the Americans i n 1 960.
Before the i ntroduction of a standardized container that could be loaded directly
from a truck onto a cargo ship, cargo was characteri stically nonstandard . A typical cargo
ship as late as i n the 1 950s could contain barrels, drums, crates, reels, bundles, boxes,
cases, bags, and cartons, mostly loaded manually by stevedores. Larger containers did
exist, but there was no standard s ize or shape. Freight costs were high and hampered
trade. In the mid-1 950s, the trucker Malcom M clean, long frustrated by the i nefficient
and half-hea rted relationship between transportation on land and by sea, devised the
prototype of contai ner shipping, when he had an oil tanker refitted to accommodate
fifty-eight standard s i ze contai ners, lifted by cranes directly from trai lers onto the ship,
and sai l i ng with them from Newark to H ouston ( Levi nson 2006) . This new, efficient way
of moving goods i n itially met with resistance from established transport companies
and trade unions, but it was so much cheaper and more efficient than the competition
that it slowly transformed the entire logistica l chai n from production to consu mer.
Rai lway cars , tra ilers, and s h i ps were increasingly made, or adj usted, to fit with the
new metal conta i ners. Sea ports were built or rebuilt to accommodate container ships
as wel l as the trucks and tra ins carrying the conta iners. Those that were slow to adj ust,
such as Liverpool, went i nto recession .
Container shipping combined with container transport over land-fast, cheap, and
reliable-did not only lead to the downfall of the dockers' guild and the al most total
reconstruction of commercial port areas, but it is a l so a key to China's rise to prominence
as an i ndustrial exporter, having brought freight rates down so much that even a producer
of cheap goods far from its markets could remain highly competitive. The shipping
container also led to the decline of the warehouse, replacing it by sophisticated logistics
where products reached their destination directly and just in time, instead of wasting
away i n dusty warehouses waiting to be picked up. Indeed, the term logistics as a
nonmilitary concept owes its existence largely to the sh ipping container ( Levinson 2006) .
The box, the modern shipping contai ner, embodies several aspects of global
standardization: The container itself, the cranes, port fac i l ities, rai lway cars, tra i l ers,
and contai nerships had to be standardized so that a conta i ner filled i n Cal ifornia and
shi pped from Oakland could easily and inexpensively be off-loaded i n Sydney and
driven d i rectly to its final desti natio n . The rapidly growing amou nts of goods contai ned
by these metal boxes have contributed i n no small degree to standardizing consumer
tastes worldwide. Final ly, the logistics involved i n producing, movi ng, and sel l i ng the
contents of the conta iners are comparable everywhere in the world. The s h ipping
conta iner is a homogenizing mach ine.
S TA N D A R D I ZATI O N 71
Resistance t o Standard i zation
Standardization, a key feature o f modernity as s uch, is greatly facil itated on a

transnational scale thanks to acceleration i n comm u n ication , the predominance of a
globalized capitalism, and the i n struments of disembedd i n g . It should nevertheless
be kept i n m i nd that the scope of g lobal modernity, even if it i s truly g l obal, i s not
u n iversal. In a strong critique of overenthusiastic " global izers;· Jean-Frarn;:ois Bayart
( 2003) thus poi nts out that " the extension of capitalism to a world sca le ca nnot be taken
for granted " (308) . H e speaks of the " a mbiguous relati onship to capitalism " in Latin
America, sub-Saharan Africa's " refusal to i ntegrate i nto the capital ist economy;· and the
" fa i l u re of ' political I s la m ' i n defi ning a specific and viable economic orientatio n " (309),
concluding that global ization, certa inly if we speak of it i n terms of g lobal capita l i s m ,
i s patchy and f a r from a l l-encompass i n g . I ndeed, a vast n umber o f people i n t h e world
are i ntegrated in the capitalist world without contrib uting to its reproduction at the
i n stitutional and systemic leve l . They operate in the i nforma l sector, as producers,
buyers, sellers, and con s u mers. i n the grey zones of the economy that never make
it to the national statistics or the tax office ( M athews et a l . 201 2 ) . These depend on
local knowledge and personal networks. Transactions take place i ndependently of the
medium of writi n g , and taxes a re evaded rather than paid.
Standardization only works for some h u man activities and produ cts . Scalability i s a
necessary condition for standards-that the same things can be repl i cated i n more or
less identical form everywhere (Tsing 201 2 ) . The nonscalable, or that which cannot be
standardized. have q ua l ities that a ncho r them to particular contexts and settings. Tsi n g
mentions particular forms o f complexity (such as a n ecosystem) and emotions (such as
love) as nonscalable phenomena, but as a ru le, we may say that every human l ife-world
has nonscalable featu res . Even strongly standardized organizational forms, s u ch as
the pla ntation (Tsing's exa mple), or forms of consumption (from fast food to clothes)
take on a local significa nce because they are i n corporated i nto particular, nonscalable
life-worl d s .
I n additi on, t h e extent o f sta ndardization i s l i mited s i mply because n o t a l l areas
are equally affected by the forces of i n corporation and g lobal n etworks. M a ny s ma l l
lang uages may s urvive t h e twenty-fi rst centu ry-not because their speakers stubbornly
stick to the idiom of their forebears, or because they are able to obta i n s upport from
tra nsnati onal agencies favori n g l i ngu istic p l u ra l ism, but because they are left alone,
overlooked and negl ected by globa l izing forces. Research in this a rea m ust u lti mately
take on the q u estion of whether this i s a good or a bad thing. Isolated pockets of tribal
people, say, i n the N ew G u i nea highlands, may avoid the oppression of the state, the
disintegration of certa i n customs, the loss of language, and oral traditions, but they will
s i m i larly not have the benefits of modern health care, a variety of job opportu nities, a
wider range of experiences, and a more comprehensive freedom to shape thei r l ives
than before. In a compa rison of the situation of the Baruya (a N ew G u i nean people)
i n the 1 960s and i n the 2000s, the anthropologist M a u rice G odelier (2009) l a ments
that they n o longer constitute a n autonomous society. They have been incorporated
into the Papua New G u i nea state as citizens, classified by stati sticians as forming a
segment of a larger eth n i c group, proletarianized, and dragged into formal education
and wage work. Whethe r this i s good or bad depends on one's position; Gode l i er's
point i s that they have lost self-determination as a peop l e .
There a re few a utonomous groups l eft, a lthough there remain pockets and even
larger territories where the i n habitants have successfully managed to keep the state at
bay (Scott 2 0 1 0 ) . The people Bayart has in mind are not, as a rule, isolated tribal people
or otherwise stateless groups but rather poor people in slums and impoverished
peasants, formally educated people l iving i n countries that accord them few citizen
rights, and marginal groups everywhere. H owever, he does not give a conclus ive
answer to the question of whether one is necessarily worse off for being marginal to
world capitalism or if it would have been better for the people in question not to be part
of a monetized economy at a l l .
There c a n b e no unequ ivocal answer t o t h i s incredi bly complex q u estion, b u t in a very
different part of the world (namely the affluent North Atlantic), reflexive-that is to say,
self-consci ous-resistance to gl obalization has become widespread in certa i n milieus.
It can be grouped i n two main varietie s . Fi rst, the alterglobalizers, formerly known as
the antiglobalization movement, a loose coa l ition of farmers, students, and political
ideal ists from across the world (but dom inated by the North Atlantic), have made
strong protests and orga n ized huge demonstrati ons against the instru m ents of global
capita l ism, including the World Trad e O rgan ization (WTO ) , the I nternational Monetary
Fu nd ( I M F), and the U . S. Treasury, argui ng-a mong other thi ngs-that it i s unfavorable
to the n eeds of poor countries, that neolibe ralism i s a n exploitative and cruel form of
economy, wh ich creates uncertai nty, inequality, and leads to mass unemployment
and that current practices lead to an un healthy and demeaning standardization of
production everywhere. It i s to be noted here, and it has no bearing on the argu ments
put forward by the movement that the a nti global izers are themselves globalized and
not rea lly opposed to globalization as such: they s hare a transnational mi ndset i nspired
by ideological developments in the N orth Atlantic, they communicate electronical ly,
and they travel to demonstrations by jet. It is, in other words, globalization na rrowly
defi ned as global ca pitalism they rebel aga inst (see also C hapter 9 ) .
Exclusion is a major t h e m e i n research on globalizatio n , and it affects many
more than the people participati ng i n antiglobal ization movements . For many of the
m i l l ions of poor in the Th i rd World, who have only experienced the negative effects of
globa l i zation (such as l oss of land, pauperization, loss of tradition, and a utonomy), being
standa rdized to the extent of getti ng an education and a job at the local McDonald's
would, in many cases, be preferred to being neglected. Capitalism creates both
wealth and poverty simultaneously in the lack of a state, or a trans national pol itical
body, serving the needs not only of the market but of society. This gap-between a
globa l ly sta ndardized and synch ronized economic system on the one hand and wea k
transnational pol itical i n struments on the other-can probably be described as the
main contradiction, or source of confl i ct, i n a global ized e ra . Some want the tra i n of
STA N DA R D I ZAT I O N 73
globalization to stop so that t h ey can get off; oth ers want it to stop so that t h ey ca n get
o n , w h i l e yet othe rs want it to change track. But a l l groups depend o n a pol itical power
w i l l i ng to and capab l e of creating conditions for a society that contains someth ing
more than standardized m arket force s .
• Standardization refers t o the i mposition o f shared standards, which render events

and obiects comparable and conversion or translation possible.
• Standardization entails the establishment of common denomi nators, but it also mar
ginal izes and sometimes destroys that which is locally unique.
• In some cases, as with language, global or international standards coexist through a
stable division of labor, side by side with the local.
• Many of the tensions and conflicts resulting from globalization are based on a con
trast between u n iversalizing standardization and local alternatives or resistance.
Questions
• What does standardization have t o d o with global ization?

• How does standardization in production affect transnational investments?
• Discuss some consequences of synch ronization for globalization or transnational
processes in general-fi nancial, political , interpersonal.
• I n which areas is standardization actively resisted? G ive examples from your own
society and a country on a different continent.
• What does Ritzer mean by groba lization and gloca lization? Is the dichotomy usefu l
or not?
• Do you see a structural similarity between identity politics (eth nic, rel igious,
or nationalist) and resistance to standardized consumer goods (McDonald's,
M icrosoft, etc . ) ?
F u r t h e r Read i n g
Levinson, Marc (2006) The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World
Smaller and the World Economy Bigger. Princeton, NJ: Pri nceton U niversity
Press. A fascinating and compel ling story about the history of the shipping
container and its fundamental significance for global ization, i nfluencing not only
distribution and consumption but also production and economic development.
R itzer, George (2004) The Globalization of Nothing. London: Sage. Using simple but
original dichotomies, the author argues-with examples chiefly from consumption
and marketing-that globalization follows two main itineraries: homogenization
and monopoly capitalism, and locally anchored adaptations to the global field.
4
C o n n ectio n s
A sensible rule of thumb for connectedness might be that the actions of

powerholders in one region of a network rapidly (say within a year)
and visibly (say in changes actually reported by nearby observers)
a ffect the welfare of at least a significan t minority (say a tenth) of the
population in another region of the network. Such a criterion
indubitably makes our own world a single system; even in the absence
of worldwide flows of capital, communications, and manufactured
goods, shipments of grain and arms from region to region would
suffice to establish the minimum connections.
-C HARLES T I L LY. BIG STRUCTURES, LARGE PROCESSES, HUGE COMPARISONS, 62
Some of the most widespread metaphors for globalization are based on ideas about
networks and connectedness. And rightly so: Never before in human history have so
many people been so closely connected as today. And the networks are continuously
becoming denser and more diverse. In the early 7990s, the jet plane and the television
satellite would be used as examples of increased interconnectedness. Ten years later,
e-mail, mobile telephony, and the World Wide Web would figure prominently. Another
ten years on, Facebook, migrant remittances, and trade with China-both formal
and informal-exemplify the kinds of connections that make almost every locality
translocal, almost every local phenomenon glocal. This chapter covers a broad range
of networks, from formal organizations (FIFA, the WTO, etc.) to informal petty trade
networks, from telecommunications to the use of English and Microsoft software as a
means of transnational communication.
T
he culi nary capita l of I ndia may be London, that o f C h i na S a n Fra ncisco. I n order
to finish a n anthropological study of a town i n the Dominica n Republic, you have
to spend at least a few months in New York City, s i n ce that is where a good portion
of the population spends much of its time. The little trolls, " Screa m " t-s h i rts, and
exorbitantly priced knitted sweaters sold to wealthy tourists visiting Oslo are made in
Ta iwa n , Pa kista n , and Sri Lanka, respectively. The largest city i n the English-spea king
Caribbean i s London . And if the classical patriarchal kinship system of the Ta iwanese
had been unable to withsta n d the pressure of i n d ividua l ism from modernization,
several shop owners i n S i l i con Va lley might sti l l have been i n business: The patrician
is a n efficient economic unit where i nterest-free loans and free services are ava ilable,
and when sh ops i n Cal ifornia (and el sewhere) have to close down beca u se their
customers have lost their jobs, this is partly a resu lt of competition from East Asia .
There were several interl i n ked causes for t h e global economic cri sis starting i n 2 007,
but it began i n earnest when m i l l ions of American homes were revealed to be both
overval u ed and financed by s u bprime mortgage l oans leading to mass ive defaults on
the part of the borrowers . As a resu lt, the housing bubble bu rst. Beginning as a modest,
seemi n g ly ma nageabl e problem, the economic crisis grew i n a totally u n contro l l ed and
unforeseen way, leading to financial ban kruptcies, mass unemployment i n a number
of countries, and the placing of the entire cou ntry of I celand un der a d m i n istration
( Palsson 2 01 3) .
S uch is the extent o f global i nterconnectedness, a n d I sti l l haven't even mentioned
sate l l ite television, the I nternet, cheap fl ights, and cell phones. Some theorists compare
the complex webs of con nected ness i n the current era to chaos and complexity i n
physics (e.g . , Thrift 1 999; U rry 2003) , m i n i n g complexity theory for models that c a n b e
u s e d t o understand social change.
The most famous metaphor from chaos theory is that of the butterfly effect: A
butterfly flapping its l ittle wings on the B razi lian coast whips up some a i r and changes
the di rection of a tiny wi nd. This wind connects to other streams of a i r, changing
parameters i n the atmosphere ever so slightly for each step, and one of the cumu lative
effects is, say, a b l izzard i n Mai ne. The reasoning behind the butterfly effect is old as
the h i l l s , as witnessed by this fa miliar English rhyme :
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost;

For want of the shoe, the horse was lost;
For want of the horse, the rider was lost;
For want of the rider, the battle was lost;
For want of the battle, the kingdom was lost;
And all from the want of a horseshoe nai l .
The general point here i s that small changes can have momentous effects, o r rather,
that ti ny variations in the i n itial parameters of a process may, through complex
feedback processes, lead to major differences in the outcome. Butterfly effects, as
CO N N E C T I O N S 77
such, a re relatively uncommon in globalization processes, but the point is rather that
i n a steadily more i nterconnected world, the d i stance between cause and effect is
often enormou s . Space i s relativized; urban Tri n i dadians may feel that Barbados and
even M ia m i are closer than M ayaro i n rura l Tri n idad, and although you exercise l ittle
power over yo u r neighbor, you may work in a company with the power to hire and
fire people i n a M a lays ian tow n . I n this kind of world, the power of the nation-state is
i ncreasi ngly being questioned. The dereg ulation of markets has wea kened the state i n
many rich countries, while structural adjustment progra m s i mposed by t h e I nternational
M onetary Fund ( I M F) on many countries i n the G lobal South i n the 1 980s and 1 990s
entailed a s l i m m i n g of the public sector and the privatization-in many cases de facto
disappeara nce-of servi ces that had formerly been public.
While few contend that the state i s withering away, its power to govern is being
chal l enged from several directions, mostly transnational-large corporations, transnational
rights movements or rel igious ones, i nformal networks ranging from petty trade to
migration chains and m igrant remittances, and ultimately, the world market. G lobal climate
change and other environmental issues demonstrate that single states are unable, on
their own, to regulate the conditions for their own surviva l . Media flows, flows of people,
goods, and commitments, virtual communities on the I nternet, and transnational interest
groups undermine the power of the nation-state to some extent. The question, and here
scholars disagree, is to what extent.
Criticism of Methodological N ationalism
Few wou l d disag ree that the bounda ries between societies a n d cu ltures, which were
never absol ute, are becom ing i ncreasingly contested. The sociologist C harles Til ly's
pioneering book Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons ( 1 984: 1 2 ) argued
that social science and sociology i n particu lar ought to develop a truly global outlook,
leaving the " pernicious postu lates " of classic sociology behind, which presupposed
that the world a s a whole could be d ivided into disti nct (mai n ly national) societies,
that social change i s a coherent general phenomenon, that large-scal e change takes
all societie s through a more or less standard set of stages, and that ti mes of rapid
change necessarily entail a range of disorderly behaviors , such a s cri me, su icide, and
rebe l l i o n . In contemporary language, one m ight say that Tilly cal l s for a transnationa l,
nonteleological social science able to hold its own when confronted with paradoxical
complexities.
First, it i s clea rly not the case that the world is moving in one d i rection, nor that
modern ity enta i l s the death of everyth ing nonmodern . Kinship conti nues to play an
i m portant role even in the most modern and i ndividual ist societies in the world; religion
conti nues to be i m portant, both as personal religiosity and as organized religion, and
interpersonal trust and i nformal networks conti n u e to fu nction a s a crucial glue, even in
thoroughly bureaucratized societies . Even science, that hallmark o f modern rational ity,
has emerged, and contin ues to develop, as a socially and cu ltura l ly embedded form
of knowledge, as Bruno Latour ( 1 993) showed in a boo k aptly entitled We Have Never
Been Modern.
Second, in Til ly's view, " methodological nationalism," to use U l rich Beck's more
recent term (2005; see also Wimmer and G l ick Sch i ller 2002), seriously l i mits the
compa rative scope and contextual understa nding of sociol ogy. It i s plai n ly i mposs ible
to u n derstand a single nation-state, even a huge one, if the analysis i s not based on
an understanding of tra nsnational processes. Transnational ism must be a p rem ise, not
a n afterthought.
Th i rd, global i nterconnected ness is not new and has a centuries-ol d legacy i n
trade, migration (enforced a n d vol u ntary) , a n d colo n i a l i s m . Yet, the extent t o wh ich
tra nsnational connections have become a defi n i n g feature of the world is u n s u rpassed
in h i story and has i ntens ified enormously only in the decades fol l owing the publicati on
of Til ly's book.
M a ny sociologists and other social and cu ltural theorists have, in the decades
fol lowing Ti l ly's book, taken his admon itions seriously-in addition to social scientists,
such as I m manuel Wal l erstein ( 1 974-79) and E ric Wolf ( 1 982), who were already
working with i n a gl obal framework. One of the most comprehensive recent attempts
to define and delineate a soci ol ogy of globalization is arguably M a n uel Castells's th ree
vol ume The Information Society ( 1 996-98; u pdated editions were publ ished in 2000-
2004) . The centra l i dea i n Castel ls's 1 , 500-page treatise is that of i nterconnected ness,
and he approaches the issue from n u merous viewpoi nts i n a bid to s how that the
emergent world of transnational i nformational capita l ism is qualitatively different from
the one that preceded it
The N etwork Society
The central concept in Castells's fi rst vol u me ( 1 996) is the network, which in h i s view
" constitute[s] the new social morphology of o u r societies " (469) . What he a rgues i s
that t h e m a i n mode o f social organ i zation i n politics, t h e economy, and civil society
is sh ifting from the relatively stable h ierarchy to a more fluid network form . The
networks a re i nterpersonal, transnational, and transitory. Although a fixed hierarchy i s
absent. networks do n o t accord equal power t o a l l . Whi l e t h e most powerful person
in a hiera rchy could be located at the top of a pyramid, the most powerfu l person
in a network is the spider, the one to whom everybody has to relate, who knows
everybody, and who ca n coordinate activities. I n other words, the greatest personal
capital in a network soci ety belongs to the best connected person .
According to Castells, "ou r societies are i ncreas i ngly structured a round a bipolar
opposition between the N et a n d the Self" ( 1 996: 3) . I n this, he means that the m a i n
CON NECTIONS 79
conflicts take place between autonomy and dependence, the life-world and the system
world ( N i klas Luhman n's terms [ 1 995]) or, put more prosaical ly, between " abstract,
u n iversal i n strum ental i s m , and h i storica lly rooted, particularistic identities " (Caste l ls
1 996: 3 ) . Networks are not necessarily transnationa l , but this is i n creasingly the case,
finds Castells, who sees the deregulation of world markets, the growth of i n formation
tech nol ogy, and the end of the Cold War a s parallel processes creati ng conditions for
a n accelerated and i ntensified g lobalizatio n .
P u t differently, t h e concept o f t h e N e t combines two related processes-namely,
economic globa l i zation and the spread of i nformation technol ogy, which ma kes
dista nce irrelevant Whereas classic ind ustrial society was o rganized through the
space of places, i nformation soci ety takes place through the space of flows, where
the degree of connectedness, not physical prox i m ity, is the deci sive factor.
N etworks are built a round nodes-that is, points where l i nes intersect, or, less
technical ly, a site where relevant activities connected with other activities (or nodes)
e lsewhere take place . A node can be and often is a person with relevant connections
to others. N etworks are, i m po rtantly, "open structures, able to expand without l i m its,
i ntegratin g new nodes as long as they are able to communicate within the network"
(Castells 1 996: 469).
Let us take a brief look at some of the transnational networks that contribute to
making the world a smal ler place.
Com m u n ication N etworks
C o m m u n i cation networks are obviously of prime i mportance. N obody denies this, not
even the global skeptic s . The I nternet, which was i nvented under the name Arpanet
in 1 969, had few and specia lized users for two decades. Between 1 995 and 2 0 1 3 , the
n umber of people who had access to the I nternet soared from 2 6 m i l l ion to 2 .4 b i l l i on
( I nternet World Stats 201 3 ) . The n u mber of websites worldwide has grown from zero
in 1 992 (the yea r the World Wide Web was i ntroduced) to 1 00 m i l l i on in 2000 a n d 767
m illion active websites in 2 0 1 3 ( Netcraft 2 0 1 3 ) .
M o b i l e telephones were rare as late a s 1 990, wh ich was before most countries
had a telecom m u n i cation i nfrastructure ensuring coverage. M a ny mobile phones at
that time were 1ust car phones jacked i nto the l ighter socket of the car and con nected
through a huge transmitter/receiver in the tru n k . By 2 0 1 3 , the g l obal n u mber of mobile
telephones i s approach i n g the six bil lion mark, u p from ten million i n 1 99 1 . I n C h ina
alone, four hundred m i l l ion people had a mobile phone i n 2 006, but by 201 3, the n u mber
had i ncreased to one billion. M ore than six hundred m i l l i on sub-Saharan Africans had
mobile phones by 2 0 1 3 , u p from zero in 1 994.
Although networking through computers and mobile phones is i n principle spaceless
and deterritorial ized, most of it is loca l . The most popular websites are usual ly, if
not always, domestic ones, a n d the vast majority of S M S (Short Message Service)
messages sent have a local addressee. Sti l l , both technologies bea r the mark of the
deterritorialized network. During my first fieldwork trip in M a u ritius i n 1 986, making
a phone ca l l home was exha usti n g , expensive, and unsatisfying . By the late 1 990s,
I could comfortably speak to anyone from a terrace overl ooking the I ndian Ocean,
far from the nea rest town. Both e-ma i l and mobile phone cal l s mil itate agai nst firm
hierarchies: they are flat. i mmediate media of communication with no i ntermediate
secretary or other fi lter between the sender and the receiver. Formal modes of address
are unusual in both media-polite forms of address a re in fact d i sappea ring i n several
lang uages, possibly partly as a result of the new media-and communication through
e-mail or cell phone i s expected to be swift and efficient
Sti l l not satisfied that the global network society is a fact? Wel l , take the
com m u ni cations satel l ite. These satel l ites a re used for a n u mber of purposes, from
weather forecasti ng to telephony, surveilla nce, television tra ns missions, and, more
recently, G P S navigation-yo u can now buy a small, touch-sensitive screen, place it
on you r dashboard, plot in you r itinerary, and the voice of you r preference will tell you
exactly where to turn right and where to turn back. Recent improvements to map
services even enta i l that they a re updated conti n uously on road works and traffic.
Th e com m u n i cations satell ite was first described by the science fiction writer
Art h u r C. C l arke in a short article published in 1 945. I ndeed, he described it so wel l that
it couldn't be patented later. Although both the Soviets and the Americans sent satellites
i nto space i n 1 957 and 1 960, respectively, it wo u l d take nearly twenty years from
Clarke's description for the fi rst successful audiovisual experiments to be conducted
with communication satel lites-pa rts of the 1 964 To kyo O lympics were televised via
sate l l ite-and i n 1 965 there was one s u ch sate l l ite. By 201 3, there were more than two
hundred, in addition to a l l the other, specia l i zed satell ites used for scientific resea rch
and other p urposes. In the mid-1 960s, a few m i l l ion watched television programs
broadcast via satell ite; today, several b i llion do. In principle, anyone can watch a ny
progra m, although in practice, most people watch local programs a nyway.
Well over half the g lobal popu lation is to some extent affected by the
telecommunicati ons revol utio n , but to many it makes l ittle subjective difference i n
thei r everyday l ives . Contrary t o many people's expectations, t h e I nternet a n d mobile
telephony are mostly used locally or domestically. Sometimes it seems that it was
easier for a northern E u ropean to get a pen-friend in B razil back in the 1 970s than it is
to join a v i rtual chat room today. Nonetheless, the placeless cha racter of these new
tech nologies affect a l l the people who use them, even if u n consciou sly. A standard
opener for a contemporary telephone conversation is, " Where a re you now? " Th i s
wou l d not have b e e n t h e case i n t h e e r a o f landlines, which predomi nated i n most of
the world u nti l the mid-1 990s.
Transnational media, drawing on the same satell ite technology as the new
com m u n ication tech nologies, lead to similar forms of deterritorialization, but it
wou l d be difficult to a rgue that the trans nationalization of media lead to global
homogen ization . Rather, as many writers i n the field have shown (see, e.g , Hannerz
CONN ECTIONS 81
1 996; Herner a n d Tufte 2005), what i s being global ized are ch i efly the media forms,
not the content. National public spheres are to some extent being deterritorial i zed,
when you can access your daily newspaper on the Web from a nywhere i n the world
or watch your favorite domestic s itcom every Wednesday on your travel s abroad, but
such exa mples testify to the enduring strength, not the dissolution, of national public
spheres. Content on the I nternet i s often believed to be largely i n English; i n fact, only
about half of it i s . There a re thousands upon thousands of Czech, Japanese, Spanish,
and Dan ish websites i n existence. They share the technolog ical form of the Web and
its deterritorialized cha racter, but not n ecessarily a nything more.
A N etworked G lobal Economy?
Castells ( 1 996), among others, writes about " the n etwork enterprise" as a n ew
kind of compa ny. It is loosely organ ized, there is l i ttle job security, it has assets i n
several places, and it sta nds i n a complex relationship t o other businesses . M a ny
have described recent cha nges i n capita lism as a tra nsition from mass production to
flexible production (and accumu lation), or from Ford i sm to post-Fordism. Th i s means
a shift from large, stable enterpri ses, often i nvolving assembly l i n es and m echanized
production of large qua ntities of sta ndardized goods . With the growth of a diverse
world market and rapid tech nologica l cha nges, this system became too rigid and was
to a great extent replaced with a more flexible system of production, which was more
responsive to market trends and more adaptable. Another trend described by Castells
( 1 996) i s the " crisis of the large organization" ; much of the conte mporary job creation
and i nn ovation comes from m iddle-sized a nd small enterprises functio n i n g in a larger
network of complementary and competi ng busi nesses .
On the other side, some h uge corporations have grown and benefited from i ncreased
globalization, adapting to the new situation. By 2004, U n ilever had more than five hundred
su bsidiaries located in one hu ndred countries, and the mass media conglomerate
Bertelsma n n had more than six hu ndred affiliates in fifty countries (Scholte 2005: 1 78).
Production sites are more easily moved overseas than before, and markets are more easily
accessible than they used to be. Certain services can easily be outsourced overseas
American cal l centers in I ndia being the most commonly cited example (but if you call
Norwegian Airli nes' service number, the person taking you r ca l l may wel l be a n Estonian
working from Tal l i n n and addressing you i n flawless N orwegian). Statistics confirm the
feeling s hared by many to the effect that transnational corporations are becoming ever
more powerful. Some of them have a turnover that exceeds the G D P (Gross Domestic
Product) of many countries, and the annual total sales by all companies that form part
of transnational corporations i ncreased from $2 . 7 trillion in 1 982 to $ 1 7. 6 trillion in 2003
(Scholte 2005: 1 79 ) . M a ny of these compa nies are believed to be locally owned and run ,
and many a r e j o i n t ventures with local capital; t h e point is that these figures suggest a
tighter i ntegration and closer networki ng in the global economy than earlier.
Tel l i ngly, the very tech nologies that make networking possible have moved to the
core of the g lobal economy. Some of the fastest growing companies in the world del iver
hardware, software, or services associated with computi n g . N o kia, which basically
produced rubber boots a n d a few TV sets in the 1 980s, sold more than 450 m i l l i o n
mobile phones a yea r a t t h e height o f i t s market domina nce i n 2 0 0 8 (on t h e eve o f the
i ntroduction of the touch phone) . IT companies, some teleco m m u nications service
providers ( l i ke Vodafone), and content producers ( l i ke Time Warner, Bertelsma n n , and
Sony) are n ow among the most profitable corporations i n the world.
The n ow virtually u n iversal existence of capitalism as a system of productio n ,
distribution, and consumption o n t h e pla net-the monetary economy, su pply-a nd
demand mechanism, and wage work a re almost everywhere present-is u nderpi n ned
by the breadth of economic i nvolvement by major enterprises. The network structure of
the global economy-with subsidiaries, joint ventures, a global scattering of assets
have led critics l i ke Antonio N egri and M i chael Hardt to describe the new world i n
bleak terms . Hardt a n d N egri, i n their much discussed book Empire (2000), depict the
world as being ruled by a web of overlappin g networks of tra n snational corporations
and organ izations-an empire with n o geographical center nor a government or a n
executive committee. Their vision i s l i ke a dark vers ion of Castells's account o f the
network soci ety.
N ot everyone agrees that the world economy has entered a disti n ctly gl obal
phase. Pa u l H i rst and G rahame Thompson ( 1 999) a re among the most vocal critics
of the globalizers' views . They argue that (a) in some respects, the contem porary
i nternational economy is less i ntegrated a n d open than that of the period from 1 87 0
t o t h e First World War, (b) that most ostensibly transnational companies a r e i n fact
based and fi rmly rooted in national economies, (c) that most i nvestments take place
domestically or among the rich countries, and (d) that the major economic powers
( E u rope, North America, Japan) a re able to regulate and control i mportant aspects of
the world economy if they coordinate their policies.
H a rdt and N egri appear to exaggerate the reach of the g lobal network society
(and so, probably, does Castells) G overnments sti l l regulate domestic trade and use
incentives at home, often with tangible resu l ts . E nviro n mental problems, usually
blamed on globa l ization, are often the result of government pol icies, such as the
B razi l i a n government subsidies to logging compan ies ( G i l p i n 2002 ) . There is n oth i n g
even resembling a global labor ma rket, given t h e severe restrictions on immigration
i n rich countries. As a citizen, you are endowed with particular rights and obligations
towards a territorial state, and some states conti nue to maintain ambitious welfare
programs for all their citizens. As the ex-World B a n k executive Joseph Sti g l itz q u i ps i n
a bitter critique of the free-trade hypocrisy he h a s seen i n i nternational organ izations,
Americans a re a l l for free trade but against imports (2002 ) . I n other words, there are
few reasons to bel ieve that the g lobal network society is omnipresent and o m n i potent.
Yet, a look at the figures i s sufficient to conv i n ce me, at least, that there are strong
tendencies towards wider and denser tra nsnational networks, which lead to new forms
of capital accumu lation and i ncreased concentration of economic power. I nteresti ngly,
the patterns of capital accumulation largely follow the center-periphery-semiperiphery

triad developed by Wal lerste i n , although the rise of E a st Asia as contender for a place
i n the center is a new development. Cou ntries l i ke B razil, South Africa, and Russia
remain semiperiphera l , and Western E u rope and N orth America (plus Japan a n d
Australia) remain part of t h e center.
N etworks do not preclude centra l ization. Writing about tra nsnational b u s i ness,
Saskia Sassen poi nts towards the emergence of a n " i nter-urban geography that joins
major i nternational financial a n d busi ness centers: N ew York, London, Tokyo, Paris,
Fra n kfurt, Z u ri ch , Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Sydney, H ong Kong ;' more recently
i n corporating cities l i ke Sao Paolo, Buenos Aires, Bombay, Bangkok, and so on (2003:
2 7 1 ) . The point is that as these i ntercity networks have become denser beca use of
the growth in tra nsnational financial transactions, the economic, political , a n d cultu ra l
dista nce between t h e cities a n d other parts of t h e i r countries h a s i n creased. Networks
appear to be open-ended, but their bounda ries can be as rigid as those of the closed
structure.
G lobalization from Below
A networked global economy does lead to the concentration of power i n certai n

hubs, a n d u nder a global neoli beral economic regime, i neq ual ity h a s i n creased with i n
most cou ntries. At t h e same time, fiscal loopholes enable powerful transnational
corporations, s u ch as Starbucks a n d Kentucky Fried Ch icken, to evade taxation i n most
of the countries i n which they operate.
At the same time, other stories a bout i nterconnectedness and global ization, which
create a very different p i cture, are no less true or relevant. I n fact, it may well be
argued that a ma i n feature of economic globa l ization consists in the i ncreased mobility
of persons and goods, as wel l as the forging of i nterpersonal connections. The traffic
i n money, goods, a n d persons increased enormously i n the last decades of the
twentieth century and continues to do so i n the twenty-first. This will be dealt with
comprehensively i n the next chapter; for now, we will j ust make some observations on
the economic d i mension of connectedness from below.
A fa i r n u mber of the people i nvolved in tra nsnational trade are petty traders . Some
b uy secondhand clothes from Western cha rities a n d sell them i n markets, some travel
to Dubai or C h i na in order to return with cheap, marketable goods, some ply the streets
or beaches of tou rist spots with their fake Rolex watches or Ray-Ban s unglasses, a nd
others smuggle the goods across international borders, at the peril of being caught
and jailed. I ncreasingly, the source of m uch of the goods sold i n the i nformal sector
i s C h i na , and a considerable a mount is p i rated goods, from ciga rettes and perf u me to
cameras and jeans. The vast majority of people in the G lobal South can never afford
to b uy an Armani suit or a D i o r dress, but quite a few can afford a fa ke copy. Wh ile the
corporate world of the North Atl a ntic sees piracy as a threat to business and a violation
of moral principles-in short, a serious crime-those who form part of it, either as
producers, vendors, or consumers , see piracy a s the i r only opportunity to take part in
the consumer c ulture they are exposed to daily through the media .
O n ly si nce the turn of the m i l l e n n i u m , the importance of C h i na for global ization has
increased many times. C h i n ese companies are i nvolved i n land acq u isition, mining
operations, shipping, and real estate i nvestments a l l over the world now, but one of the
most significant and fasci nati ng aspects of the growth of C h i nese g lobal dom i na nce
is that of small trade . As Olivier Pl iez (20 1 2 ) explains in an essay about "the new S i l k
Road " from C h i n a t o N orth Africa, t h e city o f Yiwu (virtually u n known i n the West) is
the site of fifty-eight thousand shops " specializing i n the sale of 'sma l l commodities',
i . e . small household goods, jewel ry, razors, toys , a n d religious a rtifacts " ( 2 7 ) . Cloth ing
is nevertheless the main export from thi s region. Blank CDs are a nother sought-after
commodity; it is estimated that two in three CDs sold in M exico are pirated (Aguiar
201 2 : 4 1 ) .
Goods intended for the i nformal sector usually have to b e collected i n person i n
order t o evade customs b u t a l so because of a gene ral lack of trust i n a transnational
business world without written contracts. I nvestments can be risky but also l u crative.
Gordon Mathews (201 2 ) estimates that about 20 percent of the cell phones sold i n
Africa were bought by itinerant African traders i n the ramshackle wholesale center
Chungking Mansions i n Hong Kong, but Yang Ya ng (201 2) states that more than half the
African traders who come to G ua ngzhou go ban krupt and never retur n . These m u ltiple
ties, connecting people through what is known i n M exico as la fayuca hormiga (the ant
trade)-that i s , the semi l egal or downright i l l egal traffic i n goods, often pirated, across
national boundaries in order to provide a taste of affl uence and consumerism to people
who wou l d otherwise have been d eprived of it. Th i s kind of global ization from below,
u n l i ke remittances from migra nts, represents a s hadow economy existing side by side
with the formal economy of major brands and Western dominance and is a n excel lent
example of south-south relationships forming as a resu lt of i ntensified global ization .
C u ban Except i o n a l i s m
A central location i n a n early-some wou ld say the first-phase of globalization in

the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, following Columbus and the emergent
conceptual ization of the New World, Cuba subsequently became, like the rest of
the Caribbean, something of a backwater economically and politically. By the mid
twentieth century, Cuba was a typical Latin American country: politically authoritarian,
economically dependent, ridden by deep class differences correlated with race, still
based on a plantation system based on relatively simple technology, and dominated by
U . S . interests, from investors to mafiosi. Following the 1 959 revol ution, Cuba severed
its ties with the capitalist world, forging a strong ideological , military, and economic
a lliance with the Soviet U nion and its Eastern European all ies. With the collapse of the
Communist bloc around 1 990, many predicted that Cuba wou ld follow suit within a
few years. This was not to happen. At the time of writing, Cuba remains a centralized
one-party society with a planned economy, limited civil rights, and a very piecemeal
and partial integration into the global networks of the early twenty-first century.
Cuban exceptionalism-some would say autonomy-is suggestive of the extent
to which m uch of the rest of the world is enmeshed in a plethora of transnational
networks:
• Controlled flow of information. Censorship effectively limits the access to

i nformation, including critical information about the state, for the vast majority
of Cubans. I nternet access is extremely limited, and satellite channels on
television a re only available in tourist areas.
• Lack of market mechanism in the peso economy. Most Cubans receive their
salaries in moneda nacional, a nonconvertible cu rrency, which enables them
to buy goods and services at subsid ized prices. A meal i n the university
canteen at C ienfuegos, for exa m ple, costs the equivalent of 5¢, a local bus
ticket 2¢. Prices are fixed by the state rather than through a supply/demand
mechanism.
• Limited integration into the world market. M uch of Cuba's foreign trade is
still (in spite of the d isappearance of the eastern E u ropean market} regulated
through bilateral trade agreements with friendly states like Venezuela. The
availability of imported goods in the peso sector is limited .
• Limited flow of persons. C ubans a re not free to leave their cou ntry, and
obtaining a passport is in most cases impossible.
• Absence of transnational corporations. There is no McDonald's in Cuba,
and you 'd be hard pressed to find a spare part for your Macintosh laptop in
Havana.
There are several cracks and fissures in this system . Two parallel economies
operate a longside the planned, subsidy-based peso economy. F i rst, foreigners use
the peso convertible, a hard currency with which one may obta in many imported
and luxury goods theoretically unava ilable to Cubans. Many tourist hotels are joint
ventures between the Cuban state and foreign, often Spanish, companies, and dollar
shops sell international brands. { But, telli ngly, video films aimed at the tourist market
were still, in 201 3, mostly in the obsolete VHS format.} Second, a thriving informal
economy, operating among Cuba n s and between Cubans and foreigners, entails that
many Cubans sell goods and services to tourists {sometimes goods stolen from the
state, such as cigars}, often in or beyond a legal grey zone {th i s activity is known
as jineterismo [hustling]), giving them access to pesos convertible. In spite of this,
Cuba remains largely aloof from many of the forms of globalization characterizing
most of the world: disparities in wealth are modest compared to other Caribbean and
Latin American countries-most private cars a re old and either American {pre-1 959)
or Soviet {pre-1991 )-print media are few and censored, television i s state-controlled,
internet is rare, foreign travel is i l legal unless one marries abroad, and so on. Although
Cuba is com mitted to international cooperation through NGOs {nongovernmental
organizations} and the UN system, it has resisted global capitalism a nd the global
information economy su rprisingly efficiently, not least when we take its geographical
location into account.
G lobal G overnance?
What about politics ? M a ny writers o n g l obal ization have pointed out that the degree of
tra nsnational economic connectedness far exceeds the degree of tra nsnational pol itical
reg u lation. As David Held and Anthony McGrew (2000: 26-27) put it, " the global ization
of economic activity exceeds the regu latory reach of national governments w h i le, at
the same time, existing m ulti lateral i n stitutions of global economic governance have
l i m ited authority because states, jealously g uarding thei r national sovereignty, refuse
to cede them s ubstantial power:·
It should, nevertheless, be borne in mind, as Held and McGrew also point out (2000:
1 1 -1 2 ; see also Held et al. 1 999: 54) . that the n umber of i nternational organizations
has g rown enormously i n the last hundred years. The n u mber of international NGOs
was 37 i n 1 909 and had grown to more than 40,000 i n 201 3 . The degree of diplomatic
connectedness between states, defined as the n u mber of connections through at least
one resident emissary, grew from 2 , 1 40 i n 1 950 to 5,388 i n 1 97 0 and 7,762 in 1 99 1
I nternational cooperation has, i n other words, grown tremendously over the last
decades. M uch of it fa lls short of deserving the label global, being internationa l :
Development cooperation and diplomatic ties, w h i ch account for much o f t h e growth,
tend to be bi lateral and governed by nation-states. Trul y transnational orga nizations
are more interesting, and they proliferate i n areas such as environmentalism and
h u ma n rights issues. S uch nonstate, often network-based orga n izations, may exert
considerable political i nfluence. N evertheless, when one speaks of global governance,
one usually has someth ing more in mind, someth ing that is binding on states and
comm its their power to a transnational good . I nternational treaties over workers' rights
or greenhouse gases are attempts at global governa n ce, of a n admittedly l i mited
scope. I nternati onal peacekeeping forces also express, from a different a rea, an abil ity
among a n umber of countries to g ive up, temporarily, some of their sovereignty and
use their d i plomatic and mil itary power to help resolve confl icts i n which their cou ntry
has no direct interest.
As a cou nterpoint to N egri and Hardt's grim outlook, George Monbiot (2003) has
suggested the establishment of a world government. building o n and extending both
the power and the democratic legiti macy of the U n ited Nations' General Assembly.
Seen by many as utopi a n , this kind of proposa l i l l ustrates the wi despread fee l i ng that
everything seems to be globalized except democracy. S u m m i ng up some of the main
obstacles to global governance, Fred H a l liday concl udes the fol lowi ng:
the s uccess of peace-keeping . . conti nues to run u p aga i nst the reluctance of
sovereign states to commit their forces to combat, and of states criti cized by
the international commun ity to yield to U N pressure; growing awareness of the
ecological crisis . . . goes together with contentio n and evasion, in north and south;
the rising recogn ition of the i mportance of women's position i n society has produced
outright rejection of change in some states, i n the name of sovereignty and national
CONN ECTIONS 87
tradition . . . ; a greater stress on the rights of i nd ividuals produces d e n u n ciation of

i nternational, and specifically 'western'. i nterference from others. (2000: 498)
An additional argument against the idea of g lobal governance i s the idea that its
i nstrum ents " are not and a re not l i kely to be democratic " (Dahl 2000: 538) because
they may l ead to majorities consistently overru l i n g mi norities. Aga i nst this pessi m i s m ,
David H e l d e t a l . ( 2 0 0 5 ) has forcef u lly put the c a s e f o r a cosmopol itan social democracy
a i ming to extend rights and obl igations global ly, to kee p transnational in check, and to
prevent meaningless wa rs . The discussion about the prospects and l i mits for global
governance i s bound to continue for some yea rs. indeed as long as the gap betwee n
economic and commun icational i ntegratio n a n d pol itical national ism rema i n s .
An a lternative perspective s e e s t h e i n creased contact across borders as a source
of confl i ct due to competition over scarce res o u rces. deep c u ltural d i fferences. and
the loss of ideological d i fferences due to the end of the Cold War. The most i n f l u ential
representative of this school of thought i s Samuel H u nti ngton ( 1 996), a political
scientist fa mous for his notion of "the clash of civil izations." In H u ntington's view, the
m ost i mportant conflicts i n the world of the near future are l i ke l y to follow " civi l i zational
faultl ines " -that i s , they will be fought across the border areas between civil izations.
I n H untington's vi ew. a civili zation i s a c l u ster of closely related cultures. which forms
natural a l l iances. There is a Western civi l ization, a Latin American one. an Islamic one.
a H i ndu one. and so o n . H owever. so far, few conflicts i n the world have fol l owed the
l i n es predicted by H u nti ngton ( Fox 1 999), and his concept of the civi l izati on has been
criticized for being si mpl istic and based o n a n obsolete i dea of the world a s consisting
of clearly bounded, territorial cu ltures .
N otwithsta nding the a rguments surrounding the propositions for a global
government, it should be kept i n mind that globa l governance i s not the same as
a globa l , or world, government ( Scholte 201 1 : 1 0) . Governance is carri ed o ut by
the U nited Nations. the World Trade O rgan izatio n . the Orga n i zation of the Islamic
C onference, and the I nternet Corporation for Assigned Names and N u m bers (Scholte
2 01 1 : 1 ) . Although the power of these and other organ izations is l i mited-they do not
pass laws and cannot always i mpose sanctions-it should not be u n derestimated. I f
t h e a n t trade of t h e C i udad Juarez-E l Paso area represents globa l i zation from below,
the powerfu l networks devel oped by the B retton Woods i nstitutio n s and the U n ited
Nations conglomerate of tra nsnational organizati ons s i m i larly sta nd for globa l ization
from above. but both kinds of i nterconnectedness contribute to the shrinking of the
planet and the tighter i ntegrati on of its inhabitants .
Translation
T h e global dominance of English is reflected i n many ways, n o t l east through the

l i n g u istic i n sula rity, indeed parochialism. of the E n g l ish-speaking parts of the world . O n
a wonderf u l website called l ndex Translationum ( U N ESCO 2013), the U N ESCO ( U nited
Nations Educational Scientific and Cu ltural O rgan ization) has collected a variety of
stati stica l material on translations publ ished s ince 1 979. It reveals that 1 , 2 5 7, 542 books
were translated from Engl ish from 1 979 to 201 2-the figures for French, the runner-up
language, are 2 2 2 , 587, while the figure for Finnish i s 8,486.
Regarding target languages, the German-speaking world appears to be the keenest
on being en riched by i mpulses from abroad: 301 , 700 books were translated i nto
German (204,426 books were translated from German), while 1 54,925 books were
translated i nto English, which was s u rpassed by a comfortable margin by both French
(239, 885) and Spanish (228,885) . The impressive n umber of 48, 3 1 1 books were
translated i nto F i n n i s h .
I n other words, w h i l e t h e F i n n s translated six times as many books into F i n n i s h a s
the n u mber o f Finnish books tra ns lated abroad, and t h e Germans translated a third
more into German than that wh ich went in the opposite direction, about eight times as
many books were translated from English as i nto English. While just 1 5 percent of the
books translated from German had Engl ish a s their destination language, about two
thirds of the books translated i nto German were from English.
It is almost difficult to believe it, but if the U N ESCO statistics a re correct, more
books were translated in Denmark (five m i l lion inhabitants) than in the U n ited States
(over three h u ndred m i l l ion i n habitants), and more books were translated in H u ngary
than in the U n ited Kingdom.
According to statistics on Internet use, 51.3 percent of comm unication on the
I nternet is in English (while a mere 5 percent of the world's popu lation speaks it as thei r
first language), and 5 6 percent o f a l l web pages are i n E n g l i s h . Rega rding academic
publishing, I have been u nable to find reliable figu res, but everyone seems to agree
that the proportion of E nglish has i ncreased steadily s i nce the Second World War. I n
some fields, more than 9 0 percent o f publ ications are i n English; i n many u n ivers ities,
a publ ication has to be i n English if it i s to cou nt as an i nternational publ ication i n the
annual report.
Rem ittances and C heap Calls
Contemporary mi gration is another excel lent exa mple o f i nterconnectedness. I t i s

clea rly better described a s the ongoing negotiation o f tra nsnational ties t h a n as a one
way movement creating permanent diasporic populations in host cou ntri es-to be
integrated and, perhaps, eventual ly assimilated after one, two, or three generations.
M igrati on w i l l be di scussed i n some detai l i n the next chapter; for now, one d i mension
of migration will suffice to demonstrate some of the many emergent forms of
i nterconnectedness cri sscrossing the world-namely, remittances.
Remittances are transfers of money from migrants to relatives or other close
associates in the home country. In the U nited States, a main i m migrant cou ntry,
CONN ECTI O N S 89
the va lue of remitta nces sent from the country is estimated to have grown from
$3 . 3 bil lion in 1 98 1 to $20 . 5 b i l l i o n in 2 0 03 and a whoppi ng $48 b i l l io n i n 2 009-a
dramatic i ncrease in l ess than thi rty years (Congress of the U n ited States 2005, 201 1 ) .
G loba l ly, t h e total amount o f formal remitta nces increased from s l ig htly over
$ 1 . 5 b i l l i o n in 1 970 to $84 b i l l i o n i n 1 999, i ncreasing a l most by 1 ,0 0 0 percent in slightly
over ten years, to reach $534 b i l l ion i n 2 01 2 (World B a n k estimate). which by far
exceeds the amount spent o n devel opment aid. Moreover, the actual figure may be
q uite a bit higher. as remittances are often transferred via i nforma l chan n e l s . H owever,
the i nformal remitta nces transferred outside the banking system, although i m possible
to measure a ccu rately, are estimated to be twice or three times the formal ones (Va n
Doorn 2002) The value of remittances eas i ly exceeds that of global foreign a i d .
There is, i n a word, a massive tra nsfer of wealth going on from t h e rich cou ntries
to the poor ones. wh ich takes place at an i ndividual , small-sca l e level and is therefore
relatively u n k n own outside policy and research circles-and which s h ows the extent
of moral i nterco n n ectedness between migra nts and the people they have left.
A precondition for rem ittances to function efficiently i s trust a n d mora l obligation,
which conti n u e to be operative years and decades after the migrant's departure. With
i nformal tra nsfers. this i s even more the case than with formal money transfers : Very
often . m i ddlemen are i nvolved, a n d the money is carried as legal tender. The courier
has to be trustworthy.
As shown by N i gel H a rris (2002) and others ( e . g . , Carl i n g 2008; Levitt 2 001 ),
remitta nces a re spent i n a variety of ways, with considerable va riation between
cou ntries. H owever. a l most everywhere, a proportion i s i nvested in land or small
e nterprises. I t has been speculated that every dollar sent back to the P h i lippines l eads
to a further three dollars i n loca l growth, either through i nvestment or through boosting
local demand. An esti mated n i n e million F i l ipinos work a b road, many of them women,
and their remitta nces m a ke u p 10 percent of the national GDP (Sta nding 2 01 1 : 1 09)
A fasci nating aspect of remittances i s their l ow-key, smal l-sca le character. creating
strong ties of commitment, obligation, and economic transactions between m i l l ions
of individuals located sometimes at opposite e nds of the globe, without many taking
notice. B ut t a ke a stroll in the Pakista n i town of Kha ria n . and you will notice a n ot
i nsign ificant N orwegian ization of the tow n . People carry plastic bags from Oslo s hops,
many spea k Norweg i a n , and at least one barber has a faded, framed photo of the late
King O lav V o n display in his shop. M ost of Norway's Pa kista n i hail from the Kharian
a rea. and many travel back and forth a s often as time and money a l l ow.
A para l l el development to the spectacular growth in remitta nces. which further
contributes to a deterritorial ization of trust and moral obligati o n , is the rap i d spread of
cell phones since a round 1 990 a n d the reduced cost of using them . Steven Vertovec
(2004) rema rks on the sign ificance of the phone card (precl uding a regular s ubscription)
for the tra ns national con n ectedness of o rd i n a ry i m migra nts in E u rope and N o rth
Ameri ca . I n many poor to middle-income cou ntries. cell phone ownership and u se
seems to be spreadi n g faster than a ny other n ew technology. H eather Horst (2006)
reports that i n Jamaica 86 percent of the population over fifteen had a mobile phone
i n the early twenty-fi rst century a n d that by 2003, three-quarters o f a l l phone traffic
was cellul a r. By 201 3 , the figure was approaching 1 00 percent. Before the m id-1 990s,
Horst reports, telephone com m u n icatio n between Jamaica and the outside world was
cumbersome, erratic, a n d expensive . Most Jamaica n s relied on phone booths , which
were often out of order, a n d calls tended to be brief and slightly breath l ess since there
were often others waiting to use the phone. As H orst says-her work is in Jamaica , but
it i s releva nt for many places-the cell phone enables people to stay reg u larly in touch
with loved ones overseas and to negotiate personal relationships as wel l as financial
tra nsactions, to give u rgent i nformation (such as a death o r i l l n ess), and so on. Cheaper
and more mobi l e than computer-mediated e-mai l , new generations of cell phones are
increasi ngly versatile; they can be used to send i nstant i mages of the newborn baby to
the parents at home, mood u pdates, and gossip o n a n everyday basi s .
Remittances and p h o n e c a l l s a r e two ways o f staying i n touch, and they sometimes
go together. H orst (2006) writes of an elderly lady in Jama ica who needed a bit of
money, who phoned her fa mily overseas, and received the amount i n one hour. These
are some of the networks rarely given m uch attention i n the l iteratures o n either
migration or global izati o n , but which i n i mportant ways create and maintain strong
webs of tra nsnational commitments worldwide. M ost significa ntly, such n etworks a re
i nterpersonal and based on personal com mitment-u n l i ke rather a l ot of the other
tra ns nati onal or global networks often considered in research on global i zation, but
l i ke several of the phenomena considered i n this chapter With the next exa mple, it
becomes evident that global izatio n from above a n d from below can often be two sides
of the same coi n .
Soccer a n d G lobal ization
A s poi nted o u t by R i chard G i u l ia notti and Roland Robertson (2004) , few o f t h e many
scholars who write about global izatio n have studied sport. The recent history of soccer,
in particular, ca n serve both as a n i l l u stration and as an indication of the extent of
tra ns national i n tercon nectedness.
Soccer, a sport played to varying degrees i n most parts of the world, has B ritish
orig i n s but is, u n l i ke cri cket, not strongly a ssociated with col onialism. I ts rules a re
easy to learn, it req u i res no expensive equipment, and it can be played in a l leys, on
lawns, i n schoolyards, a n d on open fields. G oa lposts can be made from a nythi ng
schoolbags and sweaters were standard i n my ch ildhood-and the size of the team is
not i m portant. N o special s k i l l s are requ i red to play soccer.
As a spectator sport, soccer also has e normous appeal with its combination of
complexity and simplicity, elegance and brute force, its many variations and possibil ities
for i nd ividual players to shine.
This does n ot i n itself explain the globa l popularity of soccer nor its fai l u re, so
far, to penetrate some of the la rgest and most populous cou ntries i n the world (it
i s n o t so wi despread i n I ndia, China, or t h e U nited States). H owever, i n a l l E u ropean

and Latin American countries, i n most of Africa, and i n large parts of Asi a , including
most of the M iddle East, soccer i s the single most popu lar sport for spectators and
practitioners a l ike. At a tra nsnation a l l evel , the game, its tournaments, the ra nking of
national teams. and so on are governed by F I FA ( Federation I nternationale de Footba l l
Association-a m ighty body o f global governance, b y t h e way ) . M o re t h a n 300,000
clubs with a ltogethe r 240 m i l l ion players are registered with F I FA .
Fol lowing Roland Robertson ( 1 992), one may s a y that globa l ization i nvolves a
heightened awa reness of the world as an i nterconnected place and that processes
of globalization tend to be met with glocal ization ( Robertson's term)-that is, local
adaptations of global trends. Both aspects of globa l ization are clearly present in the
soccer worl d : i nternational games, at the club or national team level, a re presti gious,
and fans are i ncreas ingly fa m i l iar with the soccer scene i n countries other than their
own . Yet, teams continue to be locally based a n d are associated with a home ground
a n d a team mythology. M a ny teams a re i nvested with political a n d cultural capital
extraneous to the game: The G lasgow Rangers i s a Protesta nt team , wh i l e Celtic
i s Catholic (and the tension between these Scottish teams i s p l ayed out between
Catholics and Protestants i n Belfast as wel l ) . Liverpool is associated with the working
class, Everton with the middle class. M atches between Barcelona and Real M adrid are
symbolic battles over Spanish politics-na mely, the tension between Catalonia and
the central power i n M adrid, with echoes that go back to the C ivil War and the Fascist
period, with Fra nco's power base mainly i n M adrid and some of the most fervent l eft
wing resistance based i n Cata lonia.
I n creasingly, soccer has become tra n s national i n two main ways . First, the number
of foreig n p l ayers on major teams has i ncreased steadi ly. I n its starting l i neup for the
201 3- 1 4 season, the London team Arsenal wo uld usually have between one and th ree
E nglish p l ayers (twenty years earlier, they had just one foreigner), and the Antwerp
team Beveren reached the Belgian cup final in 2 004 with a tea m composed a lmost
entirely of players from the Ivory Coast !
Even the changing face of nations in an era of transnational m i g ration i s i l lustrated
in soccer. The French national team that won the 1 998 World Cup was led by Z i nedi ne
Zidane, a player of Algerian origin, and the tea m was denounced by the right-wing
nationa list leader Jean-Ma ri e l e Pen as " not a rea l French tea m :· Another exa m p l e i s
t h e N igerian stri ker Emmanuel O l isadebe, w h o performed so wel l i n the Pol ish league
i n 2000 that h e was fast-tracked for citizenship to strengthen the Polish national team ,
where h e played d u r i n g t h e 2 002 World Cup. Although O l isadebe remai ns a Pol is h
citizen, he wou l d play for a number o f c l u b s i n several countri es until h i s reti rement i n
201 2 .
Fan bases are increasingly becoming tra nsnational as wel l . Several English soccer
clubs have fa r more registered fans in N orway than even the most popular domestic
clubs. Expensive merchandise, ranging from s h irts to bed linen and curta i n s, is sold
worldwide . Some of the richest clubs, l i ke Real M adrid, Barcelona, Bayern M O nchen,
a n d M anchester U n ited, can i ndeed be seen as transnational corporations selling
goods to fans a l l over the world. There is a strong gloca l element here, i n that su pporter
cultu re carries different cultura l con notations in different localities. Tottenham H otspur
is not a ssociated with the Jewish commu nity of North London outside the U K, nor
do most Man U s upporters i n Japan relate to the club's h i story, but they a re more
i nterested in its current stars.
Being a soccer s upporte r has become more complicated and reflects the
i ntercon nectedness and emerg i n g complexity of the contemporary wo rld. Before
the 2006 World C u p , I discovered that my son (who was then n i n e ) d i sapproved
of the Swed ish stri ker Zlatan l brahi movic. I a s ked if it had a nything to do with the
Swedes as such (there has been friendly riva l ry between Sweden and N o r way for
many yea rs, not l east i n sport) or with Z lata n's controversial personal ity. I ruled out
the pos s i b i l ity that the a n i mosity had anyth i n g to do with Zlatan's Yugoslav origins,
as my son was too young to have developed xenophobic prej udices. Eventual ly, it
turned out that the problem was that Zlatan played for J uventu s, a tea m my son
d i s l i ked. As a fa ithful Arsenal fa n , he s upported France i n the 2006 World Cup, si nce
Ars e n a l 's star player Thierry H e n ry had a pivotal place i n the French squad.
A factor that should not be underestimated i n an analys is of the evo l ution of
soccer as a global lang uage is the procu rement of global TV rights and the g rowi ng
internationalization of the fan base. The rou g h ly half a m i l l ion people who phys ically
turn up at stadi u ms in E ngland and Wal es every weekend to watch the Premier League
are i ncreasi ngly becoming stage props, creating ambience and atmosphere for the
real su pporters, who watch the games on a pay channel somewhere i n the world,
thereby generati ng i mportant revenue for the clubs and-not least-for the owner
of the excl u sive TV rights, the Australian media magnate Rupert M u rdoch, who has
controlled Premier League rights s i nce its i n ception in 1 99 2 . M atches, which u sed to
be played exclusively on Saturday afternoons, have now been spread out over several
days in order to generate max i m u m revenue from the TV rights. On a varying scale (but
no other league matches the E nglish one i n this respect). similar a rra ngements have
been made in other countries. Even in peripheral N orway, not exactly a superpower i n
t h e world o f soccer, match schedules i n t h e domestic elite division have b e e n adjusted
to suit the demands of the owners of television rights .
The organization of soccer today involves many cross-cutti ng ties of loyalty,
deterritorial ized fa ndom, and global governance (with considerable democratic deficit) .
but its global dimension is l i m ited, as pointed out by McGovern (2002). The flow of
players between cou ntries is far from completely global and deterritorialized; most of it
takes place between metropol itan countries and ex-colonies or with i n a region sharing
many cu ltura l characteristics, such as northern E u rope. C l ubs remain attached to a
semisacred place (the home ground) and ten d to be domestica lly owned (with some
much-publ icized exceptions).
Soccer also exempl ifies economic globalizatio n . As much as 60 percent of a l l leather
soccer balls are hand-stitched in the city of Sialkot. northeastern Pa kista n . The workers
earn, on an average, the equ iva lent to $ 1 ,000 a year, twice the average wage in the
country. Some of the soccer balls can cost up to $ 1 50 apiece in E u rope . I ron ical ly,
cricket-addicted Pa kistan is one of the countries where soccer is not a major sport.
C O N N ECTI O N S 93
A n a rc h ist C o n nec t i v i t y i n E a r l y G l o b a l i za t i o n
B
enedict Anderson, best known for h i s i nfluentia l book o n the g rowth of nationalism,
Imagined Communities ( 1 99 1 ( 1 983]), has more recently published a book about
"anarchism and the post-colonial imagination;· which he describes as an essay on
"early globalization" (2006: back cover).
Set in the Philippines of the late nineteenth century, Anderson's book describes
the growth and indeed the invention of the Filipino nation, focusing on the role of a
handful of intellectuals-the novelist Jose Rizal, the folklorist a nd journalist lsabelo de
los Reyes, the political leader Mariano Ponce, and a few others.
This was the era of the steamship and the intercontinental telegraph, a period that
must have appeared dizzyingly novel, with fast communications and a shrunken planet.
Anderson describes how the Filipino intellectuals were crucially influenced by events
elsewhere in the world and how their personal networks covered most of the planet.
Taking courage from the insurgencies of Cuba (another Spanish colony), Filipinos rebelled
unsuccessfully against Spanish rule; they learned from anarchists in France, syndicalists
in Spain, humanist scholars in Germany, nationalists in China, and modernizers in Japan.
They were cosmopolitan in their outlook and transnational in their networks.
An obvious question, which can be raised in connection with Anderson's book,
is what has changed? In what important ways is our period of globalization a nd
transnationalism distinctive and different from the late nineteenth century, which was
a lso a period of powerful nationalist ideology, capital ist expansion, and technological
innovations?
One striking difference is to do with language. The Filipino intellectuals described
by Anderson (2006: 5) corresponded i n many languages, since-as the author puts
it-there was no " ugly, commercially debased ' international language' " ava i lable at
the time. Another difference is to do with speed-travel from the Far East to E u rope
still took weeks. A third difference is that capitalism, while a l ready hegemonic, was
far less widespread then than it is now. Yet, at the same time, many of the social and
cultural dimensions we associate with globalization today were a l ready i n place, in
embryonic form, then, a nd this is Anderson's point. French ideas could be borrowed
and transplanted i nstantly to East Asia, local ways of life could be compared to l ife
elsewhere through a growing scholarly literature, and a global consciousness about
political change and human rights was spreading in E u rope and the colonies. There
was disembedding, movement, interconnectedness, acceleration, a nd mixing-not
to the same degree as now, but Anderson's book is stil l a reminder that contemporary
globalization has been under way for quite some time, a nd that it may well be seen
as an integra l a spect of modernity as such .
Del i n ki ng, C hosen, and Enfo rced
As many w riters on globalization have noted, o n e p a rticula rly visible feature of it is

the emergence of strong local ist a n d traditionalist i dentities. The tension between a
borderless global network society on the one hand a n d fervent isolationism on the
other i s l i ke flypaper for journa l i sts a n d scholars, a n d book titles l i ke The World is Flat
( Friedman 2005) and Jihad vs. Mc World ( Ba rber 1 995) may wel l prove to be i rresistible
when the browsing customer i n a n a i rport bookshop stum bles across them. There
is a s i mple but productive dial ectic to be identified here: The tra nsnational network
economy and its cu ltu ra l correlates create opportu nities for some and powerlessness
for others. French filmmake rs are unhappy with H o l lywood's global dominance (which
is, i ncidental ly, somewhat l ess total than often assumed). pious Muslims a re un happy
with permissive i mages from cable TV and from the London and Paris streets they
wa l ked as students, Scandinavians worry about the future of their welfare state i n
a situatio n o f global economic competition and increased migration, and i ndigenous
leaders worldwide a re concerned with how to retain a way of l ife and a cultu re that at
least embodies a few central features of their tradition while simultaneously benefiti ng
from modern ity. G lobal capita l ism, or neol ibera l i sm, it i s often said, produces both
losers and winners, both poverty and wealth, a n d it tends to i n crease i nequal ities .
It could be added that even in the cases where capita l i s m does provide i ncreased
(measurable) wealth, it can a lso produce poverty at the cu ltu ral or spiritual leve l . " We
have everything now, but that is a l l we have:' l aments the popu lar folk singer Ole Pau s ,
w h o l ives i n a leafy Oslo s u b u r b where everybody i s wi red i n every conceivable way
but few know their neighbors and even fewer have the time to read Dostoyevs ky,
being too busy with their Facebook status updates, tweets, and med i a consumption.
Countermovements against the limitless standardization and homogen ization
seemingly resulting from g l oba l ization can thus be founded in a variety of motivations,
but a l l of them a re to do with autonomy at the personal or commu n ity leve l . I shall
have much more to say about this i n later chapters, but at this point, we should note
that globa l ization, even when met with l ittle or no resistance, can usually be described
as g loca lization : the preex isting local i s fused with globa l i nfluence; the particu lar
merges with the u n iversa l to create something true to the universal grammar of global
modernity but at the same ti me i s locally embedded. Even the transnational trademark
of Manchester U n ited i s i rreducibly connected to the physical city of Manchester and
the lore s u rrou nding Old Trafford Stadium, and it is totally u n l i kely that the trademark
would have su rvived a move to, say, New York City or B russels.
Possibly beca use most of the l iterature concentrates on the people who are actively
part of the process, who ma ke their i mprint and contribute to shaping the economy,
pol itics, a n d cu lture of the planet, a huge part of the world's populati on is plainly left
out of most globalization studies. I have s l u m dwel lers in mind, those fast growi ng
populations largely comprising of people who have moved from rura l areas because
l ife was no l onger susta i nable there.
To what extent urban slum growth i s a di rect result of globa lization i s debatable.
Depletion of agricultu ra l land combined with population growth i s one way of describing
it. O n the other hand, the neol ibera l deregu lation of nati onal economies (which often
have followed the advice of the I M F and reduced the public sector dramatica lly) has
made millions superfl uous i n the labor force. M echanization and i nformatization reduces
the need for manpower i n the economy, and few states i n the Thi rd World have policies
effectively preventing s l u m growth. At the same time, perhaps paradoxical ly, some
CONNECTIONS 95
slums grow precisely because of the need for labor. not least i n industrializing C h ina,
where workers' salaries may be extremely low, making l ife in i nformal housing the only
viable option. M i ke Davis (2006) presents some thought-provoking figures.
A World of S l u m s
Around 2007, for the fi rst time i n human history, there were more u rban than rural
people i n the world, and most of the u rban g rowth had taken place i n poor countries .
Cities in the rich countries grow somewhat, but i n a slow and fa irly controlled way.
The growth in poor cities lacks historica l precedent Between 1 800 and 1 9 1 0 , the
populati on of London grew by a factor of seven. This sounds dramatic, but in a much
shorter period-from 1 950 to 2000-the population i n cities l i ke Dha ka, Kinshasa. and
Lagos has increased forty times !
Buenos Ai res and R i o de Janeiro were large cities a l ready in the mid-twentieth
century, with 4.6 and 3 m i l l ion i n habitants, respectively. In 2 006, both had around
1 2 m i l l ion inhabitants. Cairo has grown, i n the same period, from 2.4 to 1 5 m i l lion,
Delhi from 1 .4 to more than 18 million, Seoul from 1 to 22 m i l l ion . African cities l i ke
N ouakchott and M ogad i s h u , which were just oases or trad i n g posts a few decades
ago, are now home to m i l lions. The Congolese city M b uii-Mayi has grown from next to
noth ing to 2 m i l lion s ince the m id-1 990s. U rban s l u ms emerge, especially i n C h i na and
parts of Africa, i n areas where there were i n itially no u rban settlement at a ll-gigantic
s l ums without a city proper. In Kenya, 85 percent of the population g rowth now takes
place in the seething s l u m s of N a i robi and M ombasa.
Cert a i n a reas a re about to g row i nto e n o r m o u s , conti n u o u s sett l e m e nts of
cardboard and corrugated iron, with m i llions upon m i l l ions of i n habitants-seen by
the authorities a s human driftwood-but with l ittle by way of plumbing, electricity, or
police protectio n . Davis (2006) mentions the five-h undred-kilometer stretch from Rio
to Sao Paolo (pop. thirty-seven million), the central Mexican highlands around M exico
City (estimated to conta i n half of M exico's population by 2050), pa rts of C h ina, and the
coastal strip from Benin C ity via Lagos to Accra, which i s predicted. i n a few years'
time, to conta i n the largest concentration of poverty in the world.
Peopl e move to town for a variety of reasons. Traditional ly, a main cause, o r cl uster
of causes, has been a combination of relative overpopulation i n rural areas and
possibil ities for work. The bright l i g hts perspective also had its supporters-people l eft
boredom, or so they bel ieved, for excitement. S uch explanations may stil l hold true i n
parts o f C h i n a a n d I nd i a , b u t not i n Africa or Latin America, where u rban economies
have, i n fact, been i n decline during the last decades. at the same time as the u rban
population has doubled several times . An explanation would have to take i nto account
factors such a s war and depleted resources as a result of population growth or ruth less
modernization (the construction of motorways and resorts for the rich. etc . ) , along with
a dream of prosperity and work, which becomes i ncreas i ngly u nrea l istic as the years
go by.
The main headache for government and comfortably-off people concerns how to
control and conta in the slum population i n order to prevent them from spreading, with
their rags and stink, i nto prosperous quarters and commercial centers. In many col onial
cities. h i g h-ranking m i l itary officers, apparatchi ks , pol iti cians. and businessmen have
joi ned expatriates from rich countries in taking over the lush residential a reas left by the
colonials. I ncreasingly, s uch suburbs of affluence and fresh ness are becoming gated
com mun ities where nobody is a l l owed to enter without permission. In parts of Cape
Town, electrical fences have now replaced h u man guards. New forms of apartheid-like
excl usion develop as a result of rich people's wish to be left a lone with their wealth .
They have effectively divorced themselves from greater society in thei r cosmopolitan,
trans national homes.
H ow do slum dwel lers su rvive at all, given that only a m i n uscule mi nority have
formal work? The answer is the " informal secto r " (a term coi ned by Hart 1 973)-that
is, un registered economic activity. Some make a living by selling each other services,
from haircuts and sex to transport and protection ; some run l i ttle workshops producing
tourist tri n kets-or they sell cheap goods made i n China; some grow cannabis or d i still
alcohol; and some m a ke a l iving from the rubbish of the rich, be it old furn iture or edible
th ings. M a ny, not least of a l l chi ldren, a re i nformally employed by large enterprises.
They s u rvive, but j ust barely.
The distance between life i n the sl ums and the rich suburbs grows. The rich have
their health centers and s hopping ma lls, their fast-food restaurants and private schools
(in R itzer's terms, they have an abundance of noth i n g , but try to say that to a slum
dwel ler), and i n the weekends, they can whisk out to their cou ntry houses or resorts
on new highways, which are built on land that would formerly have been used for
other purposes. They are the beneficia ries of a globalization and a sta ndard ization of
lifestyles, wh ich l iberates them from the poor in their own countries, connected as
they are to the rich world through n umerous bridgeheads and networks. In substantial
parts of the G lobal South, certa i n ly i n large parts of Africa. it now appears that nation
building and development for the whole people was someth ing one tried to ach i eve in
the twentieth century, a project now abandoned.
Connected ness and Disj u n ctures
Both at the i ndividual level and at the macro level of states, the degree of
interconnectedness u s u a l l y measures t h e degree o f success. T h i s i s what counts i n
t h e network society. Few i ndividuals w h o a r e never sought after either online or by
telephone, who rarely leave home, and who don't know anyone beyond a rad i us of five
m i nutes' wal king d i stance, are successful and thriving i n this society. About states,
it ca n be said with even greater confidence that no isolated state i s successful in
providing material security for its i nhabitants or offering them civil rights and personal
CONN ECTIONS 97
freedom. The degree of connectedness. a n d the reach of the con nections. indicates
the degree of participation in all k i n ds of contexts. Vol u n tary deli n ki n g at the individual
level i s a luxury i ndicati n g affl uence ; at the level of the state. it is always selective.
never comprehensive .
I nterconnectedness is. thus. both a central feature of globalization and a way of
measuri ng success in a globalized society. It is beyond doubt that the scope and compass
of conn ections. wh ich are often deterritorialized a n d tra ns national, are characteristic of
the present era; a nother questio n . more difficult to a nswer. is whether conn ectedness
has been s i m i larly valued in ea rlier periods ? The a nswer seems to be that at the
i n d ividual level , wide-ra n g i n g personal n etworks and m utua l ties of obligation wo uld
mainly be a n asset-not least for people e ngaged in trade and pol itics. At the societal
level. trade and ope n n ess to the world would also be profitable in most cases, but not
always. In a seminal paper on some of the dimensions of g l obal ization . the anthropologist
Arj u n Appadu ra i ( 1 990) argues that the g l obal izatio n processes a re " disjunctive" i n that
they move along different axes and with d ifferent ends. He disti n g u i s hes between
ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes. finanscapes, a n d i deoscapes as five
relatively separate fields affected by, and a ffect i n g , globalizatio n . Appadurai argues that
global flows take place through these five disti n ctive d i me n s io n s , wh ich collide and
e nter i nto conflict with one a n other. The degree of tra ns national i ntercon n ectedn ess
varies along s uch dimensions (a country may be f i n a ncially transnational. but eth n ical ly
parochial. for example). so that i n tercon n ectedness is rarely an either-or issue but a
q uestio n that n eeds a more cons idered a nswer: What kind of i nterconnectedn ess
is u nder i nvestigation, what i s the u nderlying motivation. and what are the social
consequences? I ndividuals, grou ps. and states have restrictions i m posed on their
con nections with the outside world. deliberately o r not. These restrictions are often
associated with the movement of goods a n d people, to which we now turn .
• Through trade. communication. and movement. most of the world is i ncreasingly

i nterconnected, with political, economic, and cultural consequences.
• Economic i nterconnectedness develops not only through h uge transnational corpo
rations but also in small and medium-scale enterprises spreading their assets. i nvest
ments. and col laboration i nternationally.
• Technological intercon nectedness through I CT (information and commun ications
technology), for example. does not necessarily mean enhanced i nteraction; for ex
ample. local languages often predominate.
• Mass migration has led to new patterns of transnational interconnectedness. linking
people i nterpersonally. often through kinsh ip, across continents.
• The growth of the N G O system indicates an i ncreased i nterdependence and integra
tion of a different kind from the economic and tech nological con nectedness.
Q u e st i o n s
• What i s methodolog ical nationalism? What are the a lternatives ?

• What are the main objections, among the critics of global ization theory, agai nst
the view that the world is becoming ever more i ntercon n ected and i ntegrated?
Do you have any to add yourself?
• Does the tran snationalization of economic power through large corporations lead
to a cha nge in the g lobal power relations? Are there any indications that s uch a
change may come about soo n ? And wh ich areas are lagging behind?
• Present the main arguments in favor of and against global governance. What is
you r view?
• I n what ways do transnational media e n ha nce a subjective sense of g lobal ization?
G ive examples from sports, news, and entertain ment, and, if possib le,
counterexamples.
• Contrast chosen and enforced deli n king from global i ntercon nectedness. Do they
have a nything in commo n ?
Appadura i , Arjun ( 1 996) Modernity a t Large. M i n neapolis: U niversity of M i n nesota

Press. An i nflue ntial a nthropologist looks at g lobalization , identifying themes and
methods appropriate for anth ropology a nd arguing throughout that g lobalization
creates ten sion and uneven ness, far from being a sou rce of homogenizatio n .
Mathews, Gordon, G u stavo L i n s R i beiro, and Carlos Alba Vega, eds. (201 2)
Globalization from Below: The World's Other Economy. London: Routledge.
Focusing almost exclusively o n the flow of goods from China through i nformal
chan nels to sites ranging from Mexico to Egypt and I ndia, this book reveals much
of what goes o n behind the curta ins of formal global ization .
Scholte, J a n Aart, e d . (201 1 ) Building Global Democracy? Civil Society and
Accountable Global Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge U niversity Press . An
excellent collection of essays examining the importance and i nfluence of formal
transnational bodies of governance, ranging from the INTO to the GS meeti ngs
and the Organization of the I slamic Conference.
5
M o b i l ity
Nowadays we are all on the move.

-ZYG M U NT BAU MAN, GLOBALIZATION-THE HUMAN CONSEQUENCES, 77
Globalization does not just en tail the accelerated transportation of goods, ideas, and
technologies. People, too, are capable of moving faster and more comfortably than
before. (Until the nineteenth century, all overland travel was de facto outdoors.) The
different forms of mobility and transnational movement demonstrate differences in
power structures between regions and countries better than most other aspects of
globalization. The tourist, the foreign student, or the conference participant moves with
much greater ease and with a different purpose to the refugee from a war-torn country,
the young man desperate for work, the domestic servant, or the sex worker. The
creation of internal markets facilitating mobility within regions such as the European
Union enhances the mobility of those inside but may exclude those outside in efficient
and telling ways. Just as mobility can be chosen or enforced, so can immobility.
I
n the town of Garachico, Tenerife, a monument to the emigrant has been erected.
Faci ng the Atlantic Ocea n , it depicts a man with a su itcase looking out to sea ,
knowing that he will l eave his home i n search of a better l ife in a foreign land. H owever,
there i s someth ing conspicuously missing i n the sculpture Where the man's heart
should have been , there is instead a hole.
Tenerife, and the Canary Islands more genera l ly, have been transit ports for
centu ries . Columbus and other early explorers in the Americas would stop there en
route to replenish supplies During the period of the Franco d ictatorsh i p ( 1 936-75),
many Spaniards fleeing the reg i me to settle i n Lati n America left via the Canary I slands,
and the monument i n Garachico was, perhaps, erected to commemorate the many
thousands who fled from Fascism.
I n the 2000s, the Ca nary Islands have been the site of three different forms of
mobility and migration . First, thousands of northern E u ropeans are moving, seasona l ly
or permanently, to the ba l my cli mate and high qual ity of life in the Canaries. They buy
terraced flats and make the islands their new home, often living off state pensions or
savi ngs. Second, the people i nvolved i n building these terraced flats and providing other
kinds of services, from cleaning to waiting tables, are often foreigners, from orig i ns
ra nging from Venezuela and Ecuador to Poland and Romania . Their project consi sts
in i mproving thei r l i ves and perhaps giving their children i mproved prospects . (The
economic crisis in Spain has led many of them to return more recently, sometimes
joined by Spanish em igrants 1 )
The third kind of migration origi nates i n Africa . Boats, often rusty and dila pidated,
regularly depart from Dakar or Nouachott, literally filled to the brim with prospective
refugees, who have sold everything they have, and often borrowed money in additio n ,
in order t o g e t i nto t h e E u ropean U nion. W h i l e t h e northern Europeans have left their
home i n order to do as little as possible, and the migrant workers have arrived to
improve their lot, the African refugees have left their previous lives behind in order
to be able to support their fam i l ies at home. The vast majority are returned uncere
moniously. The passage, by the way, costs a round € 1 , 000 ($1 ,300), roughly the same
price as a northern E u ropea n tourist would pay for a two-week holiday at one of
Tenerife's best hotels, flight i ncluded.
The j uxta position of these three categories of migra nts tells us someth i ng about
the extent of mobil ity i n the contemporary world , but perhaps more importantly, about
the kind of world in which we l ive and its unequal distribution of opportun ities . And yet
all kinds of stories exist about migration, not least from the G lobal South. Tracing the
iti neraries of the people who used to l ive i n his Kumasi (Ghana) neighborhood when he
was a ch i l d , the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appia h observe s :
E d d i e , from across t h e street, w h o never fi n ished school, ca l l ed to w i s h me a Happy

New Year from Japa n ; Fra n kie, my cousin from next door to Eddie, l ives in England;
M rs Etfah sti l l l ives next door, but visits her ch i ldren i n the U n ited States; even my
mother and sister have moved across the city. (2003: 1 95 )
A s poi nted o u t b y Jan Aart Scholte ( 2 0 0 5 : 65), " methodologica l territorial i s m has had
a pervasive and deep hold on the conventions of social research; thus globalization
(when understood as the spread of supranationality) implies a major reorientation of
approach ."
Scholte, a political scientist. a rgues that researchers have tended to take territorial
units for granted i n their studies, seeing the world " through the lens of territorial
geography " (2005: 56), assuming that societies take a territorial form. Although Scholte
and others (e . g . , Marcus 1 998; U rry 2000) try to develop methodologies for the study of
nonterritoria l , or deterritorialized, phenomena-diasporic groups, tourism, the I nternet.
financial capital-they do not procla i m the end of territorial ity. Scholte stresses that
" the end of territoria l ism does not mean the 'end of territoria l ity ' " (2005: 76; ita l ics
M O B I L I TY 101
i n the ori g i n a l ) . However, i n an interconnected world, few territories can be merely

territories. and few if any territories can be bounded territories. They become territories
interl i n ked with and responding to processes ta king place far beyond their l i m its, and
therefore reterritorialization, the attempt to fix a n d stabi lize a place, a country, o r a
region, is itself a prod uct of its own dialectical negation-that, deterritorialization.
Although it sounds hyperbol i c to say that we a re a l l on the move, it is true i n several
senses that mobil ity i s characteristic of contemporary g loba l i zatio n . Tou rists, busi ness
and conference travelers, refugees a n d labor m igrants, students and seasonal
workers-there a re more of them than ever before. There is a sense i n which boundaries
that may have been considered firm a n d reliable i n the m i d-twentieth centu ry are
dissolvi n g . Anthropologists are no l ess u neasy than geographers when confronted
with the seemi ngly u n bo unded (or at l ea st u nevenly bounded) c u ltures of today, a n d
many follow t h e l e a d of Arj u n Appadu ra i ( 1 996), Ult H a n nerz ( 1 992), Jonathan Friedman
( 1 994) . M i chael Kearney ( 1 995), a n d others i n refashioning their concept of c u lture to
fit a more complex, i nterrelated, and paradoxical real ity. Sociologists conceptua lize a
" sociology of mobil ity " ( U rry 2000). and politica l scientists are b u sy discussi n g h u m a n
rights a n d tra n snational pol itics . Whethe r posterity will j udge these tendencies in
social theory a s fads or ripples or whether they constitute someth i n g l i ke a paradigm
sh ift i n the social sciences is too early to tel l . Less ris ky i s the assertion that mobility
has to be a key concept of global ization.
Fro m D i as p o ras to S u pe r- D iversity
U
nlike the situation in a city like London as late as around 1 990, when most
immigrants came from ex-colonies, the city's immigrants now truly come from
everywhere. Described as "the world in one city" (Vertovec 2007). London may be
exceptionally diverse regarding the breadth and numbers of its residents of foreign
origin, but the tendency described by Steven Vertovec with reference to London can
also be seen elsewhere in the world. While over 300 languages are now spoken in
London, which is an impressive n umber by any standard, as a matter of fact, 1 24
languages are spoken only in the southern Oslo suburb of Holmlia !
Foreigners resident in a country are classified according to their circumstances:
they are either refugees or economic immigrants, students or tourists, d iplomats or
spouses of citizens. In recent years, such classificatory schemes have increasingly
been seen as unsatisfactory. Contemporary flows of people into the great (and not so
great) cities of the world include people who cannot easily be classified as either this
or that: students who have stayed on, getting a boyfriend or girlfriend and a McJob,
tourists who forgot to return, Polish seasonal workers, legal or not visitors who are
neither q uite jobseekers nor exactly not jobseekers. There is an increased degree
of imagination in the current movement of people, from N igerian soccer players
and prostitutes to fake chemical engineers, young brides and grooms brought by
established immigrants from the home country, huge trade delegations, and northern
Europeans who settle seasonal ly i n the Mediterranean . I t i s sometimes said by

Lithuanians that cities like Vilnius and Kaunas are virtually emptied of people between
twenty and thirty-five in the summer months as they are all in the West working
or looking for work. In Poland, there has for years been a shortage of construction
workers, since many of them work semipermanently in Germany, Sweden, and other
high-salary countries-in most cases without being immigrants in those countries.
Vertovec notes that whereas most of the immigration into the UK before the 1 990s
was of Commonwealth origin (similarly, most immigration into France came from its
ex-colonies), immigrants now come from everywhere-rich, middle-income, and poor
countries. In London, there were in 2005 fifty nonindigenous nationalities numbering
more than ten thousand. The diversity is staggering and impossible to describe in
simplifying terms. Within each group, there i s great variation in people's immigration
status (some are refugees, some spouses, some students, some undocumented,
and so on), their educational level, and their way of integrating into British society. The
era of the settled , stable, spatially concentrated diasporic population-Bangladeshi i n
Tower Hamlets, Jamaicans i n B rixton-is gone. I n its stead, there i s now a dynamic,
forever changing ethnic mosaic in a city l i ke London, where some are there to stay,
others to commute, yet others to leave for greener pastures, or just home, wherever
that is. The new situation, familiar in many other cities as well, puts pressure on local
government to provide services adapted to a super-diverse and shifting situation with
extremely heterogeneous neighborhoods and hugely varied needs. There is a fleeting
and undefi ned quality to transnational migration these days, which is captured well
in Vertovec's term " super-diversity." As he concludes: " more people are now moving
from more places, through more places, to more places" (201 0: 86) .
Transnational Migration
M igration is o n e o f the central facts o f transnational processes (see Sch i ller e t a l . 1 992
for a pioneering contribution) . Those who trace g lobalization back to the beg i n n i ng of
the modern era (around 1 500-e . g . , Wal lerste i n 2004; Wolf 1 982) emphasize E u ropean
colonization of the N ew World and the Transatlantic slave trade a s constitutive
events. Those who go even further back ( e . g . , Chase-Du n n and Hall 1 997; C handa
2007; Friedman 1 994) stress not just large-scale trade and cu ltural sta ndardization as
featu res of the Roman E mpire but also the movement of people from Italy to the
Iberian Peninsula, Gaul, B ritannia, and elsewhere. This is also the case with respect to
premodern empi res outside E u rope, such as the Aztecs in M esoamerica and the Han
i n China.
Large-scale immigration has been the norm i n the Americas and Austra l ia for
centuries, and i n cou ntries where the vast majority of the population are descendants
of immi grants, public opinion and pol icy regarding immigration is bound to differ
somewhat from the E u ropea n countries, where modern mass i m m igration is a recent
phenomenon, which continues to stir up controversy. Nevertheless, i m migration
M O B I L I TY 103
i nto E u rope conti nues in s pite of economic uncertai nties (the E uro crisis a n d related
cha llenges) and political measures i n some cou ntries to reduce i m migrati o n . Some
countries are entirely reliable on labor migrants . In 2010, 90 percent of the labor force
in the U n ited Arab E m i rates was foreign, more than 80 percent in Kuwait and Qatar
( Stand i n g 201 1 ). In the U n ited States, the m igrant share of the workforce went down
from 2 1 percent i n 1 9 1 0 to 5 percent in 1 970, but it rose again to 16 percent in 2 0 1 0
(Standing 201 1 : 9 0 ) .
Contempora ry globalization is characterized b y several streams o f people : a small
trickle of North Atlantic expatriates living temporarily or semi permanently i n the
South as d i plomats, businessmen, or aid workers, and more s u bstantial streams of
people from southern countries to other southern cou ntries ( South Africa is a magnet
i n southe rn-central Africa, many refugees l ive i n camps in the neighboring country,
M o rocco is a transit cou ntry for hundreds of thousands of s u b-Sahara n Africans
hoping to get i nto E urope, and so on) and from south to nort h . In the N ew World
countries of the U n ited States, Canada, and Australia, i m mi g ration has been seen
as a normal process s i nce their i nception a s settler societies. In Eu ropean countries,
the s ituation is different, and as should be wel l known, debates over m igration policy
and the i ntegration of i m m i g rants into the majority societies a re omni present and
cover everyth ing from i m migrants' voti ng patterns to gender roles, the sig n ificance of
rel igion (u sually Islam). and discr i m i nation i n the labor market.
It should be pointed out, though, that a lthough m i gration has changed the face of
Western cities i n recent decades, the proportion of m i g ra nts (people living outside their
cou ntry of b i rth) i s lower today than it was i n the early twentieth century. Although more
people, in absol ute n umbers, live outside their cou ntry of birth today than earl ier i n the
h istory of the state ( Papastergiadis 2000), only 3 percent of the world's population are
i m m igrants today, while the proportion i n 1 9 1 3 was around 1 0 percent (Cohen 2006;
I nternational O rga nization for M igration 201 3 ) . Yet, the numbers of people on the move
have been g rowing fast si nce the turn of the m i l l e n n i u m . O n ly in the U n ited States,
about a m i l l ion l egal migrants enter the cou ntry every year, and to this, another half a
m i l lion i rreg ular migra nts may perhaps be added.
M igration can be a n unsettl ing, confusing, and frustrating experien ce, especially if it
i s prompted by push factors rather than p u l l factors. I mmigrants are often ostracized by
the majority and den ied full civi l rights by govern ments. M a ny, perhaps most, belong to
the preca riat-that is, a precarious part of the labor force with l ittle job security. M a ny
respond through devi sing both local and transnational strategies strengthen i ng the
coherence of their local community and networks, often based on eth n i city or religion,
as well as their ties to the countries of orig i n . Remitta nces and telecommunications as
ways of mainta i n i n g mora l and economic ties have been d iscussed earlier; it should be
noted that migrant minorities pursue many other strategies as we l l . M any m i g ra nts in
E u rope reconnect with the homeland through marriage, usually by arranging to move
the spouse to the E u ropean country. Some send their children to school in the home
cou ntry for s horter o r longer periods. Yet others are involved i n long-distance pol itical
activities .
Transnational Con nections
Transnational connections among migrants a re often economica l ly important. A

study of Senegalese Wol of i n E mi l i a Romagna ( northern Italy) by B runo R i ccio ( 1 999)
demonstrates several important features of transnational entrepreneurship. Wolof are
traditiona l ly associated with trade in West Africa, and they have s uccessful ly adapted
their skills to function tra nsnational ly, spanning Senegalese and E u ropean markets i n
their busi ness flows . R i ccio argues that i n a manner s i m i lar to the Hausa o f I badan,
Wolof i n Italy are mora l ly and social ly bound by their al legiance to M us l i m brotherhoods
i n Senegal (the M o u ride), but he also poi nts out that without a strong orga nization of
Wolof wholesa lers based in Italy offeri ng not only goods but a l so trai n i n g of itinera nt
salesmen, the i ndividual Wolof peddler wou l d have been chanceless.
The Wolof trade system studied by Riccio functions i n both directions. Traders l ive
in Italy part of the year and in Senegal part of the year, and the goods offered for sale
in the Senegalese ma rkets range from hi-fi equipment and other electron i c goods to
the trader's own secondhand clothes. Although R iccio takes pains to describe the
variations i n the circumstances of migration, a n u nambiguous pattern emerges from
his material, which shows that Wolof migrants to Italy are positioned in I talian society
in a u n i que way, due to particular features of their cu ltural backg round and their local
orga n ization i n Senegal. Somewhat l i ke G ujerati traders i n postwar London (Tambs
Lyche 1 980), they d raw on preexisting social and cultural resou rces in developing their
economic n i che u nder new circu mstances.
As shown i n the previous chapter's discussion about g loba l i zation from below,
transnational microeconom ies have become very widespread d u ring the last decades,
and migration must i ncreasingly be envisioned as a tra nsnational venture rather than as
a one way process resulti ng i n segregati on, assimi lation, or integration i n the receivi ng
society. The economics of transnationa lism ca n be observed i n Congolese sapeurs
( Friedman 1 990) flaunting thei r wealth i n B razzav i l le fol lowi ng a frugal period of hard
work in Paris, in the i nformal hawala banking system whereby Soma l i refugees send
rem itta nces to relatives, i n the flow of goods i nto and out of i m migrant-owned shops
in any E u ropean city ( i ncreas i ng ly of Ch inese ori g i n ) , and most certai nly i n thousands
of local com m u n ities, from Kerala to Jama i ca, which benefit from the work of locals
working overseas . Seen from a g lobal structural perspective, this kind of tra nsnational
economics can easily be seen a s a vertical ethnic d ivision of labor whereby the
exploitative systems of colon ialism are conti nued; seen from the perspective of the
local com mun ity, it may equal ly wel l be seen as a much-needed source of wea lth,
and seen from the perspective of the i ndividual, it entails a new set of risks and
opportu n ities .
Many migrant popu lations are forced to establish webs of security and trust
i ndependently of the state in which they l ive, creating stable mi norities with d i stinct
identities. Thus, global ization and migration presents cha l lenges to the state from
with i n (see Barkan et a l . 2 008 for the U n ited States; Carmel et a l . 201 2 for E u rope). As
M O B I L I TY 105
cu ltural s i m i larity as a normative basis for society becomes u nreal i stic, social cohesion
at the l evel of the territorial state becomes less l i kely, and the normative a n d cultural
basis of the state needs to be redefi ned .
The heightened mobil ity enhanced by globa l i zation at the tech nological, socia l ,
cu ltural , a n d sometimes political l evel i s cou nteracted b y a renewed emphasis on
borders ( G reen and M a l m 201 3 ) . A sal ient aspect of m i gration, thus, i s border control .
T h e national borders o f rich countries a r e i ncreasingly becom ing militarized, physical
wal l s and fences are being ra ised l i ke the one a long the U . S .-Mexican border, and the
density of patrol boats and a rmed forces a long coastal borders i s growing (Aas 2007).
Simulta neously, prison populations i n the same countries are swe l l i n g with i m m igrants
and other foreigners . Beginning to resemble gated communities in more than one
respect, the rich countries try to stem a n d direct incoming tra n s national flows, sifting
" tourists " from " vagabonds;· to use Zygmunt Bauma n's ( 1 999) terms.
Outso u rcing the N ation-state?
Nation-states are often seen a s the victi m s of globa l ization , but they may sometimes
profit from it by deterritori a lizing some of their activities. Let me give a couple of
examples from the cou ntry where I l ive .
B its of Norway are being exported to places where it is more pleasant or i nteresti ng
to be. Students, pensioners , a n d various service providers migrate seasonal ly, some
perma nently, to more temperate places . The n u mbers of retired Norwegians who
spend pa rt of the yea r i n southern E u rope (with a particularly high density in the Costa
B l anca segment of the Spa n i s h coast) is ris i n g . They do not necessarily have any i nterest
in S pa i n as such and m a ke s u re to get their A ftenposten every morning, participate in
Norweg i a n cl ubs and orga n izati ons, get Norwegian n u rses a n d dentists to look after
the i r medi ca l needs, a n d have even s ucceeded in opening N orwegian schools in their
preferred a reas . N orwegi a n students, for their part, i nc reasingly do p a rt of their studies
i n other countries, Austral i a having been the country of preference for a number of
years-not because of the qual ity of the i r un iversities; Australian u n iversities a re , on
the whole, neither better nor worse than their Norwegian counterparts-but for other,
easily u nderstood reasons to do with cli mate, excitement. cultural s i m i larities, and
expectations of a higher qual ity of l ife. Some even bring their teachers and reading l i sts
with them ; on a few occasions, I have taught groups of youn g N orwegians a broad
Latin American history a n d globa l i zation in Cuba, cultu ra l p l u ra l i sm and eth n icity i n
I nd i a . These groups typically l eave Norway i n J a n u a r y a n d return i n late M ay for their
exams.
A different. but s i m i l a r phenomenon i s the transmigration engaged in by many
i m migra nts and their descenda nts to Norway. Spending part of the year i n their country
of origin if they have the chance, many immigrants have developed attach ments and
obligations towa rds two places i n d is parate countries, and it may wel l be a rgued
that certa in parts of Pa k i sta n i Punjab (notably the Kharian area) have been j ust as
Norwegian ized as the N orweg ian-dominated vil lages i n southern Spa i n .
A second, economically more i mportant k i n d o f outsou rcing consists i n making
others do the work. A rich country l i ke Norway rel ies i ncreasi ngly on foreigners doing
the work. J ust after the turn of the m i l l e n n i u m , shops around the country s uddenly
began to fill up with a l l kinds of goods; everything was rea lly cheap and it was a l l made
i n C h i n a . Simulta neous ly, growing n u mbers of temporary workers from Poland and the
Baltic states make major contributions to the economy-in Western E u rope, so many
Poles work i n construction that there i s a shortage of construction workers i n Poland,
where one now has to subcontract U kra inian entrepreneu rs to get bui ldings finished .
(One wonders what they w i l l eventually do in U kra ine; the a nswer is probably C h i nese
fi rms) .
These are some of the thi ngs a nation-state can use g loba l i zation for, without losing
its i nteg rity as a nation-state. The q uestion i s how long these kinds of processes ca n
go on before new, more complex allegiances are being forged.
The G rowth of To urism
The inhabita nts o f Norway i n 1 850 never went on holiday. Some o f the very rich went
on once-in-a-l ifetime tours of E u rope, some from the privi leged classes stu died i n
Copenhagen or Berl i n , and thousands o f sai lors travel led abroad because it was thei r
job. Half a century later, this began to change. The imported i dea of the seaside resort
materialized, and mountain trips dear to the emerging m iddle-class nationa l i s m began
to resemble tourism in the modern sense, featu ring the exotic (local peasants) and
the magnificent (the mounta i n s ) . Half a century later aga i n , the package trip to the
M ed iterranean was i ntroduced, but most Norwegians stil l spent their holidays (wh ich
they were now entitled to) at home or in another Scandinavian country.
Similar developments took place ea rlier in a few other countries, notably B ritai n ,
where forty-eight London coaches a day served the seaside i n B righton as early as
the s u mmer months of the 1 830s, and the package trip was invented by Thomas Cook
a l ready in 1 844. Nevertheless, the emergence of mass tourism has taken place and
has u nfolded fai rly synch ronically i n the rich cou ntries since the m id-twentieth centu ry.
Whereas my parents spent their s u m mer holidays in the family cottage or perhaps i n
neighboring Sweden or Denmark when they were young, I went to southern E u rope
with my friends on a n l nterra i l ticket, and the next generation would s i m i l a rly travel
to South America or Thailand. This i l l u strates the evo l ution of tou rism, from local to
regional to global, as it has u nfolded in most parts of the rich world.
The word tou rist was sti l l a recent i nvention i n the m id-n i n eteenth century. Due
to economic growth and technologica l cha nges (including, notably, cheap fl i ghts),
the tourist i n d ustry has grown steadily i n the last fifty years, making it the possibly
la rgest economic sector i n the world. By the m id-1 990s, 7 percent of the global
M O B I L I TY 107
workforce-around 230 m i l l ion people-were employed in touris m ( Lofgren 1 999: 6 ) .

B y 2 01 2 , tourist orga n i zati ons counted 1 .035 billion i nternational tourist arrivals world
wide, which i ndicates a perceptible g rowth only si nce 201 0, when the comparable
figure was 940 million. The M editerranean a rea, the most popular foreign destination
for northern E u ropeans, received about six m i l lion tou rists a n nually in 1 95 5 . In 2 01 1 ,
the number was 300 m i l lion (Lanquar 2 01 1 ) , and conti nued growth i s expected (un less
something u n expected happens, such as paleness becoming fashionable again
or rapid climate change making the heat u nbearable i n su m mer) . M any tourists i n
t h e Mediterra nean a rea, Orvar Lofgren comments ( 1 999: 1 87 ) , " have t o get used to
vacationing in an eternal construction s ite."
Similar statistics could be made for Florida, a malaria-ridden, poor, and thinly
popu lated state u ntil after the Second World War. Today, the state receives up to eighty
million tourist arrivals a year, and a pol l conducted in 201 1 indicated that 42 percent of
the residents of the northeastern states planned to visit Florida during the spring break .
H ow Am eri c a n i s G l o ba l i zat i o n ?
E
very country i n the world (with the l i kely exception of the United States) has its
own domestic debate about Americanization, and almost everywhere, the middle
classes and establishment media worry about it. They write and say that Hollywood
and American cable companies dominate on TV and in the cinema, that the fast
food giants invade and transform the national food culture, that American telecom
and computer corporations dictate the new media, that bad American pop music is
ubiquitous, and that transnational companies based in the United States dominate
the world economy.
To what extent are these assumptions correct? Take television first. It is true that
American soaps and sitcoms are broadcast in many countries, and C N N is ava ilable
i n an incredible number of hotel rooms. B ut the most popular TV programs are nearly
always locally produced. Besides, Mexican and B razilian soap operas ( telenovelas)
are more popular than the American ones in many countries, especially in the Third
World.
A similar statement could be made with respect to fast food. Yes, McDonald's
restaurants are astonishingly widespread, but they rarely have a market-dominant
position. In a city l i ke Avignon, there is one McDonald's and about two hundred other
restaurants and bars. In Japan, several chains, including Yoshinoya, which serves
traditional Japanese food, have more restaurants than McDonald's . McDonald's isn't
even the la rgest fast-food corporation in the world. That position is held by the British
corporation Compass, which owns B urger King, Sbarro, and other chains. Even
7-Eleven, that archetype of Americanization, is owned by a Japanese company.
What about American corporations? Don't they, at least, dominate the world? I n fact,
no. They dominate in the U nited States, but not many other places. Volkswagen sells
more cars in China than all the American car makers combined. Toyota is the number
three car maker in the United States, making one suspect that the N ipponization of
the U n ited States is more tangible than the American ization of Japa n !
On the other hand, a q uarter of the world's one hu ndred largest nonfinancial
enterprises are America n. Yet. most of them have their main assets in the United
States itself. Whereas the British telecom company Vodafone has 80 percent of its
assets overseas, the figure for McDonald's is only 40 percent.
In some areas, American companies domi nate the world economy. This is the
case with oil companies like Exxon, airplane factories like Boeing, and computing
companies like M icrosoft, Dell, and Apple. In the media and enterta inment world,
American giants like Time Warner and Disney retain a strong position, although Sony
may be the world's largest media company and the Dutch company Polygram the
largest music company.
G lobalization is, in other words, not Americanization, even if we restrict our scope
to consumer habits and economic flows. In some areas, the United States is, in fact.
less globalized than many other countries. Far fewer Americans than South Koreans
have I nternet at home. and regarding mobile telephony, the U n ited States has been
lagging behind for years. Americans travel far less abroad than Europeans-most
don't even have a passport-and the international standard meter of 1 889, described
in an earlier chapter, is stored safely in Sevres and is unlikely to cross the Atlantic any
time soon (Marling 2006).
Perspectives on Tourism
G lobal tou rism c a n b e i nterpreted a long several l i nes. O n e i s homogenization ,

i n d u stria l ization, and m a s s production a l o n g the l i nes described by G eorge Ritzer i n
The McOonaldization of Society ( 1 993). Leafi ng through t h e free catalogues distributed
by the large tour operators, it i s difficult to notice where the Span ish section ends
and the Brazi l ia n section begi n s . There i s a global grammar of package tourism, which
enta i l s that tou rist desti nations have to conform to a m i n imal set of requ i rements . If the
desti nation is of the sun and sand type, n ightcl ubs, s norkel ing trips, air conditioning,
swi mming pools, playgrounds, and cha rm i n g , open-a i r markets are de rig u e u r. Food
is e ither i nternational or modified loca l . Ten n is courts and m i n i golf are u b i q u itous. If
the destination is a city, standardized sights (the Rijksm useum, the Sacre Cceur, the
Tower of London) are featured along with advice on shopping opportu nities. H otels a re
classified according to an i nternational ra nking syste m .
Another perspective on gl obal tourism wou l d emphasize its glocal d i mension,
blending local cu lture, food, and music with the common denomi nators req u i red by
the global grammar of touris m . Toi l ets and bathrooms, the tourist staff's language
skills, and food preparation. to mention a few dimensions. cannot be tampered with
too much with i n this grammar, wh ich ensures that any tou rist destination should in
principle be accessible to middle-class travelers from anywhere. H owever. local flavor
is someti mes considerable and is indeed often a ma i n attracti o n . Along the lush and
M O B I L I TY 109
picturesque G udbrandsdal val l ey of central-southern Norway, n u merous converted

farms and newly b u i lt g uesthouses in an old-fash ioned style are cali brated to attract
tourists (many of them Norwegian-Americans) in sea rch of the a uthentic. Staff a re paid
to wear traditional ist clothes, to serve dishes rarely seen on N orweg ian dinner tables,
and to perform fiddle music. In genera l , the c ultural d i mension of tourism has become
more and more pronounced as the n umber of tourists g rows and their i nterests
diversify. The fol klore show has becom e a staple in many exotic tourist locations, and
i n some areas (e . g . , South Africa and I ndonesia), cu ltura l tourism to real vil lages or real
townships has become an i mportant source of i ncome to people living there. In many
parts of the world, eth n i c groups have to some extent redefi ned themselves from
being pol itical i nterest groups to offering a uthentic cu lture for tourists (Comaroff and
Comaroff 2009) through a process that could be ca l led the commercial izati on (or even
touristification) of identity.
Tou rist desti nations a re at least two places at one and the same time: A holiday
destination and a local com m un ity. People from Benidorm l ive in a Spanish town, while
tou rists are on hol iday i n southern E u rope, a place with totally different con notations.
Residents of D ubrovnik, Croatia, complain about the feeling of living i n a museum. In
many popular tourist destinations, not least i n the M editerranean, loca l s are shocked and
outraged at what they see as a hedon i stic cu lture of permissiveness, especially a mong
the you n g vacationers, coming from northern E u rope. A colleague i n Cyprus was visi bly
rel ieved, but also expressed concern , when I told him that the young Scandi navians
who engage routinely in casual sex and take recreational drugs i n the clubs dotting the
island's southern coast wou l d never dare to behave i n the same way at home.
As always, there a re exceptions to this rule. Ca ncun, on the Ca ribbea n M aya coast
of M exico, was nonexi stent a s late as the mid- 1 970s. At the latest count in 201 3, it had
about 630,000 i n habitants, virtua l ly all of whom are employed d i rectly or indirectly in
the tourism industry. It i s a p lace with no h istory and no establi shed collective identity,
constructed beca use of the need among U . S. tour operators to find a new appropriate
destination-Florida was filling up-fo u r hours or less by plane from the main U . S.
cities. (Slightly south of Cancun, a town apparently designed for E u ropean touri sts was
developed-namely, Playa del Carmen, with smaller hotels, less traffic, and pedestrian
streets with quaint s hops and s idewa l k cafes.)
The tourist, as descri bed by U rry ( 1 990) and Lofgren ( 1 999), i s a s ki l led vacationer
who knows the cu ltura l codes and rules regulating the role of the tourist. H owever,
touris m has diversified, and today it wou l d probably be correct to speak of a p l u ral ity
of tou rism s . Antitourism of the generic backpacker kind, for example, has been
institutiona lized and standardized for decades, so that popular a lternative travel
g u idebooks, l i ke the Lonely Planet and Rough G uide series, can be bought in every
airport or bookshop, giving sound advice as to which local bus to take to see temples
off the beaten track and wh ich guesthouses to avoid because staff tends to steal from
the guests . In recent years, the website TripAdvisor, featu ring a uthentic reviews of
hotels, sights, and sites by real tou rists, has become establ ished a s a supplement, or
perhaps competitor, to the printed o r app-based g u ides .
T h e Tourist a n d t h e Refugee
Tourism enta ils leisure and easy, laid-back consumption. Adrian Franklin (20 04) has
suggested that city centers are, i n the early twenty-fi rst century, being redesigned i n
order t o enable people t o b e " tourists a t ho me;· with a prol iferation o f sleek b u i ldings,
coffee-bars, riverside or seaside promenades l i ned with restaurants, and so o n . Scott
Lash and John U rry ( 1 993: 2 58) also suggested, writing i n a period (the early 1 990s)
when many inner cities that had fallen i nto decay-owing largely to the u n i ntentional
effects of the ca r-were being refu rbished and tu rned i nto commercially viable
places, that whereas some tourists m a ke a n effort to m i n gle with the locals, many
loca l residents behave l i ke tou rists in using tourist faci l ities i n their own cou ntries .
I n deeply class-divided societies, tourist areas may need to be phys i ca l ly closed off
from the rest of society for the sake of security and i n order to avoi d friction . The
beaches in Jamaica's M ontego Bay are patrolled by armed guards, as is the Cape Town
waterfront.
Bauman phrases an important difference l i ke this: "One difference between those
' h igh up' and those ' low down' is that the fi rst may leave the second behi nd-but
not vice vers a " ( 1 999: 86) . Although most people i n the world continue to lead the
majority of their l ives near the p lace where they grew up, some are free to travel
on vacation (or busi ness ) , wh ile others are forced to leave their homes as refugees
or economic m igra nts. Accordi n g to figures from the I O M ( I nternati ona l O rganization
for M igration), there were 2 1 4 m i l l ion international migrants in 201 2 . To this may be
added tens of m i l lions of i nternal migra nts, not least i n populous countries l i ke China
and I ndia. According to the U N H C R ( U n ited Nations High Comm i ssion for Refugees ) ,
t h e n u mber o f forcibly d isplaced persons worldwide reached 42 million i n 2 0 1 1 . M ost
of them l ive in a neighboring country, and the la rgest recipient cou ntry in 201 1 was
Pa kistan, hosti n g 1 . 7 m i l l ion refugees, nearly all from Afghan ista n . N u mber two was,
perhaps surprisi ngly, I ra n , which hosted 886, 000 refugees, again nearly exclusively
from neighboring Afghanista n .
The contrast between the tou rist a n d the refugee is sta rk. The tourist can travel
anywhere or almost a nywhere with a m i n i m u m of friction; the refugee is i nterrogated
at every i nternational border and is l i kely to be turned away. The tourist moves in a th i rd
cultu re where everybody has a s mattering of English and can easily buy everything
he needs . The refugee i s usually penni less and dependent on charity and often
encou nters serious problems of u nderstanding with the locals due to lack of a shared
language. The tou rist, of course, is free to leave any moment, wh i l e the refugee is
ordered back and forth . Tel l i ngly, the tourist, always short of time at home, makes a
virtue of reducing h i s or her speed and l i m iting the daily activities while on vacatio n ;
t h e refugee's life, however, i s full o f s low, empty t i m e where noth i ng happen s . Both
exempl ify the predomi nance of movement in the contemporary world, and between
them, the refugee and the tourist give an accurate depiction of the uneven d i stribution
of resou rces i n the g l obalized worl d .
M O B I L I TY 111
Long-distance N ationalism
The " multiple identities that arise from g loba l ization, especially as more a n d more
people live i n more than one country " (Castles and Davidson 2000: 87) often result i n
hyphenated i dentities, which have been especially pronounced i n the New World . O n a
visit to Ca nada many years ago, I noticed that my Canadian friends spoke of each other
a s " U krai n ian," " Portuguese;· and so on. This was not meant to question their national
loyalty, but ind i cated something about origins and networks. The i r Canadianness was
ta ken for granted; the predicate before the impl icit hyphen suggested, if anyth ing, that
havi ng a m i xed identity was legiti mate .
For decades, it was believed i n North America that i m m i grant m i norities would
generally become assimi lated, that their markers of difference wou l d gradually
fade away. At least this was assu med to be the case of immigra nts with E u ropean
origins; with people of nonstandard appearance (blacks, Lati n Americans, Asians), it
was another story. Nonetheless, si nce the 1 960s, social scientists and others have
discovered that eth n i c and national identities did not van i s h-indeed, that they were i n
s o m e cases strengthened. Even thi rd- and fourth-generation I ri s h or Danes considered
themselves somehow a s Irish and Danes, often even without having visited the
cou ntry of their a n cestors. Although they became culturally assimi lated , the i dentity
remained attached to ori g i n s .
Benedict Anderson ( 1 992) coi ned t h e term " long-d i stance nationa lism " t o descri be
some political impl ications of conti nued al legiance to a cou ntry, or region, where
one either no longer l ives or indeed has never l ived . Some of the older minorities i n
t h e U n ited States, such as I rish and Jews, have membe rs w h o have for m a n y years
been actively i nvolved in pol itics in I reland and I srael, often s u pporting nationalist
movements and tryi ng to i nfluence American policy through lobbying and strateg ic
vot i n g . H owever, the practices of long-d istance nationalism have become much more
widespread in recent yea rs , due to ( 1 ) the great i ncrease i n the nu mbers of i m migra nts
and (2) the i ncreased fac i lity in swift com m u n i cati o n .
To take a few examples: The H i ndu nationa l i sts o f t h e B J P i n I ndia ( Bharatya Janata
Party, or the I ndian People's Party) have depended crucially on fina ncial and moral
s upport from N R l s ( N on-Resident I ndians), many i n North America. During the brea kup
and subsequent wars of Yu goslavia, Yugoslavs i n cou ntries l i ke Sweden and Australia
began to emphasize their ethnic identities as Bosnians, Serbs, and Croats and made
active contributions to the war. M a ny Tam ils in Western E u rope remain i nvolved i n
the Tam i l independence struggle i n Sri Lanka-indeed, for many, their potential
contributions to the Tam i l Eelam's secession attempt has been their main cause for
being a broad ( Fuglerud 1 999) .
Anderson's only extended example i l l ustrates the case wel l . He speaks about a S i kh
l i ving in Toronto, who actively supports the Khal istani movement i n Indian Punjab, a
violent movement, which has often targeted civi lians in terrorist attacks. This man does
not participate i n Canadian political l i fe but " l ives, through E-ma i l , by long-dista nce
nationa l is m " (Anderson 1 992: 1 1 ; see also Cohen 1 997: 1 1 0-1 5) Asked by a fel l ow
Sikh why he does not move back, he explains that it is too dangerous and that he
prefers h i s ch i ldren to grow up in peaceful Toronto.
In Anderson's words:
his political participation is d i rected towa rds a n i magi ned heimat i n which he does
not i ntend to l ive, where he pays no taxes, where he ca nnot be arrested, where
he w i l l not be brought before the courts-and where he does not vote; in effect, a
politics without responsibility or accou ntabil ity. ( 1 992 : 1 1 )
Yet, at the same time, this kind of pol itics i s , it may seem, a n i n evitable outcome of
i ntensified transnational con nectio n s . Sometimes, as the exa mples above suggest,
the diasporic populations, nosta lgic for the imagined authenticity of their ch ildhood
(or that of their grandparents ) , support cu ltural pu rity movements opposed to
faceless modernizatio n , political compro m i ses, and cu ltural hybri d i zati o n . As a resu lt,
they often s upport-from the safety of exile-m i l itant nationalist grou ps. O n the
other hand, there are also examples of l ong-distance natio n a l i st movements with
other pol itica l agen das-for example, Arab, I ra n i a n , and So uth Asian fe min ist groups
working from ex ile in Western E u rope to improve the conditions for wo men i n the
home cou ntry.
Gendered M igration
M igration is rarely enti rely gender neutra l . Already the enforced mi gration of slavery
was heavily s lanted i n this respect, the vast majority of the slaves being men . Later
movements of people in sea rch of work or protection are also gendered i n significant
ways . I t i s com monly assumed that labor migrants moving i nto Western E u rope or
Latin American migrants heading i nto the U n ited States and Canada have tended to
be dominated by men. Certa i n forms of labor a re a lmost exclusively male, such as
construction work, mining, and some kinds of factory work.
Yet, at the same time, some of the growth trends in international m i gration a re
largely fem i n i n e . Domestic services, nursing, and housework are widely considered
women's work. In the wealthy G u lf states, from Kuwait to the U n ited Arab E m i rates,
large numbers of Asia n women work as domestic servants, cleaners, and i n the health
service. The Fil ipina maid has become widespread in Western E u rope as wel l , while
many Latin American women find similar kinds of work i n the U n ited State s . Some
hope to find a h usband in the new country, while others have fam i l ies to support at
home. In the U n ited Kingdom, most imm igrants from countries l i ke Slovakia, Tha iland,
Madagascar, and the Czech Republic a re women, mostly working i n the domestic
or health services, while the majority of asylum-seekers from countries l i ke Nepal,
Algeria, and Afghanistan are men (Vertovec 2007).
M O B I L I TY 113
There i s a considerable i nformal sector here a s we l l . S i n ce n early a l l sex workers

a re fe male, the i nternational s ex trade i s heavily fem i n ized, and most sex workers i n
t h e rich cou ntries are fo reign-N i geria n , eastern E u ropea n , Tha i , a n d Lat i n American.
However, transnational sex work i s also widespread between neighboring countries
i n the G l obal South . For exa mple, the women wo rki n g i n barras-bars a n d brothe l s
i n Ecuadorian coastal c i t i e s are l a rgely Peruvian and Colombi a n . The i r l ife s ituati ons
ra nge between conditions resem b l i n g s lavery to a h i g h degree of a u to n o my. Just
l i ke , one m ight add, the conditions for male workers i n many pa rts of the G lobal
South. At the same time, female m ig ra nts a re often in a structura l ly d i fferent position
from their male cou nterpart s . They a re v u l nera ble to sexual abuse a n d viol ence from
men , a n d m a ny a re domestic a n d service workers i n subservient positions with
n o real possibil ities for u pward mobil ity. Male m i grants, by contrast, often form
c o m m u n ities and strong ties with othe rs from their place of o ri g i n , frequently at
the workplace. M o reover, men usually have easier access to the p u b l i c s p here
than do wo m e n . This i s c l early the case in the gender segregated s ocieties of the
Ara b i a n Pen i n s u l a , but i m m ig rant clubs and associations tend to be male-d o m i n ated
elsewhere as we l l .
N ostalgia
When w e observe that someth i n g moves, s i m p l e d i a l ectical n egation suggests that

we should ask what does not move . Q u ite obviously, most of the world 's i n habita nts
stay put, even if the c i rcumstances of thei r l ives cha nge beca u se of global ization's
di rect or i n d i rect i m pact. Th i s is what Bauman ( 1 999: 7 7 ) means when he says that
" we a re all on the m ove these days ." At the same time. the age of fast tra n s national
m ove ment has a l so p roven to be the age of nostalgia and traditiona l i s m . w h i ch
could be defi ned as a m odern ideology promoti ng tradition . As G iddens ( 1 99 1 ) says,
complex contemporary societies tend to be " post-traditional ." This does not mean that
they have done away with a l l trad ition but that tra d itions m ust be defended actively
s i nce they can no longer be taken for g ranted. In the post-traditional world, dormant
traditions are resu rrected, ada pted to fit new circumstances, comm ercia l ized, a n d
pol iticized .
As I write these l i nes, N orway has j ust celebrated its Constitution Day ( May 1 7) , and
never before have there been as many fol k costumes i n town a s this year. M o re than
90 percent of the population celebrate M ay 17, and more than half of the women wear
fol k dresses (bunader E ri ksen 2 004) . The n umber of men who wear traditional d ress
for the occasion is also on the rise-although much lower. In my chi l dhood. three
decades ago, which u nfolded i n a less i ntensively global ized world, fol k d resses were
rarely seen in the urban centers of southeastern Norway. Now, consider the fact that a
short wh i l e before the a n n ual May 1 7 cel ebrations, Norwegians had. like other Western
E u ropean s . been debating the q uestion of whether or not to legislate aga inst the use
of headsca rves (hijabs) a mong M uslim immigrant women. Agai n , a couple of decades
ago, hijabs were hardly ever seen a mong M us l i m i m migrant women in E u rope . Even
today, many young M u s l i m women wear the hijab agai nst their parents' wish .
I n a l l l i keli hood, few of the very many women (and men) sporti ng neotraditionalist
garb on Constitution Day would have reflected on the para l l e l between the rise of
visible i dentity ma rkers a mong minorities a n d in the majority. And one would have
to be a social scientist i nterested in global ization to see these markers of difference
not as a natura l expression of a natural identity, nor as a simple reaction against
globa l i zati o n , but as one of its most common reflexive forms. If anyth i n g , global izatio n
a t t h e l evel o f social identity i s tantamou nt t o a renegotiation o f social identities, their
bou ndaries, and symbolic content. N obody can give a n unequivoca l , uncontroversial
defi nition of what it means to be a Berliner, a M alaysian, or a Norwegian any more, but
this does not necessarily mean that these identities a re going away. Some of them
a re, in fact, strengthened, i nvested with new or old symbolic content, some wa ne
to the benefit of others, some are enlarged or shrunk, some become tra nsnational,
and others rema i n attached to place. J ust as a fish is total ly u n i nterested i n water as
long as it swims happily around-it is even u n l i kely to be aware of the existence of
water-most people don't think twice about those of their identities that ca n be taken
for granted. But the moment you drag the poor creature out of the sea, be it o n a hook
or i n a net, it immediately develops an intense i nterest i n water; what the water means
to it, how it i s essentia l for its surviva l , and-not least-the peculiar nature of water.
Had fish been equipped with an abil ity to ponder, a great n u mber of short-l ived (and
dou btless poststructu ra l ist) theories about water would have been s ketched i n haste,
in ma ritime surroundings, every day. In the case of humans, not only a re the national,
regional, and local identities contested and chal lenged, but it is becoming i ncreasi ngly
difficult to defend a bsol utist views of gender and ki nship identities as wel l . Place
that is to say a fixed, stable, mea n i ngful space-is becoming a scarce a n d flexible
resource. M a i ntai n i ng a predictable and secure group identity is hard work i n a world
of movement, but it is being underta ken , very often s uccessful ly.
• G lobalization i nvolves accelerated and intensified movement of people, objects, and

ideas, not only from north to south, but i n every directio n .
• Movement nonetheless reflects and tends t o reproduce g lobal power discrepancies.
• Although there is currently enormous attention to migration i n the West, a far greater
percentage of huma n ity were migrants a hundred years ago than today.
• Contemporary migration is not a finite process but usually i nvolves enduring transna
tional ties.
• Forms of human mobi lity enhanced by and contributing to globalization i nclude,
among other things, migration, tourism, business travel , student mobility, crime, and
even forms of transh umance, wh ich i ncl udes the seasonal migrations of the wealthy
in cold climates to warmer places and seasonal migrant labor.
M O B I L I TY 115
Questions
• I n wh ich ways are transnational links i nvolving migrants economically important?

• How would you describe the global grammar of tourism? What are its main
homogenizing features?
• What are the main differences between the tourist and the refugee, and how do
the differences shed l ig ht on global power discrepancies?
• What is long-distance nationa lism, and how can it pose problems to democracy?
• Why does movement make it difficult to establish firm, stable group identities,
and what are some of the ways i n which this challenge is being met?
Castles, Stephen, and Mark J. Mil ler (2009 ) The Age of Migration: International
Population Movements in the Modern World, 4th edition. London : Palgrave
Macmillan. Probably the most authoritative and comprehensive overview of
migration, with h i storical and contemporary perspectives equally represented.
No theoretical bells and whistles, but a sound and trustworthy gu ide to a central
form of mobility
Mathews, Gordon, G ustavo Lins Ribeiro, and Carlos Alba Vega, eds. (201 2)
Globalization from Below: The World's Other Economy. London Routledge.
A fascinating and original col lection of articles describing in great ethnographic
detai l the flow of cheap and often pirated goods from C h i na around the world,
with petty traders, hawkers, and smal l-scale capitalists in the informal sector at
the forefront.
6
M ixi n g
The ba ttleground of the twenty-first century will pit fundamentalism

against cosmopolitan tolerance.
-ANT H O NY G I D D E NS, RUNAWAY WORLD, 4
There is no such thing as a pure culture, and the cultural history of humanity may
well be written as a history of borrowing and lending, inspiration and imitation,
amalgamation and hybridization of cultural skills and meanings. Yet, the extent and
scope of cultural mixing have accelerated and intensified in the current era, owing to
the processes identified in earlier chapters. As a result, new cultural forms emerge
continuously-bhangra music in the United Kingdom, Spanglish in U. S. inner cities,
crossover food, and Melanesian reggae-but these tendencies are counteracted by
various forms of cultural puritanism, from the French concern with their language to
religious revitalization.
M
a ny years ago, I had the pleasure of i nterviewing the a uthor Vi kram Seth, who
had then j u st publ ished his epic novel from the early 1 950s i n I n dia, A Suitable
Boy. As it happened, we spoke extensively about cu ltural mixing-his main characters
were, to va rying degrees, Westernized, yet remai ned disti nctively Indian i n thei r val ues
and way of l ife. As we spoke, our server arrived with a tray, pots, and cups. Ta king h i s
first sip, Seth sputtered and exclai med that h e had b e e n served a mixture of tea and
coffe e ! M ust be horrible, I opined, but Seth insisted that he saw the concoction as a
new, exciti n g mixtu re .
M ixing is always a result of mobil ity a n d movement, but repulsion, obliteration, and
encapsulation a re also possible outcomes of cross-cultural encou nters. Th i s chapter
looks at both sides of the coin-cosmopolita n i sm and hybridity on the one hand,
withdrawal and bounda ry-marking on the other. First of all, we should m a ke it clear that
j u st a s the other d i mensions of g l obal ization are m u ltifaceted, the cultural dynamics
of globalization ca nnot be seen as Western ization tout court but m u st be u nderstood
as a m u ltidirectional and gen u i nely complex process (Amselle 2 001 ; Appadu ra i 1 996;
Hannerz 1 996) . Second, we should keep in mind that there is no s uch thing as a p u re
cu lture. M ixing has always occurred, but its speed and i ntensity a re much h igher today
than before. C u ltural mixing must therefore be seen as a key di mension of globalization
I n earlier chapters, I have presented views on global ization that suggest there is
a drive towards homogeneity, but I have also emphasized that ( 1 ) there is reflexive
resistance to this, res u lting in g l ocal forms blending the particular and the u n iversal or
even withdrawing completely from the globalizing forces, (2) globalization processes are
partial and are unable to transform local cultures total ly, and besides, (3) large segments of
the world 's popu lation are affected only i ndi rectly or not at a l l by globalization processes .
Yet, nobody denies that mixing takes place, i n language, food habits, cu stoms, and
so on, i n many ways and i n every country of the world . Someti mes, c u ltural i m p u l ses
from two or several distinct groups mix to create someth ing new; someti mes, the
u n iversa list drive of global ization processes mixes with local cu ltures to produce a
glocal version of the u n iversal. Arg u i n g against the belief in a fast global i ntegration i n
t h e sense o f homogenization, Jean-Fran<;:ois Bayart says:
[it] is the lslami sts who i ntroduced i ntel lectual categories of the economy i nto the
M us l i m world. It i s the healers, sorcerers, and kin who speak the market i n Central
Africa. I t is the fa milies of the C h i nese diaspora who u n ify the economic space of
East Asia. (2003 : 334)
Arg u i n g agai nst the theorists who see hybridity and creol ization as prod ucts of
gl obalizatio n, Jean-Loup Amselle (2001 : 22) favors a view according to which cu ltures
have a l ways mixed and proposes that " a l l societies a re mixed and thus that mixing is
the produ ct of entities which are already m ixed, th u s sendi ng the idea of an original
p urity to oblivion" (my tra nslation ) .
H owever, a s every serious anthropologist working within t h e emerging g loba l ization
paradigm would stress, " no total homogenization of systems of meaning and expression
has occurred, nor does it appear l i kely that there will be one any time soon" ( H annerz
1 990: 237 ) . According to U lf Han nerz, globa l culture is marked by the followi ng:
a n organ i zation of diversity rather than by a replication of u n i formity. . . . But the

world has become one network of social relationships, and between its different
regions there is a flow of meaning a s wel l as of people and goods. ( 1 990: 237)
Elsewhere, Hannerz has also said that the " recent confl uence of sepa rate and q u ite
d i fferent traditi o n s " does not " mean that these . . . c ultural c u rrents in themselves
have been ' p u re', or ' ho mogeneous', or 'bou nded " ( 1 996: 67).
This i s i m portant. Accelerated mixing does not i mply a prior pristine state of clearly
bou nded cultures. G ranted that cu ltural mixing i s a common, u s u a l ly u ndramatic
M I X I NG 119
phenomenon i n t h e contemporary world, w e need t o l o o k more closely at s o m e of

the concepts used to describe the process of mixi n g . They do not necessa rily refer to
the same thing.
Variation with i n any group is considerable, and c ultural flows across boundaries
ensure that mixing, in the contemporary world, i s a continuous poss i b i l ity or reality.
H owever, the i mpress ion sometimes given that everythi n g seems to be in continuous
flux, that a n infinity of opportu nities seem to be open, and that no groups, cu ltural
i dentities, or ethn i c categories a re fixed i s caused by a conflation of discrete phenomena:
F i rst: Strong identities and fixed boundaries do not preclude cultural mixi n g . Eth n i c
va riation may w e l l exist without s i g n ificant cu ltural variatio n . Therefore, processes of
cultural mixing say little about group identities and degrees of boundedness.
Second: Fluid identities, conversely, do not preclude cultural stabi l ity or conti nu ity.
Cu ltural variation ca n exist without ethn i c variation or other kinds of strong group
boundaries . C u lture is a n i m plication of varyi n g degrees of shared meaning, while
group identities res u lt from clear, if disputed, social boundaries .
Third : The pol itical manipulation with and cyn ica l exploitation of cultural symbols do
not mean that the people i n question do not necessarily have a nything i n common.
H istoriography, it has been shown time and again, i s necessarily a selective and
biased discipline s i mply because far too many events have taken place i n the past
for a ny historia n to give all of them a fair treatment. Yet, its sla nted narratives may
become self-fulfi l ling prophecies in that they give the readersh ip (often schoolch i ldren)
a s hared fra me of reference. Besides, the people descri bed by nationalist h i storians or
i deologists of g roup boundedness may not have that i n common which thei r ideologists
ascribe to them, but they may have other i m po rtant cultural elements i n common,
such as s hared jokes or ideas about kin relatedness . What has interested writers on
cultu ral mixing are the situations where these frames of references cease to be taken
for granted, where they are contested, nonexistent, or are being continuously reb u i lt.
But it may j ust happen to be the case, i n other words, that eth nic bounda ries coincide
with certa i n cultu ral ones . ( M o reover, the fact that somethi ng i s socia l ly constructed
does not i mply that it is un rea l . )
This means that the a mbiguous grey zones, wh ich can b e located with i n the
space between categories and boundaries under pressure, a re privileged sites for
studying the i nterplay between cultu re and identity. Th i s i s not because all boundaries
eventua lly disappear, but because they are made visible through their negotiation and
renegotiation, transcendence, transformations, and refra ming .
Fo rms of M ixing
There are a n u mber o f different outcomes from long-term encou nters between d isti nct
groups. Someti mes, one g roup is eventual ly absorbed i nto the other; someti mes, it is
absorbed cu lturally but not socially (the eth nic boundaries remai n i ntact ) ; someti mes,
the groups merge t o create a new entity; sometimes, a h ierarchical complementary

relationship or a symmetrical competitive relationship occurs; someti mes, aga i n , one
group eventually exterminates the other.
The anthropologist O l ivia Harris ( 1 995), writing o n cu ltural complexity i n Latin
America, and particularly the Andean area, has proposed a typology depicting six possible
ways of conceptualizing long-term , regular contact between originally discrete groups.
First, she describes a model she s i mply ca l l s " mi x i n g " (in Lati n America often
spoken of, both in racial and c u ltura l respects, as mest1zaje) . This model shows how
new mea n i ngs a re generated from the mixing of d iverse i nfluences. It corresponds to
common usage of the terms hybridity and creol ization .
The second model is the one of " colonization;' which in the South American context
implies E u ropean domi nance, exploitation, and violence towa rds I ndians, including the
enforced i ntroduction of C h ristian ity and the Spanish language. This model is strongly
dualist and somewhat mechanical i n its notion of power and, i n Harris's view, d raws a
rather too strict line between E u ropean and Indian cu lture, reifying (freezing) both in the
act. This may be true, but it remains a fact that the social boundaries (if not the c ultural
ones) between I ndians and E u ropeans have remai ned largely i ntact, notwithstanding
the e mergence of i ntermediate categories, such as the mestizo.
Thi rd, an alternative to the rigid model of colon ization implies the attribution
of " more agency to the colonized " and a p h rasing of " the relations h i p i n terms of
borrowing " ( Harris 1 995: 1 1 2) . The traditions rema i n discrete, but I ndian el ites ( H arris
refers pa rticularly to I ncas and Mayas) borrow knowledge from the Ch risti a n s . Th i s is
classic diffusionism.
The fourth model is " that of j uxtaposition or alternation, where two radica l ly d i fferent
knowledge systems are both accepted without a d i rect attempt at i ntegration" ( H arris
1 995: 1 1 4). S i nce, for example, Maya and Christian cosmologies entailed fundamentally
different conceptual izations of time and of the past, they could not be mixed, but
actors could draw situationally on either. This is a variety of multiculturalism.
The fifth way of conceptualizing the meeting is " that of i m itation, assimi lation or
direct identification;' whereby persons self-consciously reject thei r own past and adopt
a self-identity and knowledge system they perceive as better or more beneficial to
themselves. A conversion from Indian to mestizo identity i n the Andes, Harris notes,
" usually i nvolves wholesale rejection of I ndian i dentity, in favou r of and identification
with what i s seen as white o r H ispanic " ( 1 995: 1 1 5) .
The sixth a n d final mode discussed by Harris i s that o f " i n novation and creativity;·
where " attention is firmly removed from contrasted knowledge systems and priority i s
given to a utonomy and independent agency" ( 1 99 5 : 1 1 7). U n l i ke t h e five other models
sketched, this kind of conceptualization does not focus on origins.
All these models refer to mixi n g either at the level of identity, at the level of symbolic
mea n i n g , or both, but they are clea rly disti nctive from one another. Al l can be u sed to
make sense of contemporary encou nters between different cultu ral systems .
Let u s now look more closely a t two o f the most common concepts used t o describe
cu ltural mixing today.
M I X I NG 121
H ybrid ity and C reol i zation
The concept o f cultural creolization, owi ng its i nfluence i n a nthropology largely to

U lf Hannerz ( 1 987. 1 992; but see also Drummond 1 980; Stewart 2007), refers to the
i nterm i n g l i ng and mixing of two or several formerly discrete traditions or cultu res. In an
e ra of g l obal mass com m u n i cation and capital ism, creol ization, according to this usage,
can be identified nearly everywhere i n the world, but there are important differences
as to the degrees and forms of mixi n g . As mentioned above, this perspective has
been criticized fo r essentializing c u ltures (as if the merging traditions were p ure at
the outset, cf. Friedman 1 994). Although th i s criti q u e may sometimes be relevant,
the concept nevertheless helps in making sense of a great n u m ber of contemporary
cultural processes, characterized by movement, cha nge, and fuzzy boundaries .
C reol izati on, as it is used by some anthropologists, is an analogy take n from
l i n g u istics. Th i s discip l i n e i n turn took the term from a particular aspect of colon iali sm
namely, the uprooti ng and displacement of large n u mbers of people i n the plantation
economies of certain colonies, s u ch as Louisiana, Jamaica, Tri nidad, R e u n ion, and
M a u riti u s . Both i n the Caribbean bas i n and i n the I ndian Ocean, certa i n (or all) g roups
who contributed to this economy d u ring slavery were described a s creole s . Originally,
a criollo meant a E u ropean (normally a Span iard ) born i n the N ew World (as opposed to
Postco l o n i a l i s m a n d t h e Power of Defi n i t i o n
F
o r a newly independent country, taking over ownership of factories, m i nes, and
fields is fairly straightforward, a rgues the Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o;
what is much more difficult is decolonizing the m i nd ( 1 986). I n his essays, Ngugi
relates how he, a s a boy growing up in colonial Kenya, was taught about daffodils
and snowflakes, S hakespeare and the Tudors, but nothing a bout African geography
or h i story. Liberating oneself from such an involuntary appropriation of worlds other
tha n one's own is a chief concern in the body of fiction and theory called postcolonia l .
Colonialism was a global enterprise, t h e B ritish Empire a political entity "where
the s u n never set:' and postcolonialism is global as well, but moving in the opposite
direction, from south to north, in a series of attempts to recla im some of the power
of definition that was lost through generations of colonialism.
Postcolonial studies, a new academic subdiscipline, is often traced to the
publication of Edward Said's Orienta/ism ( 1 978), a hugely influential book, which
criticized European scholars and writers in the colonial era for depicting the Orient
in stereotypical and prejudiced ways. However, the debt to the M a rtiniquan doctor
Frantz Fanon and his Black Skin, White Masks (1 986 ( 1 952]) is usually acknowledged.
Fanon showed how imperialism affected the mentality and desires of black people,
making them reject their own histories a nd experiences and yearn for "a l ittle bit of
whiteness."
1 22 G L O B A L I ZAT I O N
The project o f postcolonialism consists, simply put, i n developing and promoting

the worlds of experience silenced by the dominant or hegemonic groups. Some
postcolonial writers, l i ke Ngugi and the Kurdish author Mehmed Uzun, even strive
to develop vernacu lars as literary languages, but many write in the metropolitan
languages, thereby creating a di lemma often discussed how can the imperialist
vehicles of commun ication be used to denounce imperialism?
Many contemporary writers see a link between the quest for l iberation and
autonomy among the dispossessed of the world and the need to tell new stories
depicting hitherto silenced experiences and rehabilitating l ite-worlds and social mil ieu,
which have formerly either been ignored or depicted as backward and primitive.
A global democratization of communication must arguably i nclude not only equal
access to technology but also a fair distribution of the right to speak and the right to
be heard.
peninsulares) ; today, a s i m ilar usage is current in the French departement La Reunion,

where everybody born on the island, regardless of skin color, is seen as creole as
opposed to the zoreils, who were born in metropol itan Fra nce. I n Tri n idad, the term
creole is sometimes used to designate all Tri n idadians except those of Asian orig i n . I n
Suriname, a creole is a person o f African origi n , while i n neighboring French G uyana, a
creole is a person who has adopted a E u ropean way of l ife . I n s pite of the differences,
there a re some i mportant resembla nces between the various conceptua l izations of
the creole, which resonate with the theoretical concept of creol izatio n : Creoles a re
u prooted, they belong to the N ew World, they a re the produ cts of some form of mixing,
and they a re contrasted with that wh ich is old, deep, and rooted .
A q u estion often posed by people unfa m i liar with the varying uses of the term i s :
" What is really a creol e ? " They may have encountered t h e term in con nection with
food or arch itecture from Louisiana, languages in the Caribbean, or people in the Indian
Ocea n . Whereas vernacular uses of the term creole va ry, there exist accu rate defi n itions
of creole languages i n linguistics and of cultural creolization in a nthropology. There a re
nevertheless s i m i l a rities, although there is no one-to-one relationship between the
ethnic groups described loca lly as creoles in particular societies and the phenomena
classified as creole or creolized in academic literature (Stewart 2007).
Hybridity is a more general concept than creol ization, and it may be used to refer
to a ny obviously mixed c ultural form. World m usic, various forms of contemporary
crossover cuisine, and u rban youth cultures borrowi ng elements from a vari ety
of sources, including minority c ultures and TV, a re typical examples of phenomena
explored u nder the head i ng hybridity.
G eneric terms l i ke creol ization, hybridity, or si mply mixing a re often adeq uate to
describe cultu ra l phenomena and processes res u lting from the increased contact
of global ization. Someti mes, more precision is needed, especially when cu ltural
processes a re connected with social ones.
MIXING 123
Different parts of a c ultural environment and of people's l ife-worlds a re bei n g affected

by i nfluence fro m outside at different speeds and to d iffering degrees. Sometimes
people are acutely aware of cha nges taking place in their i mmediate environment and
take measu res to stop it. to enhance it, or to cha nnel it i n their preferred di rectio n . At
other times, people may be u naware of these processes, even if foreign i nfl u ences
and cu ltural mixing may change thei r c u ltura l environment profoundly. These are some
of the i ntricacies of contemporary cu ltural processes that need disentangl ing if we are
to be successful in studying them accurately. M erely stati ng that mixing is a n inherent
feature of contemporary c ulture is no more enlightening than saying that c ultural
diffusion is a fact. Th u s :
Cultural pluralism directs t h e attention o f t h e researcher towards t h e relative
boundedness of the constituent groups or categories that make up a society. It is a
cl ose relative of multiculturalism.
Hybridity directs attention towa rds i ndividuals or cultu ra l forms that are reflexively,
or self-consciously, m i xed-that is, syntheses of cultu ral forms or fragments of diverse
orig i n s . I t opposes m ulticulturalism seen as nationalism writ small.
Syncretism di rects attention towa rds the amalgamation of formerly discrete
worldviews, cultu ral mea n i n g , and, in particular, rel i g i o n .
Diasporic identity d i rects attention towa rds an essentially social category cons i sti n g
of people whose pri mary s u bjective belonging i s i n another cou ntry.
Transnationalism di rects attention, rather, to a social existence attaching individuals
and groups not pri marily to one particular place b ut to several or none.
Diffusion d i rects attention towards the flow of s ubstances and mea n ings between
societies, whether it i s accompa n i ed by actual social encounters or not.
Creolization, final ly, d i rects our attention towards cultural phenomena, which result
from di splacement and the ensuing social encounter and m utua l i nfl uence between
two or several groups, creating a n ongoing dynamic i nterchange of symbo l s and
practices, eventu a l ly lead i n g to new forms with varyin g degrees of stabil ity. The term
creole culture suggests the presence of a sta ndardized, relatively stable cultu ra l idiom
resu lting from such a process. Cultural decreolization occurs when, i n the case of
group-based power differentials and inequalities, the s ubordinate group is socially or
c ulturally assimi lated i nto the dominant one ( e . g . , cholos becoming mestizos i n Lat i n
America) or w h e n a creol i zed idiom is p u rified and m a d e s i m i lar t o a metropol itan or
high c ulture form.
World Music
O n e o f the most i ntens ively studied a reas o f c ultura l m ixing i s that t o do with music.
Although music has, perhaps more easily than language, always been i nfluenced by
impu lses fro m afar-Mozart's famous " Turkish March " speaks for itself, Bartok's stri ng
quartets were i nfl uenced by Gypsy m u sic, Grieg's " Peer Gynt S u ite" took elements
from Scandi navian fol k music-the most famous contemporary exa mple o f cultural
mixing in music is that of so-ca l led world music: jazz musicians borrow from I ndian
ragas, rock musicians borrow from African percussive music, house and techno
tech n icians borrow from the Java nese gamela n, a n d Jamaicans borrow from, and lend
to, everybody. There are large-scale festiva ls devoted to world music (the oldest, and
most fa mous, i n E u rope being Peter Gabriel's WO M AD festiva l , founded i n 1 980); the
genre (if it i s a genre) has its own categories i n music shops whether online or offline,
its own labels, and its own charts.
The term world music, as it has been established i n everyday language si nce the
late 1 980s, testifies to an increased mobility of m usicians, especial ly from the Th i rd
World, a g reater i ntensity in the networks engaged in between musicians of diverse
orig i n , and a faster flow of musical i mpulses across the globe. The mixed musical
forms labeled world music a re thus a prime example of i ntensified gl obalization.
I n a critical assessment of the genre entitled "A Sweet Lullaby for World M usic;· the
a nthropologist and eth nomusicologist Steven Feld ( 2003) describes how " any a n d every
hybrid or traditional style cou ld . . . be l u m ped together by the single market label world
music" ( 1 95), adding that this sign ified not only the tri u mph of the commercial but a l so
a disquieti ng banalization of difference. The mixing represented in this kind of world
music, as it i s described by Feld, i s a s urprisingly close relative of the " global ization
of nothing " phenomena ana lyzed by R itzer (cf. Chapter 4) . H owever, Feld notes that
this tendency is cou nteracted with a yea rning for authenticity and the noncommercia l .
H e also adds that the d i scourse about world music, academic a n d nonacademi c a l i ke,
is, " l i ke global ization di scou rse more genera l ly, . . . equally routed through the public
sphere via tropes of anxiety and celebration" ( Feld 2003: 1 98)
But the a nalysis does not stop there. Ta king as a n example a song, " Rorogwela,"
composed by Afu n a kwa, a Baegu woman from the Solomon I s l a nds, Feld goes on to
show how oral a n d i nd igenous m u s i c is being transformed a n d recreated by Western
musicians, a n d he descri bes the difficulties i nvolved in giving the original composers
recog n ition and their rightful part of the reve n u es generated . In discussing this topic,
Feld touches upon a much l a rger fa mily of issues-name ly, those to do with I PR s
(intellectua l property rights ) . I n a n era where t h e cu ltural prod u ction o f tra d itional
peoples is being repackaged a s commerci a l ly pa latable exotic products, it has become
a q uestion of key importance to ma ny, especially indigenous peoples themselves, to
be able to defend their legal rig hts to their m u s i c, l i terature, and handi crafts (see
Kasten 2 004) .
Contrasting a U N ESCO series of authentic recordings of traditional music with the
commercial adaptation of s i m i l a r (sometimes identica l) music, Feld ends his l u l laby
with a remark about the way i n which " world music participates in shaping a kind of
con s u mer-friendly m ulticu ltura l i sm , one that fol l ows the market logic of expa nsion and
consol idation" (2003: 2 1 3) . Although many forms of mus ical mixing exist i n our era
of i ntensified global ization, and musicians from the Thi rd Wo rld occasionally get their
share of the profits and recognition, the commercial dimension of mixing-the world
of Benetton-can rarely be disregarded altogether.
M I X I NG 125
The flows of musical influences often have paradoxical effects. Ted Lewellen (2002)
describes the development of the Congolese rhumba from the 1 920s to the 1 940s, a
guitar-based style borrowing from Cuban music. By the 1 970s, the i nfluence from soul was
also apparent: Partly African in origin, Cuban music and American soul returned to Africa,
to be merged with locally developed styles. Later, a variant of Congolese popular m usic,
the soukouss, became popular i n Europe, where it was regarded as la vraie musique
africaine. H owever, soukouss was hardly l istened to in Africa itself, where the lyrics sung
in local languages, often strongly political, were as i mportant as melody and rhythm.
A Mixed Fam i ly in Mauriti us
Writings on the g l oba l i zation o f cu lture tend t o b e fu l l o f a necdotes reveal i n g the

d i sembeddedness of cu ltural signs or connections between the local and the global,
but it is also necessary to pay close attention to the wider i m plications of such
processes at the level of everyday l ife . I shall now provide a brief example, a main
pu rpose of which is to emphasize the continued relevance of anthropological fieldwork
in a world where the small-scale work of ethnography may seem i ncapable of grasping
the global forces at work.
Rose- H i l l is a Mauritian town of some forty-five thousand i n habitants, accord i n g to
the census. H owever, bounda ries between Mauritian towns a re unclear, and it woul d
probably be m o s t accurate t o describe Rose-H i l l as one o f five or s i x nodes along the
nearly conti nuous u rbanized stretch from Port-Lou i s to C u repi pe, where more than half
of the ethn ically d iverse M a u ritian population of s l ightly over a m i l lion l ive .
The q uarter of Roches-Bru nes, located on the western o ut s ki rts of Rose
H i l l , is domi nated by a m u n icipal housing estate ( cite ouvriere) , and most of the
R u s h d i e a n d N a i p a u l : Two V i ews o n M i x i ng
A mong the many novelists who have depicted the cultural complexities and
d i lemmas in postcolonial societies, V. S . Naipaul and Salman Rushdie are possibly
the most famous in the English-speaking world. Naipaul, born in Tri nidad in 1 932, is
the grandson of I ndian immigrants, and he migrated to Britain in 1 949, publishing
novels, travel writing, and essays si nce the mid-1 950s. Among Naipaul's most
celebrated books are A House for Mr Biswas ( 1 96 1 ) and The Enigma of Arrival ( 1 987).
Naipaul received the Nobel Prize for literature in 2001. Rushdie, born in Bombay (now
Mumbai) on the eve of I ndian independence in 1 947, grew up in England and had a
major breakthrough with Midnight's Children, an epic novel about the first years of
I ndian i ndependence. In 1 988, with the publication of the very complex and allegorical
novel The Satanic Verses, Rushdie was accused of blasphemy against Islam, and the
I ranian ayatol lah Khomein i proclaimed a fatwa, a death sentence on the writer.
1 26 G LO B A L I ZAT I O N
Both Rushdie a nd Naipaul describe the intensive cultural mixing taking place in
postcolonial cities such as Bombay ( Rushdie) a nd in the Caribbean (Naipaul) as wel l as
through the migration experience. I nterestingly, they seem to represent diametrically
opposed views o n cultural mixing: Rushdie ( 1 99 1 : 394) is an optimist, seeing the
enrich i ng and l i berating power of " mo ngrelization;· as he once cal led it, while Naipaul
is wary and deeply critical of what he sees as inauthentic mimicry and superficial
cultural forms unable to anchor the individual in a strong tradition.
Naipaul's early, comic novels a re satires of what he sees a s Trinidadian vulgarity,
the " carnival mentality " where Trinidadians, in noisy and superficial ways, mix cultural
impulses they have done nothing to deserve i n order to create a n identity consisting
of shiny surfaces with no intimation of depth o r coherence. Members of an impure,
hybrid creole culture, Trinidadians a re m imicking metropol itan culture in Naipaul's
view: In the late 1 950s, he described how a l l the men leaving a cinema in Port-of
Spain after viewing Casablanca had immediately adopted Humphrey Bogart's style
of wal king. After B i swas, Naipaul's novels were i ncreasingly melancholy, sometimes
bitter depictions of thwarted o r dishonest attempts at creating secure, firm identities.
H e is at his most cynical and devastating when he writes about Asian M us l ims (in
Among the Believers, 1 98 1 , and Beyond Belief, 1 998)-converts, he calls them, even
if they, strictly speaking, have been M uslims a l l their l ives and can refer to centuries
of Islamic faith i n their countries.
Rushdie has no time for cultura l purism. "A bit of this and a bit of that; that is how
newness enters the world;' he writes in Imaginary Homelands ( 1 99 1 ), in a celebration
of the hybridization and cultural mixing caused by international migration, the global
flows of ideas. and the spread of a worldview that is open to change and ambivalent
to tradition and i nherited identities. In Fury (2001 ) . Rushdie satirizes a postmodern
identity movement in a l ightly concealed version of Fiji, which dons clothes and code
names from Star Trek; in The Satanic Verses ( 1 988), arguably a literary masterpiece, he
lashes out against all attempts to close the world and fix its boundaries, from orthodox
rel igion to xenophobic nationalism. Even Rushdie's language, quite unl ike N aipaul 's
economic, sober English, is exuberant and full of neologisms and expressions from
Hindi and I ndian E ng lish.
Naipaul and Rushdie exemplify two views of cultural purity and mixing, but also
two views of creativity. I s it through mixing existing material in new ways, or through
writing from a well-defined vantage point embedded in a tradition, that human
creativity i s given the most fertile conditions? Such questions are characteristic of
many debates about the globalization of culture, and they have several possible
answers.
a pproxi mately one thousand people living in the a rea are worki ng-class creoles or
blacks. The m ore i m posing dwe l l i ng s belonging to a few affl uent fam i lies are located
away from the more monotonous cite ouvriere. Apa rt from the creoles, some
coloreds ( l ight-s k i nned creoles with middle-class aspirations) and C h i nese l ive i n the
a rea. as wel l a s a few H i n dus and a s i n g l e M us l i m household. Roches-Brunes is not
MIXING 1 27
representative of M a u ritius with rega rds to eth nicity, s i nce the l a rg est com m u n ity
i sl a nd-wide is H i n d u .
I n describing t h e relationship between t h e global and t h e loca l , I s h a l l focus on the
R i oux household, a n d this ethnographic s napshot i s from the early 1 990s ( note the
absence of cell phones and Facebook accou nts i n the followi ng). It i s what is commonly
described as a matrifocal household, consisting of M me R ioux, her daughter Aline
(twenty), her two sons, Fra n9ois and Jean, both i n their mid-twenties, Aline's baby
da ughter, and a lodger, a young student from the neighbori ng island of Rodrigues. Their
i ncome is average by local sta ndards. Aline works as a shop girl in the town center;
her elder brother Fra n9ois i s a carpenter's a pprentice, and her younger brother Jean
i s unemployed. The household sometimes receives remittances from other relatives,
notably a married daughter who l ives i n the neighboring French departement La
Reunion, and the student from Rodrigues pays a monthly rent.
The l ivi ng-room in the Rioux's home conta i n s several objects signifying l i n ks with
distant places. Two posters depicting pop stars (one English, one America n) a re
pro m i nently displayed; so is a cupboard with glass doors, behind which are souve n i rs
from Paris, Bombay, and London (gifts from foreigners ) . There is a radio cassette a n d a
black-and-white TV set. On the floor next to the TV set, there is a small heap of foreign
magazi nes, some of them i n English, which i s a l a nguage none of the household
m embers has mastered . I mages of E u rope are powerful and persuasive in M auriti u s ;
a n o p i n i o n poll carried out i n t h e m id-1 970s indicated that h a l f o f t h e population wished
to emigrate if they could, but the nu mber decl ined sharply fol lowi ng the economic
boom of the 1 980s a n d 1 990s ( E ri ksen 1 998) .
The mass media cons u med in the household confirm the common stereotype
of l ife in the Western world as an easy, gla morous l ife. Local knowledge of E u rope
generally s uggests it is a conti nent of affluence and excitement. M any M a u ritians have
emigrated, the majority to France and B rita i n . Al i n e Rioux says she wouldn't emigrate;
she has heard too many ugly stories of girls who were forced i nto prostitutio n , or
who were married to old men living in the countryside. There has, i n other words,
been a certain feedback from other pa rts of the g l obal system . She reads romans
photo, " photo-novels " of French origin a n d occasionally a l ocal magazi ne. S h e is fon d
o f French p o p m u s i c .
Fra n9ois R i oux plays soccer a n d follows world politics i n t h e local newspapers; h e
frequently discusses globa l issues with h i s friends. The w h o l e fa mily watches American
soap operas on TV; the younger generation goes to the cinema to see largely American
films d ubbed i n French about twice a month. They a re devoted Catholics and go to
Mass every S unday (actually, A l i ne goes somewhat more ra rely ) .
T h e m embers o f the household agree that education is i m porta nt f o r a person's
opportu n ities, unless h e or she has relatives i n high places. Franc;ois, Jean, and Aline
a re a l l prepared to compete for jobs a n d promotio n . None of them has completed
secondary school .
Seen s uperficially a n d in a fragmented way, as I have done now, the world-structures
and patterns of consu mption of the R ioux household seem comparable to-s i milar
to-that of working classes i n many other cou ntries. The global ization of culture
seems predom i na nt i n Roches-Brunes, wh ich, to a n u ntrained observer l i ke Claude

Levi-Strau ss of Tristes Tropiques ( 1 989 [ 1 955]), must seem l i ke a squalid backyard of
civil izati o n . Scruti nized more closely, however, the l ives and world-structures of the
R ioux and the others i n the cite have a disti nctively local character and cannot at all be
understood outside of their local context.
Soccer and pop m u si c may credibly be seen as prime i n stances of g lobal cultu re .
Soccer i n Roches-Brunes foll ows the same ru les as i n B rita i n . U n l i ke World C u p soccer,
however, it is entirely local in character. Franc;ois R ioux owes m u ch of h i s reputation
in the neighborhood to his skills as a soccer player. As a res u lt. he is popular with the
girls, ma kes friends with the boys, and in fact. he got his present job at least partly
beca use of his personal popula rity. Concern i n g pop music, so arrogantly despised by
most anthropologists who encou nter it in the field, a s i m i lar local context applies. It
is played at local parties and in rum shops, and may evoke senti ments and sti m u late
social relations q uite different from its effects in other environments. Among Afro
Caribbeans, for exa mple, the late M i chael Jackson (the si nger) was controvers ial
already i n the late 1 980s because he was considered not suffici ently black; in the
black M a uritian working-class, he was second only to God, not least because he was
considered black.
The R i oux fam i ly comment on American TV shows (dubbed in French) i ncessantly.
Very often, they compare the characters with people they know; when commenting
on rich and m i serly men, they might make remarks to the effect that " Hey, that's just
l i ke Lee Foo used to treat my fri end;' referring to a neighborhood C h i nese merchant.
They always compare the plots and social m i l ieu on the screen with contexts with
which they are fam i l iar. I t should also be noted, significantly, that for a M a u ritian
creole, E u ropean cu lture i s attractive partly beca use it i s reflexively being contrasted
locally with Mauritian H i ndu cu lture . F i l ms and magazines describing middle-class life
in E u rope or North America. for exa mple, thus make sense and are popular partly
beca use they can be interpreted i nto a local dichotomous schema depicting Indian
cu lture a s i nferior. Overcom m u n i cating what is locally perceived as E u ropeanness
indicates a cu ltura l ly valued air of s u periority compared with the local Indians. In their
selective i nterpretations of aspects of g loba l culture, the i n habitants of Roches-Brunes
appropriate them and transform the global i nto someth ing loca l .
There a re sound reasons that the thesis o f globalization, i n its most general and
sweeping forms, should be treated with great caution . For one thing, local l ife-worlds
are produced and reproduced local ly, and there are social fields where the global ization
of cultu re has l ittle or no effect-for example, in the socia lization of children, where
Mauritian creole custom is striki ngly different from that of the hegemonic white
Franco-Mau ritia ns. For a nother, there a re large parts of the world where the globa l izing
agencies hardly enter. Poverty, it needs to be mentioned, functions a s an efficient
antiglobalization mechanism i n these matters . The very poor have scant access to the
shared i nterfaces of modernity, and the agencies of modern ity are not particula rly
i nterested in providing them.
MIXING 1 29
A M odel
The pol itics o f identity, this chapter h a s s uggested, i s i nterwoven with cultu ra l mixing
i n complex ways. There i s no one-to-one relationship between cu ltural mixing and
politica l cosmopolitanism or tolera nce. nor can it be assu med that a yea rni n g for
cu ltural pu rity necessarily goes together with a xenophobic or national i st pol itical
attitude. H owever, as will be made clear in Chapter 8, an ideology of cu ltural pu rity
very often accompanies an identity politics, which stresses the virtues of the i n-group
and, by i mpl ication, stereotypes outsiders .
As mentioned on several occasions, whenever you have discovered something, you
should look for the opposite or its negation. Thi s piece of advice i s perhaps especia lly
i mportant i n studies of global izati o n because of the many ten sions i nvolving what we
may ca l l , i n a broad and general sense, the global and the l ocal , o r the u n iversal and
the particular. C ultural p u ritanism, which l iterally implies the purging of impu rities and
conta mi nation, i s a widespread reaction to forms of mixing enta i l ed by g lobal izatio n .
It i s partly i n t h i s sense that several authors (G ray 2003; Steger 2 008) have argued that
the mil itant I s la m i c fundamental ists of al-Qaeda are produced by modernity; the per
ceived need to purify a rel igion comes only after a period of mixing and contamination,
and the anti modern rhetoric of the Salafist movement of which al-Qaeda, ideologically,
i s part, would not have been possible without modernity. A negation i s totally dependent
on that which it negates.
Similarity
Ethnic nationalism or Westernisation or

politicised religion cosmopolitanism
Multiculturalism or Creolisation or
apartheid hybridisation
Difference
F I G U R E 6.1 Some possible positions in discourses about culture and identity (from Eriksen
2007a).
1 30 G LO BA L I ZAT I O N
Let u s consider some possible options for people living i n societies exposed to a
variety of cu ltural i nfl uences, both from the inside and from the outsi de-in a word,
fa irly typical societies in our present age.
At the ideological level, some promote mixing, while others are favorable to pu rity.
At the level of social integration, some emphasize the need for s i m i larity with i n a given
society, while others are happy to accept considerable diversity or difference. These
dimensions can be combined in altogether fou r ways (see Figure 6 . 1 ) .
C ultural p urity and similarity are championed by nationalism and politicized rel igion.
The outside world is seen as a source of conta m i nation.
M ixing and simi la rity woul d typically be defended by groups and persons who either
see Westernization as a good thi ng (associated with progress, education. etc . ) or who
argue that society ought to rest on the shared va l ues of cosmopolitanism. the view
that differences must exist. but they m ust be tolerated, and dialogue across cu ltura l
divides bring people more closely together.
An emphasis on pu rity along with an acceptance of differences within soci ety seems
to be a rec i pe for segregation. South African apartheid is a n obvious example. but there
are also forms of m ulticulturalism in the contemporary North Atlantic world that fit this
descriptio n : different groups with different va lues and customs should coexist without
enforced contact or missionary activity.
F i nal ly, a favorable attitude towards both mixing and difference sets the stage for
a society where hybridity, or, in societies l i ke M au riti us. creolization is considered
u n problematic and virtuous. The absence of clear boundaries i s not seen as a problem,
and the emphasis i s on the individual's freedom to adapt or adopt the val ues and
practices that he or she deems val uable.
The fou r corners of the figure are not m utually exclusive in practice (the real world
tends to m uddy neat models). In most societies. these options coexist, often in confl ict
ing ways, sometimes in precarious equilibri u m . In many coastal hamlets in northern
Norway, where there has been a revital ization of Sarni ( Lappish) identity si nce the 1 980s,
fa milies are split over which identity to choose. These fami l ies are of mixed origins and
were for generations subjected to a pol icy of Norwegianization as a result of which
many consider themselves Norwegian and not Sarn i . When some family members
choose to return to the Sarni identity of (some of) their ancestors and others refuse
to have anything to do with Sarni culture or identity, one can only imagine the silences
during Sunday dinner. It could, moreover, be argued that the 1 990s wars in Yugoslavia
were, at the ideologica l level, fought between a model of ethnic nationalism and a
model of cosmopolitanism or multiculturalism. Less violently, but seriously enough,
French language policy has i n recent decades sought to pu rge French of English loan
words, at the same time as the descendants of Arab immigrants devise their own forms
of hybridized French infl uenced by Arab and Berber syntax and vocabula ry, novel verbal
forms labeled by sociol inguists, not sociolects or dialects but multiethnolects.
M ixing is rarely uncontroversial, but it takes place continuously. A task for researchers
is to discover and analyze the forms of mixing not commented upon. those which are
endorsed and those which are actively resisted or fought over. Every society has its own
peculiar debates about cultural mixing, and one of their elements is always globalization.
MIXING 1 31
• The cultural mixi ng resulting from g l obalization takes many forms, usually i ndicati ng
power discrepancies between the groups i nvolved.
• Mixing at the cu ltural level does not preclude strengthened group identification .
• Cultu ral mixing does not create homogeneity b u t new configu rations o f diversity.
• An important objection against theories of hybridity and creolization is that cultures
have never been pure and bounded.
• The c u ltural diffusion associated with g lobal ization can not simply be described as
Western ization but usually is better depicted as a form of cu ltural g localization .
Questions
• What are t h e m a i n a rg uments against t h e view that cultural hybrid ity i s a product
of g lobal ization ? Do you agree ?
• What a re the main possible outcomes of long-term encou nters between cu lturally
different g roups?
e Mention, and defi ne, four concepts used to describe c u ltural mixing, emphasizing
their m utual differences.
• H ow can world music be described as a vessel of the " banalization of difference" ?
• The author makes a sharp contrast between c u ltural mixing and social
identificatio n . Explain the sig nifica nce of this disti nction .
H a n nerz, U lf ( 1 996) Transnational Connections. Lon do n : Routledge. A selection of

essays by an a nthropologist who has contributed to shaping the field, concern ing
itself with cultu ral complexities, creol ization , and the emergence of new forms of
c u ltural diversity.
Marling, William H. (2006) How ''American " is Globalization? Baltimore Joh n s
Hopkins U n iversity Press. Very thought-provoking a n d entertaining book
showin g , through examples from popu lar culture, that g lobal izatio n is somehow
both less and more American than commonly believed.
Said, Edward ( 1 978) Orienta/ism. N ew York: Vintage. A fou ndational text in
postcolonial studies, Said's book criticizes Western scholarship for being
ideologically biased and creating a n i mage of the O rient based o n prejudices
masquerading as scientifically i nformed depictions.
7
Risk
We joined Europe to have free movement o f goods . . . I did not join

Europe to have free movement of terrorists, criminals, drugs, plant
and animal diseases and rabies and illegal immigrants.
-MARGARET THATC H E R, CITED IN DAV I D M O R LEY, HOME TERRITORIES, 226
At the local level, globalization creates both opportunities and constraints, and
globalizing processes also entail new kinds of risk and uncertainty. Rapid changes
perceived-usually correctly-as being instigated outside the community, including
changes in the economy, culture, or the environment, are interpreted and dealt with in
a variety of ways in different parts of the world. In a more fast-paced, interconnected
world, everything flows more easily, including contagious diseases, weapons, and
invasive species that may wreak havoc with local ecosystems. Two main forms of
globalized risk are climate change and terrorism, which in different ways highlight why
risk and vulnerability must be considered key concepts in globalization.
T
he terrorist attacks on the U nited States on September 1 1 , 2001 , followed by
attacks on M adrid and London in 2004 and 2005, respectively, s ignaled a new
phase in the public awareness of what globalization was about. The u pbeat opti mism
of the 1 990s, when global ization was above a l l associated with the I nternet, political
freedom , i n dividualism, and democracy among i ntel lectuals and the general public
a l i ke, was now suddenly replaced by a heightened awareness of global izati on as a
volati le, a n a rchic, and dangerous state: It signaled the loss of control . Wh ile freedom,
seen as a n i ndividual right, had been the main template for global ization in the 1 990s,
its close relative, i nsecurity, now came to the forefront. To m i l l ions of people, the new
i nsecurity does not j ust refer to abstract cli mate change or debatable cha l lenges to
identities, but to their material l ivel i hoods. A growing pa rt of the world's workforce can
b e described a s a precariat (Standing 2 0 1 1 ) . a precarious part o f the proletariat, with

few or no u n ion rights, weak job security, and short-term contracts. The Swiss-owned
tra nsnational company Adecco, which h i res out people temporari ly, had 700,000
employees worldwide i n 2010 and " has become one of the world's largest private
employers " (Standing 2 01 1 : 33) . As an i ncreasing proportion of the global workforce
are h i red in temporary positions, as i ndependent consu ltants, or in the i nformal sector,
it may be the case that new Job opportunities arise due to i ncreased flexibil ity, but so
does uncertai nty and risk.
Although people may in a traditional past have been no more secure i n their l ives
than members of the contemporary global middle class are-in many cases, they were
far less secure-at least they tended to belong to a com mun ity by default. Nobody
challenged their group membership, whether it was based on kin, rel igion, or local ity;
they knew who to turn to in times of need and scarcity, and they had a clear notion
of the moral u n iverse with i n which they l ived . When contemporary social theorists
speak of our era as somehow more i n secu re than the past, thi s i s roughly what they
tend to have in m i n d . Zygmunt Ba u ma n's concept " l iquid modernity" (2000) concerns
the floati ng, shifti n g qualities of va lues and social structure in our era; U l rich Beck's
" ri s k society " ( 1 992 [ 1 986]) refers not to i n creased objective risks but to a hei ghtened
awareness of ris ks , and Anthony G iddens's term " post-traditional society " ( 1 99 1 )
describes a society where a tradition can no longer be taken for granted, but must
actively be defended vis-a-vis its alte rnatives, which now appear rea l istic.
These and many other concepts used to describe a n e ra of increased i nter
connectedness s uggest that globalization makes people more vulnerable s i nce the
conditions for their existence are no longer locally produced and cannot be controlled.
C l i mate change, A I DS, terrorism, avian influenza, sudden economic downtu rns,
invasive plant and a n i mal species, and unpredictable waves of migration-there is
a widespread fee l i ng of vulnerabi l ity, easily translatable i nto a s ubjective sense of
insecu rity and powerlessness, in a n overheated era of accelerated change, when
conditions for local l ife a re often felt to be defined elsewhere, at an abstract global
leve l .
A term often preferred t o v u l nerabil ity i s ri sk. R i s k ca n b e defined as a fu ncti on
of probability and consequences. If the probabil ity is h i g h and the consequences
neg l igible, the risk is estimated to be low. Conversely, even if the probabil ity is minimal,
the risk is considered h i gh if the consequences are enormous. Of course, it is rarely
possible to estimate risk objectively, but risk assessment i s sti l l i mportant and ca n
trigger action in many widely different areas, from financial i nvestment to cl imate
cha nge.
As Beck writes, risks are in a sense both real and u n rea l : some risks have visible
consequences a l ready today (from terrorist attacks to deaths ca used by water pollution),
but "on the other hand, the actu a l social i mpetus of ris ks lies i n the projected dangers of
the future" ( 1 992 [ 1 986] : 34). Beck's seminal Risk Society and many later books on risk
are concerned with issues l i ke environ mental destruction and cli mate change, AIDS
and other transnational diseases, terrorism, and deterritorialized conflicts. Although
RISK 135
Beck's original statement was concerned with what he saw as a transformation of

modernity, towards a less self-confident, less secure situati on, the insights from the
sociology of risk can easily be transposed onto the tra nsnational canvas.
N atu ral and Man ufactu red Risks?
Sometimes, a distinction is made between natural and manufactured risks (e . g . ,

G iddens 1 99 9 ) . Natural risks i nclude snakebite a n d shark attacks, tsuna m i s and
earthquakes, while the manufactured ones might have been avoided with the proper
use of the foresight enta i led by the precautionary principle, a notion that i s widely used
in the tra nsnational environmental ist or g reen movement. H owever important it may
be to indicate which risks and dangers can be avoided by human agency, there can be
no sharp distinction between the two. If you know the whereabouts of sharks, being
attacked is not a purely natural event if you choose to go i nto a s hark-infested sea .
A more complex and more i nteresti ng exa mple is that of the tsunami, which struck
coastal areas in several Asian countries on Boxing Day, 2004. Thousands were k i l led,
mostly locals, but a lso a considerable nu mber of tourists perished . The material damage
was enormous i n Tha iland, Malaysia, and Su matra ( I ndonesia) . I n a n i m portant sense,
the tsunami was a natura l accident. The cause was a n u nderwater volcanic eruption;
it had noth ing to do with the depletion of fish stocks, global warmi n g , or pol lution . At
the same time, it was argued that with proper preca utionary measures, such as a n
efficient early wa rning system , m u ch o f the damage could have been avoided.
There i s a n i nteresting para l lel between the tsunami and the Lisbon earthquake i n
1 75 5 . The latter was seen a l l over Europe a s a horrible disaster. Some bel ieved it was
caused by the wrath of God; others saw it as an example of the amora l i ty of nature and
the lack of a higher mea n i n g ; yet others argued that the consequences were partly a
result of poor foresight. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in particular, argued
that if the Portuguese had been less u rbanized and l ived i n a different kind of housing,
the number of casualties would have been much lower. Voltaire, on the contrary, saw the
ea rthquake a s a mea n i n gless event signifying the death of God and the futil ity of an
overly opti mistic belief i n prog ress. Rousseau, i n this way, represented the voice of
those who called for proper early warn i n g systems in 2004 and also showed that the
d i stinction between natu ra l and man made risks can be misleading s ince many risks
have elements of bot h .
By an uncanny coincidence, a major academic b o o k on r i s k and vulnerability (Wisner
et al. 2 004), published on the eve of the Southeast Asia n tsuna m i , uses a Japanese
painting of a tsunami as its cover i mage. Ben Wisner and his co-authors make a powerful
argument again st the idea that certai n forms of vul nerability, or risk, are purely natural,
while others are manufactured. Fol lowing a similar l i ne of argument to Roussea u , they
argue that u rbanization has led to a great i ncrease in vul nerability in the poor parts of
the world. The high population densities of cities m a kes it easy for disease to spread,
1 36 G L O B A L I ZATI O N
a n d settlers i n urban a reas ofte n have n o other option than t o "occupy unsafe land,
construct u nsafe habitations or work i n unsafe environments " (Wisner et a l . 2 004: 70).
Although many ris ks and vul nerabil ities a re p roduced locally and can be a l l eviated
through domestic policies, there can be no doubt that many different forms of
vul n e rabi lity have been g l oba l i zed, the most obvious being those that affect the
poorest. Structural adjustment programs (SAPs), aiming to improve the economic
performance of countries i n the G lobal South, have led to cuts i n public expenditu re
on health and education and have led to large-scale unemployment in many countries.
The rich N o rth Atlantic countries conti nue to protect their own agricu ltural sectors
through subsidies and i mport tariffs while encouraging poor countries to open up the i r
economies. Dependence o n export earnings, typical o f many agricu ltural sectors i n
t h e South, increases vul nerabi l ity beca use rel iance on one or a few products red uces
flexibil ity. If the cocoa crop fails or the price of cocoa declines, the consequences for
the lvorian economy are very serious i ndeed. In a past when agricultu ral production
was largely i ntended for the local market or even the domestic sphere (the household),
agriculture was more diverse and flexible and better able to withsta nd temporary
setbacks affecting one or a few crops .
Although droughts a n d floods a r e natural occurrences (which may nonetheless
be l i n ked to global cli mate change), thei r consequences are anything but natura l , and
the causes of those consequences may often be traced to transnational economics
(enhanci ng vulnerabil ity) and the world of development aid (preventing some of the most
horrible consequences) . Th us, Rousseau was right in his unwi l l i ngness to blame disasters
on God or nature alone. Even natural hazards are to some extent socially manufactured.
The Eth n i c E l ite
I
n Western Europe and North America, i t i s customary to think of ethnic minorities
in terms of discrimination and deprivation. However, in large parts of the world,
ethnic minorities constitute elites. Some of the standards imposed on countries by
global agencies (like the I M F [ I nternational Monetary Fund]) and powerful states (like
the United States} have created new tensions pitting the majorities against the ethnic
elites. Withi n a dominant mode of thought, a multiparty democratic political system
is favored, as is market liberalism. These entities, it is widely believed, will make the
world a better place. This is assumed in the foreign policy of the rich countries, in
trade agreements, and in leading development organizations.
On this background, the American law professor Amy Chua's book World on Fire
(2003) deserves attention. Her argument is that the competence, networks, and work
ethic of ethnic elites in many countries contribute to added value to the benefit of all
of society. When society is pressured to introduce multiparty democracy and ideas
about equality are allowed to spread, frustrations and hatred are directed towards
the " market dominant minorities." The outcome may be riots and ensuing economic
chaos.
RISK 1 37
It is easy to find exa m ples that seem to confirm this general description. In Chua's
country of origin, the Philippines, 1 percent of the population (the C hinese) control
60 percent of the economy. The Tutsi in Rwanda and B u rundi may also be seen
as a market dominant minority-at least that is how they were seen by the Hutu.
Chua also speaks of Jews in Russia, Lebanese in West Africa, I ndians in East Africa,
Chinese in Southeast Asia, and whites in southern Africa. She also has interesting
views on Latin America, where a conspicuous proportion of the elites a re of purely
European descent.
The tensions and riots described by Chua, which doubtless create economic chaos,
not to mention massive loss of life, in many countries, are connected to transnational
processes in at least two ways: The conditions for the targeting of successful ethnic
elites a re transnational-ideas about rights and equality and transnational business
engaged in by the elites. Moreover, many ethnic elites participate modestly in
domestic politics and make moderate contributions to the domestic economy. They
often i nvest overseas and have strong obligations towards co-ethnics elsewhere.
Chua's solution consists in delaying the i ntroduction of democratic rights until
basic welfare provisions a re in place. Another a lternative might be to regulate the
huge income differences between the elites and the majority through progressive
taxation, and to create incentives for members of the majority to engage in the
businesses controlled by the ethn ic elites.
Towards the end of her book, Chua notes that the U . S. government's "ethnic
policy for I raq was essentially to have no ethnic policy. I n stead, U . S. officials seemed
strangely confident that I raq's ethnic, rel igious, a nd tribal division would dissipate
in the face of democracy a nd market-generated wealth" (2003: 291 ). She here
indicates a main source of vulnerability in the contemporary world caused by the
tensions wrought by globalization.
Perceived Risk and Real Conseq uences
Perceived v u l nerabil ity has i n creased i n the rich countries too. The complexity of
global systems precludes a proper overview and ma kes it diffi cult to make decisions
on the basis of sou n d knowledge. The extent of a given risk or danger i s difficult to
estimate. M ost of the readers wil l recal l the global anthrax scare in the a utumn of 2001.
Appearing j ust after the 9/1 1 terrorist attacks on the U n ited States, the appeara nce of
deadly anthrax spores in letters sent to a few i ndividuals on the East Coast was wi dely
believed to be a n alternative form of terrorism, and many believed that the terrorist
network al-Qaeda was behind it.
Less than a dozen received letters conta ined anthrax spores, all of them on the
East Coast. Yet, the perceived risk of being killed by a seemingly i nnocent white
powder lacing a letter was huge worl dwide. Postal servicemen were i nstructed to
treat s u sp i cious l etters and packages with special caution, and commentators i n the
media feared that the world had o n ly seen the beginning of a large-scale campaign .
Many o f those w h o d i d not believe i n the al-Qaeda hypothesis speculated that a n I raqi
scientist (she was named, her picture published i n newspapers worldwide) was the
evi l genius behind the ca mpa i g n .
I nteresti ngly, although no l etters conta i n i n g anthrax spores were found outside
the U n ited States, where seventeen persons were i nfected and five d ied, heightened
security surrounding m a i l deliveries was i m posed in many countries. Thousands of
false a larms led to the careful opening, by authorized personnel wea ring a i rtig ht
u n iforms, of letters and packages worldwide. I n a few cases, entire office b u i l d ings
were evacuated where suspicious letters had been identified.
Although the anthrax crime has, at the time of writi ng, not been solved, it has been
ruled out that the letters had anythi n g to do with either I ra q or al-Qaeda.
The example n i cely sums u p the arg u ment so far: Perceived risk is a result of
anticipated consequences rather than scientific proba b i l ity, contemporary risks travel
easily across and between conti nents, and there a re enormous u ncerta inties i nvolved
in risk assessment. The fact that many risks are proven to be m uch less sign ificant
than commonly beli eved-what we fear is rarely that which kills us-the sociologist
Fra n k Fured i (2002) has spoken of the contemporary obsession with risk as "a culture
of fear." H i s argument i s that the benefits from genetically modified foods, genetic
research, and mob i le phones, to mention three of his examples, are far greater than
the risks i nvolved, and that pol icy should therefore be based on opti m i sm rather than
anxiety. This reioi nder from a colleague of G iddens, Beck, and Bauman-three leading
theorists who spea k gravely of i n creased risk-should be kept i n mind throughout this
chapter. S i nce risks a re largely psychological, their relationship to real ity can always be
disputed . I t i s nevertheless difficult to dispute the fact that some of the key issues of
global politics i n the early twenty-fi rst century are to do with vulnerabil ity and risk, both
in rich and poor countries, although in different ways . Let us consi der a few exa mples .
I nvasive Species
An envi ronm ental problem, which has i n creasingly entered the pol itical agenda i n many
countries, is that of introduced plant and a n i mal species, which create i m ba lances,
sometimes severe ones, i n local ecosystems. L i ke so many other risks, the problems
associated with a l i e n species have recently grown in importance owi ng to accel erated
and i ntensified globa l i zation .
M a ny of the species, which are today considered i nvasive and damag i n g , were
origi nally i ntroduced vol untari ly, often during colonia l i s m . The possibly most fa mous
example i s the rabbit i n Australia, i ntroduced by the Fi rst Fleet in 1 788 for food and kept
in cages. I n 1 859, twenty-fou r rabbits were released for h u nting purposes. They soon
spread, bred l i ke rabbits, and began to ca use serious damage on crops. Rabbits have
also contributed to the exti ncti on of many ind igenous plants.
Also i n Austral i a , the Ca ribbean ca ne toad was i ntroduced i n 1 93 7 to eat i nsects that
ca used damage to the s u ga rcane. The toad, fi rst i ntroduced i n eastern Queensland, is
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now widespread i n most of northern Austra l i a . Being poisonous, the toad has perhaps
been especia l ly damaging to predators, but it has also outcompeted other amphibians
i n the area. A third example could be the B urmese python i n Florida, origi nally brought
to the state a s pets, but some i ndividual snakes m ust have been released or escaped
from homes, q u i ckly establishing a healthy breeding population and threaten i ng a
broad range of native species with no evolved defense methods agai nst this alien
i nvader, including deer, rodents, and even a l l i gators.
One of the most i nfamous exa mples of i nvasive species causing havoc i s that of the
N ile perch in Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake. Th i s large and tasty fish was introduced
i nto the l a ke i n the 1 950s and has si nce then caused the exti nction o r near extinction
of several h u ndred native species of fish. It can easily be fished by large operators but
has forced thousands of smaller fishermen out of business. In the award-win n i n g film
Darwin 's Nightmare (2004), the fi l m ma ker H u bert Sauper tell s a n even more complex
story, demonstrating not only the ecolog ical and econom ic consequences of N i l e
perch domina nce i n t h e l a ke but a l s o t h a t t h e s a m e transport pla nes that a re used t o
s h i p fresh fish on t h e i r way u p (to E u rope) b r i n g weapons on t h e i r way down, thereby
fuelling armed confl ict i n the region. The repercussions of the ecological changes
wrought by this big, confident, and fast-breeding fish are, i n other words, felt i n several
other subsystems, from security to economy and local organizatio n .
Species have a l ways spread, b u t t h e speed a n d compass o f current d i ssemi nation of
nonendem ic species lacks precedent. M a ny marine species are i ntroduced unwittin g ly
through ballast brought by ships, while plants can spread just because someone
brought a single specimen or a handful of seeds home for the garden .
Measures are being taken to l i m i t o r even eradicate i nvasive species. Yet, precisely
the qual ities that led to their becomi n g i nvasive m a ke them difficult to catch . To many
people whose l ivelihoods, leisure activities, or physical environment have been affected
by destabilization caused by i nvasive species, the spread of unwanted pla nts or a n i ma l s
i n one's i mmed iate s u rroundings may appear as a condensed i mage o f g l obal ization
gone mad, with the risks and d isadvantages far outweigh ing the advantages. The
example of i nvasive species, moreover, cal l s attention to the u n i ntentional side effects
of wel l-i ntentioned i nterventions-thi s i s a genera l sociological phenomenon, but one
that gains tremendous i m portance when crossing borders is made easier.
C l i mate Change
In 2008, a formal req uest was made to the Geological Society of London to create a
new division in the world's geological h istory. Conventional ly, the latest and current
epoch is known as the H olocene, the comparatively warm period that began at the
end of the last I ce Age around twelve thousand years ago, but some scientists felt that
the last couple h u n dred years, beg i n n i n g with the I n d ustrial Revolution, deserve to be
s i ngled out a s a separate era, the Anthropocene. The reason was that h u ma n activities
now made their mark on the entire planet-its ecology, its surface, even its climate-
to such a n extent that the only appropriate term for this period of growth, acceleration,
connectedness, and overheati ng in its exploitation and use of natural resources, such
as foss i l fuels, would be a concept that tied it to our species.
The term " the Anthropocene" i s taken seriously by many scientists, although it
has not (yet ? ) been made an official label for our time. The key factor i n its acceptance
consists i n the effects of human activities on the world's cli mate. Of course, it is
complex. When asked to i l l ustrate what they mean by i rreducible complexity, theorists
sometimes evoke two exa mples of systems that are complex i n s uch a way that they
cannot be described properly i n a simplified manner: the fl uctuations i n the g lobal
financial market and the global climate. It comes as no s u rprise, therefore, that
geophysicists and other c l i mate experts disagree a bout the causes, l i kely effects, and
political impli cations of contemporary cl imate change. I ndeed, the U . S. government
failed to ratify the 2002 Kyoto protocol , an attempt to commit all countries to reduce
their C02 emissions, ostensibly because its representatives did not trust the scientific
findings u nderpinning the treaty.
This much said, the vast majority of experts have long been convinced that the
Ea rth's cli mate is changing and that human activity-notably the massive emission
of greenhouse gases from deforestation and the use of fossil fuels-is a main cause.
The scientific th i n ker James Lovelock, origi nator of the " Gaia hypothesis," according
to which the planet can be studied as a self-regulating organism, once compared the
present s ituation to a fever. I n h i s 2 006 book The Revenge of Gala, Lovelock describes
the na rrow l i mits with i n which crucial parameters need to be for the Earth to be a
l ivable place for a great variety of plants and a n i mals. If the temperature i ncreases
with 5 degrees (Celsius), the enti re tropical belt becomes desert. If the proportion of
oxygen in the atmosphere rises a few percentage poi nts above the current 2 1 percent,
a mere spark will lead to a f i re, but if i t decli nes to 1 5 percent, i t becomes hard to
breathe and impossible to light a fire .
Lovelock's book, which shows how icebergs and glaciers shrink, h o w deserts g row,
and how the development of the global temperature of the last hundred years can
be mapped on a graph resembling a hockey stick, expresses an alarmist sense of
vulnerabil ity. With a population of a billion a round 1 800, he seems to argue, humanity
could have done pretty m uch what we wanted; it would not have inflicted perma nent
damage on the precarious ecological equilibrium of the planet. With a g l obal popu lation
of over seven b i l l ion (and g rowi n g-it was j ust over six b i l l ion when the fi rst edition of
this book was published i n 2007), and a widespread tech nology based on fossil fuels,
i rreversible consequences a re bound to occur.
A fasci nating aspect of cli mate change i s the way i n which small changes may
lead to enormous consequences, often on a g l obal scale . In this way, cli mate change
i l l ustrates, better than most other global phenomena, the butterfly effect. Let us
consider one brief exa mple.
If the sea temperature i n the tropical Pacific rises only 1 degree Celsius ( 1 . 8 degrees
Fa h renheit) above the average, it results in the phenomenon known as E l N i n o i n
South America, leading t o flooding i n Peru a n d drought i n Austra l i a . A s far away as the
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Amazon basi n , the effects of E l N i no a r e felt through d r y and h o t weather, which may
last for month s . Forest fi res a re l i kely in I ndonesi a . Along the western coast of South
America, fish becomes less abundant because of the higher water temperatu res ,
and t h i s i n tu rn l eads t o a decrease i n the g u a n o production (ferti l izer based on b i rd
droppings) . El N i no events also affect coral reefs adversely. During the 1 99 7-98 El
N i no, the enormous rainforest fires i n I ndonesia fed particles and s mog i nto the ocean
west of Sumatra . After the fires, the coastal seawater appea red to turn red, a n effect
caused by the proliferation of a tiny orga nism living off the i ron in the smog particles.
H owever, these o rganisms (di noflagel lates) produce toxins, which kill coral organisms.
The natu ra l ist Ti m Flanne ry (2006: 1 07 ) comments that " it will take the reefs decades
to recover, if i n deed they ever do."
El N i no (and El N ina, which is caused by coo l i ng and has different consequences)
has been a reg ularly recurring phenomenon forever, but many scientists believe that
El N i no-l i ke events are now becoming more common because of the overa l l effects of
h umanly i nd u ced global warm ing .
There are visible signs of cli mate change elsewhere as wel l . Some indigenous
Alaskan villages have been rel ocated because of rising sea l evels, and the inhabitants
of the low-lying Carteret Islands off New G ui nea have been relocated to the higher
lying Bougai nvi l l e Island (Orlove 2009).
C l i mate C hange and G lobal Democracy
Describing the complexities of local responses to c l i mate change in G reenland,

where there are clear i n dications that the ice s heet is s h ri n ki n g , Mark Nuttal l (2009)
describes sheep farmers at the southern tip of the island who " s ha ke their heads
i n wonder as they dig potatoes from the ground and pl uck their first harvests of
broccol i , cauliflower, and cabbage" (296) . S u mmers have become perceptibly longer
and warmer in the Arctic a rea over the last few decades. As a ru le, u nder conditions
of global warmi ng , temperatures rise fastest near the poles, and many G reenlanders
see more opportu n ities than d ifficulties in this development. H owever, a s is wel l
known , the wa rmer conditions i n G reenland e n t a i l warmer conditions elsewhere as
wel l . Only a few degrees separate the M editerranean from a semidesert state, and
when glaci ers melt i n the Arctic, the i nflux of freshwater into the N orth Atlantic is
believed to have adverse consequences for the G u lf Strea m . Consisting of salt water,
heavier than the freshwater of the shrinking g laciers, the G u lf Stream may a l ready
have been considera bly wea kened. H owever, there have so far been no percepti ble
conseque nces for the temperatures of northwestern Europe. Some scientists now
argue that the contribution of ocea n currents to cli mate has been exaggerated and
that wind systems are more i m porta nt. Others point out that when the G u lf Stream
has s l owed in earlier periods, the temperature has dropped by as much as 1 0 degrees
Celsius i n a decade.
1 42 G L O BA L I ZAT I O N
The term environmental refugee has i ncreasi ngly been used i n recent years to
describe displaced persons fleeing an environment destroyed by h u ma n activity.
U sed in a wide sense, the term might encompass many of the world's s l u m
dwellers-ex-farmers whose fields were destroyed b y h i ghways, ex-fishermen facing
dwindling retu rns beca use of water poll ution, and so o n . More dramatic are stories
about entire com m u nities that have been displaced beca use of recurrent flooding or
the thawi ng of the permafrost on which their villages were built.
I n 2004, I n u it organizations appealed to the I nter-American Commission on H uman
R i g hts for a legal ru l i ng concerning al leged damages to their l ivel i hood caused
by c l imate change. There has been a sharp decline i n the n u mbers of the anima l s
traditionally h unted by t h e I n u it (bear, sea l , cari bou), and vil lages a re becoming
u n i nhabitable beca use of thaw (Flannery 2006) . O n the other side of the Beri ng Straits
and i n northern Scandi navia, indigenous rei ndeer herders are facing serious problems
because of recurrent mild periods in wi nter. Rei ndeer su rvive i n winter by digging
through the snow for l ichen, but melted s now becomes solid ice when refrozen.
It cannot be dug through, and the a n i mals frequently suffer fractures when they slip
and fal l .
The committee appea led to by the I n u its has n o legal powers, but its ru l i n g could
make it possible to sue either the U . S. government or U . S. corporation s . One ca n
only imagine the complexities involved in suing tra nsnational corporations for damages
i nflicted over perhaps a century and contributing to cli mate cha nge with locally harmful
conseq uences .
I n some ways, the consequences of climate change i l l u strate George Monbiot's
(2003: back cover) view that "everything has been g l obal ized except democracy." It is
difficult to see any international body, or organ ization, taking full responsibility for a n
entire nation forced t o f l e e because of r i s i n g seawaters. Several Pacific states, along
with the Mald ives i n the Indian Ocean, are flat coral ato l l s, which wou l d be wiped out
if the water were to rise a couple of meters.
Things can even get m uch worse, a s Lovelock, Flannery, and many others a re wont
to point out. M a ny of the world's greatest cities, from Hong Kong to Calcutta and
London, a re located to flat landscapes at sea leve l . Some even believe that it is by
now too late to reverse the tendency towards global warm ing and cli matic i nstabil ity.
The worl d thermostat is sluggish and has taken a severe beati ng to be brought onto
the present course, they argue, and even with a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas
emissions, the turmoi l continues.
Wavering Trust in Expert Systems
A mi nority o f climatologi sts have a rgued that t h e main cause o f current climatic
instabi lity is the h i gh solar spot activity, which has been noticed in recent years.
N onspecial i sts-that is, the vast majority of people, can only trust their own i ntuitions
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and what they are told by the experts, when they make u p their minds. Faced with
expert systems of knowledge, trust i s essential, but when experts disagree or are
proven wrong , that trust begins to erode. This is a central a rgu ment in B eck's sociology
of modernity ( 1 992 [ 1 986]. 1 999) and in G i ddens's writi ngs on late modern ity ( 1 990,
1 99 1 ) , while Furedi (2002) has argued that the experts-scientific and technological
have i n fact been right much more often than not.
The fact nevertheless remains that a strong rel ia nce on the pronouncements of
experts, which feed i nto policies, depends on widespread trust to be effi cient, and
environmental issues have to some extent jeopa rdized the trusting relationsh i p
between experts and t h e public. T h e expert system, o n e o f G iddens's main forms of
disembedding (discussed in Chapter 1 ), is an abstract and arca ne body of knowledge,
which i s i naccessible to the vast majority of people.
Experts a re sometimes wrong . Financial experts have routinely been unable to
p redict stock ma rket crashes. The strategic experts of the F B I and the CIA were
unable to predict a n d p revent the terrorist attack on the U n ited States in 2 0 0 1 .
Experts on m a r i n e l i fe d i sagree about the n u mbers of m i n ke w h a l e s i n the N orth
Atlanti c . Few, if a ny, experts on Eastern E urope were able to predict the ra pid demise
of Soviet-styl e C o m m u n i s m , and n obody predicted, i n 1 99 1 , that Fidel Castro woul d
sti l l b e a l ive a n d exerti n g h i s power i n C u b a i n 201 3 . Pred i ctions about the spread
of contagious d i seases, s uch a s H IV-A I DS, Sars, Ebola, and avian i nfluenza ( b ird f l u ) ,
va ry wild ly.
In the world of computers and fast i nformation networks, even some of the
major predictions have been proved wro n g . In 1 943, the I B M C E O Thomas Watson
pronounced that there might be a world market for a bout five computers . In the early
1 980s, when personal computers became com mon, pundits predicted the advent of
the paperless office. A decade later, as advanced telecommunications made video
conferences and telephone meeti ngs possi ble and affordable, many predicted that this
would reduce a i r travel . Final ly, at the end of the twentieth centu ry, there was global
anxiety around the so-cal led Y2 K issue (the millennium bug), and billions were spent i n
attempti ng to p revent d i saster.
The issue consisted in the fact that most of the world's mai nframe computers ,
which ra n elevators, ATM s , greenhouse thermostats, traffic l ights, airspace contro l l i n g
systems, and so o n , h a d thei r basic programming done i n t h e 1 960s a n d early 1 970s,
when bytes were expensive. For this reason, programmers ski pped the first two d i g its
of the year, typing 79 rather than 1 97 9 . Because of the ambigu ities arisi n g on January
1 , 2000, it was widely believed that computers worldwide would refuse to cooperate
and break down . Even m icrocomputers, l i ke the one I am using now, were believed to
be at risk, s i nce their software conta ined traces of the old software from the era before
the cheap gigabyte.
Belief in Y2 K ove rs hadowed all other concerns associated with the turn of the
millennium in the most computerized (richest) cou ntries. Experts went on television
stating that they had filled their basements with tinned food and water contai ners,
their garages with fi rewood. Retired progra mmers were taken out of retirement to
help i n reprogramming the software. India's I T sector took off partly (some would say
largely) because of the massive demand for programming expertise in the last couple
of years of the twentieth century.
In the event. a s everyone wi l l reca l l , nothi n g dramatic ha ppened to the world's
computer driven systems as the century grinded to a ha lt, although it was reported
that some Austra l ian bus ticket val i dation machi nes fai led to operate after the turn of
the m i l lennium.
The faith placed i n the real ity of the Y2K problem by governments, enterprises. and
i ndividuals a l l over the world suggests that the belief i n expert systems can sometimes
be regarded as blind fa ith . Lacki ng criteria for eval uating the predictions, many i nvoked
the precautionary principle.
I n a more serious vei n , it should be noted that the expert knowledge systems
used by trans national financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the I M F, have
demonstrably failed to create economi c stabil ity and prosperity in the Th i rd World
countries who fol lowed them ( G ray 1 998; Scholte 2005; Stiglitz 2002; Rodrik 201 1 ,
and many others have documented th i s ) . The economi c crisis affecti n g pa rts of Europe
si nce 201 0, often d ubbed the E u ro crisis, can simi larly be attributed, at least partly,
to a faith in econom ic models developed by recognized experts, but which did not
correspond satisfactorily to the local rea l ities.
The feeling that one cannot even trust the experts, more pronou nced i n the rich
countries than el sewhere. si nce the demoti c political discourse i n these countries
pres upposes that experts are to be trusted, has led many to abandon faith in
tech nological progress and social engi neeri n g . Some have turned to religion, thereby
fa l sifying the secularization thesis popul a r among twentieth-century sociologi sts,
according to which rati onal ization would slowly erode the basis for rel igion. On the
contra ry, demand for rel i gious mean ing seems to be rising . In addition to many other
thi ngs, rel i gion ca n alleviate a sense of insecu rity and mea n i ng lessness. The revival of
rel igion in the wake of partial or failed modernization is a global-and globalized-trend.
Islam has become the main identity marker for ma ny, if not most, M uslims in the world.
Pentecostal missions across the world, often su rprisingly coordi nated i n the i r activities,
enjoy substantial success in countries as d iverse as Ghana. the P h i lippi nes. and B raz i l .
New a g e religions-that is, eclectic m ixtures o f a variety o f religious i mpulses. have
many fol l owers in the rich world. Through a c u rious recursive movement. new age
rel igion, much of which had its origins i n I ndia but was Westernized and adapted to
modern society and l ifestyles i n the U n ited States, has enjoyed a recent popularity i n
I ndia itself. ( Rhythmic music h a s made a s i m i l a r cycl ical movement from Africa t o the
New World and back . )
Religion, often poorly understood by t h e secula rized academic el ites, i s a
widespread alternative to the confusion, uncerta i nty, and sense of vulnerabil ity
created by fa ltering expert systems in a world of fast movement, deterritoria l ization,
and u ncontro l l ed cha nge. I t offers a coherent world and a mea n i ng of life, usually
including a mission i n l ife, whi ch has become i ncreasingly d ifficult to deliver by the
prophets of modern ity.
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Dealing with G l obal Risks Locally
Local com m u nities around the world are not only affected i n different ways by both
the di scourse a round and the effects of climate cha nge, but they also respond very
differently. As poi nted out by Jonathan E nsor and Rachel Berger ( 2 009). "j ust as some
cu ltures may be deeply and narrowly defi ned and thereby resistant to change (or
certai n forms of change), i n others adaptation and flexi bil ity a re or have become part
of l ite" (237). They go on to mention Kenyan pastoralists and sand-ban k dwe llers in
Bangladesh as examples of peoples who are accustomed to adj usti ng and adapting to
ecological fluctuati ons.
In the most d iverse settings around the planet, people develop notions about global
crises and the ways i n which they affect local conditions. The concept of global cli mate
cha nge has spread a l most as fast as the concept of u n iversal h u ma n rights and i s
referred t o i n local setti ngs i n many parts o f t h e world. Yet, perceptions o f cli mate
cha nge, its ca uses, and possible remedies, vary considerably. Besides, struggles to
mitigate environmental degradation are u sually loca l . In a country s u ch as N epal, tor
example, there is l ittle ta l k of cli mate change outside of certai n i nternational N G O s
(nongovernmental organizations) and elite groups, b u t people around the country
m a ke considerable efforts to c lean u p rivers, prevent soil erosion, and save trees.
Quite often , however, the link between the local and the globa l i s perceived and
understood to be important. In the I ndonesian environmental movement described
by the anthropologist Anna Tsing i n her book Friction (2005), several concerns blend
and several lines of conflict-or friction-emerge . The envi ron mental movement in
Ka l i mantan ( Borneo) depends on collaborating with and l i n ki ng u p with i ndigenous
v i llage leaders on the one hand and student activists on the other hand. The farmer's
concern to save a way of l ife i s distinctive from but compatible with the latter's educated
concern with biodiversity and saving the l u ngs of the planet.
The environmenta l ist movement in Ka l i ma ntan faces formidable opponents. An
ideology of development, comb i n i ng technological optimism and-from the early
1 990s-a strong belief in the blessings of deregu lated ma rkets, has dominated
I n donesian politics. Resource extraction, from logging to m i n i n g , took place in both legal
and i l legal ways, as " big and small operators advanced privatization through military
and pol itical force, displacing earlier residents' resource rights " (Tsing 2005: 2 1 ) .
Followi n g the Asian crisis of 1 997-98, however, there was a cons i derable openness
to a lternative paths, and in the early 2000s, "Al Qaeda competed with Bol lywood and
Marx i n shaping local visions" (Tsing 2005: 2 1 5) . In this space, the environmental
movement, a l ready relatively strong not least beca use it was su pported by some
powerful state bureaucrats, saw opportun i ties for a different, nonmarket driven kind
of globalization. Some had heard the story about C h i co Mendes, the leader of the
B razilian rubber tapper movement who was killed i n 1 988, and found inspiration i n
the B razilian movement for workers' rights a n d local a utonomy. S i m i larly, the story
of the C h i p ko movement in the H i malayas, where an ecological movement led by
women a n d combining ecologi ca l and i ndigenous concerns served a s a sou rce of

inspi ration for the I n donesian activists . Tsing tel ls a complex story of a l l iances between
environmental activists, rel igious groups, indigenous Daya k leaders, and national and
tra nsnational N G Os i n opposing the standardizing, centra l izing, and profit-maximizing
compa nies. Their motivations may differ, but the cause is the same: " For the vil lage
head, it [ keeping the ti mber company away] is a consolidation of her village territory;
for Kom pas Borneo [susta inable tourism orga n ization], it is the growing legitimacy of
environmental politics regionally; forWALH I [the I n donesian forum for the environment],
it is the practice of g ra ssroots s upport agai nst government coercion and corporate
land grabs " (Tsing 2 0 0 5 : 2 59) . What these and others opposi ng the compa nies had
i n common was not a shared worldview but a common u nderstanding of the right of
local people to autonomy. Although the environmental chal lenges facing h u ma n ity a re
global, they can only be dealt with in concrete localities. G lobalization creates new
ris ks and vul nera b i l ities, but they a re only perceived local ly.
T h e A I D S E p i d e m i c a n d G l o b a l i zat i o n
E
pidemic diseases have played a major part i n human history, not least i n periods
when there has been large-scale contact between formerly mutually isolated
groups (Diamond 1 998; McNeill 1 977). Diseases that were trivial to Europeans, who
had lived in close contact with domestic animals for mi llennia, were deadly to many
Native Americans.
The AIDS epidemic is deadly everywhere, but its consequences vary geographically.
Believed to have originated in central Africa, AIDS was first diagnosed in a group of
homosexual men in Los Angeles in 1 98 1 . Soon found to exist in the Caribbean (Haiti)
as well, AI D S had been reported in eighty-five countries by the end of 1 986. Today,
it is estimated that seventy thousand to one hundred thousand persons had been
infected with the disease before it was named.
Since the mid-1 980s, AI DS has spread quickly, but unevenly, throughout the
world. In the North Atlantic, it remains a disease associated with syringe users and
homosexual men . In the Middle East and North Africa, it remains a rare disease,
clearly in large part owing to strong cultural restrictions on extramarital sex. I n
certain parts o f Asia, notably I ndia, China, and some Southeast Asian countries like
Thailand, the disease is spreading q uickly. Finally, in many countries in sub-Saharan
Africa, the social and economic consequences of AIDS are, and have for some years
been, disastrous. By 201 3 , eleven countries in this region had lost more than a tenth
of their labor force because of AI DS. In a handful of African countries, the reduction
in the labor force may reach 20 percent by 2020.
The uneven spread of AIDS i l lustrates a general fact about global i zation: ideas,
things, and people move faster than before, but not indiscriminately. Factors affecting
their uneven movement are cultural, economic, and politica l . Yet, it must be pointed
out that i n a nonglobalized world or even in a slower, globalized world, the AI DS
epidemic would have spread much more slowly if at all.
RISK 147
The varying impact of the AIDS epidemic also shows how vulnerability is
contingent on many factors. In the rich northern countries, antiretroviral drugs now
make it possible to live with H IV i ndefinitely without contracting Al DS. I n most M uslim
countries, transmission of the disease is slow and inefficient for cultural reasons.
In Thailand and I ndia, sex workers are a main source of transmission, whereas the
pattern is different in many African countries, where casual sex is widespread, and
women account for roughly half of the i nfected. I n Botswana. Lesotho, Swaziland,
Malawi, and Zimbabwe, the adult HIV prevalence rate i s estimated at over 20 percent.
Life expectancy has plunged. Millions of children are orphaned. Economic growth is
set back. Some leaders even deny the connection between HIV and AI DS.
However, some African countries have been successful in containing AIDS, notably
Uganda, where the prevalence has fallen from 1 5 percent in the early 1 990s to less
than 5 percent in 201 2 . The general explanation is that the Ugandan state, supported by
international N G Os, has successfully taught the population how to avoid being infected.
Monogamy and premarital abstinence have been key factors here, while condoms have
been less important, partly because certain Christian aid organizations take a negative
view of contraception. The antiretroviral drugs, which prevent H IV from developing into
AI DS, are expensive, and transnational lawsuits are fought over the right to develop
cheaper generic drugs for the benefit of Africans and others in poorer countries.
The H IV/AIDS epidemic i l lustrates the i nterwoven character of the contemporary
world. It spread and grew thanks to the increased mobility of people, it has varying
consequences locally because of important cultural, economic, and political differences
between countries, and it can only be fought efficiently through transnational cooper
ation with a local resonance.
G lobal ization and Wars on Terror
Tsi n g mentions that the environmental activists in I ndonesia seemed to become more
pious during and after the 1 990s, women covering themselves up i n ways they did
not do before. If we now move to a nother g l obal ized risk, we soon notice that religion
can be s i g nificant i n other ways too . To what extent the 9/1 1 terrorists were u lti mately
motivated by religious sentiment is debated, but it i s a well-documented fact that
politicized religion has come to the forefront i n many parts of the world i n recent
decades. The fi rst exa mple that comes to most readers' m i nd is that of pol itical Islam,
but political H i nduism has played a central role i n I ndian politics s i n ce the m id-1 980s,
a nd C h ristian i nterest g roups have enjoyed growi ng influence o n politics in the U nited
States. On a more local scale, the n umber of witchcraft accusations has g rown rap idly
in many pa rts of Africa s i n ce the early 1 990s.
This is not the place to give a thorough treatment to rel igion i n g lobal ization (see
Beyer 2 006), but the rel igious element i n the ongoing confl ict between J i hadists and
secular forces, i ncluding the U n ited States and its a l l ies, i s c l early very i m portant,
probably o n both sides. I n the present context, however, I should l i ke to emphasize the
effects of deterritorial ized warfare on perceived vulnera b i l ity.
The terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center a n d damaged the
Pentagon on the morning of September 1 1 , 2001 were difficult to classify with
conventi onal criteria . The American president would soon denounce them with a
declaration of war on terrorism, but war is normally declared on another cou ntry, not o n
an ideol ogy o r a deterritorial ized political practice. T h e uncerta inty concerning whether
to see the terrorist acts a s a very large crime o r as a m i l itary attack impl ied a threat
to the boundary between the outside and the inside of American society (Eri ksen
2001 a). Had it been i nterpreted as a crime, the federal pol ice would have been charged
with finding the s u rviving terrorists, col laborati ng with pol ice elsewhere through the
transnational police organization I nterpol, and i nvolving intelligence personnel when
necessary. Since the government interpreted the attack as m i l ita ry, h owever, m i litary
retribution would be req u i red. A temporary result of this i nterpretation was the
presence of heavily armed soldiers at the entrances of public transpo rt hubs, such as
the G rand Centra l Station in N ew York.
Enemies of a sovereign state a re usually abroad and could traditionally be identified
as other states . H owever, these enemies seemed to be neither outside nor inside.
U n l i ke terrorists i n other locations, they were not j ust opposed to the political regime of
the state but to its very existence and that of its i n habitants (according to a declaration
made by Osama bin Laden i n 1 998) .
Some of the state's enemies were phys ically inside it. The suicide bombers were
themselves bona fide residents of the U n ited States, several of them-infamously
students at a flight school (but curiously uni nterested in learning h ow to land a plane ) .
H owever, t h e network o f militant lslamists o f which they were a part. al-Qaeda, was
decentra lized and to a great extent deterritoria l i zed. This meant that the enemy was
neither a group of i n s u rgents or revolutionaries wishing to overthrow the reg i me in
Was h i ngton , nor a resentful a l i en state.
As i s wel l known, the reactions of the U n ited States to the terrorist attack were
comprehensive and wide ranging. A war was waged aga inst the Ta l iban regime of
Afghanista n , which had sheltered and supported al-Qaeda, and many of their leading
officers were believed to h ide i n the country. The Tal i ban removed from power in Kabul
(and left to fight a perpetual guerilla war aga i nst what some conti nue to perceive as
a p uppet regime i nsta l led by the Americans), the U n ited States went to war aga inst
I raq i n 2003, fol l owing u ndocu mented (and later disproved) claims that I raq's secu lar
dictator Saddam Hussein had a collaborative relationship with a l-Qaeda and that the
cou ntry had developed weapons of mass destructio n . I t was only i n 201 1 that Osama
bin Laden was finally tracked down and killed.
H u man Rights and Secu rity
I n the same period, i n the words of h u man rights scholar R i chard A. Wilson (2005: 6 ) ,
" the Bush Adm i n istration advanced a formulation o f internati onal security that detached
[human] rights from secu rity concern s ." The prison camp i n the American G uantanamo
RISK 1 49
base i n Cuba, for exa mple, is operated outside, and in violation of, i nternational law.
It remai n s operative in 2 0 1 3 , years after President Obama promised to close it down.
The United States has also tried to u ndermine " the I C C [ I nternational Cri minal Court]
through bi lateral agreements which grant a special exemption from prosecution for
U .S soldiers " (Wilson 2005: 6 ) . Enhancing a l l forms of secu rity associated with civilian
a i r travel , the U n ited States has also fortified embassies overseas, someti mes moving
them from city centers into locations easier to guard. The i mpression given to the
outside world is that of a society under siege at home and at war abroad.
The fai l u re of the U n ited States to destroy al-Qaeda and associated groups
i l lustrates a contrast introduced early i n this book between the territorial power and the
decentralized network. Any number of fighter planes, commandos, and warheads is
i nsufficient to destroy a versati le, flexible, and mobile network of committed adversaries.
At a structural level, the war on terror has some resem blance to the attempts to remove
chi l d pornography from the I nternet. States deploy their territorial power and may be
able to find a n d catch users and some producers of child pornography, but s i n ce the
actual material i s located on servers overseas, wh ich ca n be moved q uickly and easily
to new locations, the offending pornography as such can scarcely be removed.
A survey commissioned by Foreign Policy i n September 2006 indicated that eighty
six of the one hundred experts s u rveyed believed that the world was now more
dangerous tha n it was five years earl ier, and eighty-fou r believed that the U n ited
States was losing the war on terror. A sign ificant majority bel ieved that the country
was beco m i ng less safe as a result of the draconian measures, u npopular in large parts
of the world , M uslim and non-Muslim, taken aga i nst terroris m .
The war on terror i s i n structive as a lesson o n g lobal ization .
F i rst, it s hows that the boundary between a society's inside and outside is relative.
Second, it confi rms the hypothesis that i n a global i nformation society, flexible
networks are a s uperior mode of organ i zation to the territorially based h iera rchy.
Thi rd , it is an example of a truly trans nationa l , deterritorial ized conflict. Terrorist
suspects (and perpetrators) have been caught in Spain, France, Denmark, Germany,
Pa kista n , and many other countries.
Fourth, it gives many exa mples of the global repercussions of tra nsnational pro
cesses. I n the remote northern Norwegian port of Troms0, for example, an u n beautiful
fence has been built along the formerly picturesque seafront, for the sake of the
security of foreig n , mostly American cru ise ship passengers . A taxi d river in N ew York.
orig inally from E l Salvador, told the B ritish writer Tariq Ali (2002) that he supported
al-Qaeda because the U n ited States, in his view, had destroyed h i s own cou ntry and
forced him to migrate . Other wars, such as I srael 's attack on Lebanon i n the summer
of 2006, are indirectly con nected to this transnational campaign.
Fifth and lastly, but not least i m portantly, the war on terror indicates that the attention
of others, and their respect, are i n short su pply in a n era of global com municatio n . Osama
bin Laden and his ideological a l l ies rarely spoke of i mperialism and g lobal capita lism as
the i r adversaries but often use words l i ke respect, d i g nity, and h u m i liatio n . Many non
America ns have been struck by the ease with which the U n ited States acci dentally k i l l s
large n u mbers o f civil ians during t h e i r campaigns agai n st a particu l a r government or a
particular terrorist group. This has led many to conclude that a M us l i m l ife has a much
lower val ue than an American one.
* * *
Writi ng a few years before the 9/1 1 attacks, Manuel Castells ( 1 998) prophesied that
i nternational terrorism would be the main secu rity threat i n the rich countries i n the
global network soci ety. At the time of writi ng, he seems to have been proven right,
notwithstanding the tact that the n umber of people killed by terrorists re mains very
low compared with a l most any other cause of death . As Furedi rightly poi nts out
(2002), what we fear is rarely that which actually k i l l s u s . Besides, it should be poi nted
out that the majority of terrorist attacks are carried out by i ndividuals other than M u s l i m
fundamenta l i sts . The terrorist attacks i n N orway on J u ly 2 2 , 2 01 1 , which left seventy
seven dead and dozens i nj ured, were carried out by a single right-wi ng extremist
resentful of i m m igration and M us l i m s i n particular.
Did September 1 1 , 2 001 represent a tu rning point in the short h istory of the post
Cold War world ? I have s uggested, at the outset of this chapter (and, at greater
length, in E ri ksen 2001 a), that while the 1 990s was chiefly a n opti m i stic decade
where global ization was genera l ly associated (in the rich North Atlantic societies) with
ope nness, com m u n ication, prosperity, human rights, and peace, the world entered a
paranoid phase of globalization with the terrorist attacks . Sudden ly, the I n ternet was
not the main metaphor for global ization-it was terrorism. Everyth ing travels more
freely in a globalized era, including hatred and resentment.
This, one may be allowed to hope, is too bleak a prospect. I t should be kept in mind
that globalization i s not a process with a particular d i rection ; it i s not d irected towards a
specified end. I deas about human rights and democracy continue to spread; the battle
against some dreadful d iseases is s uccessfu l ; m i gration gives new hope to mil lions
of people; and global communication makes global solidarity and a cosmopol itan
outlook possible in ways that were unthinkable two generations ago . At the same time,
globalization also enta i ls the spread of deadly diseases, destructive ideas and practices,
fundamentalism, and paranoia, drugs, and weapon s . It brings us closer to each other
through instantaneous communication and travel , but it also bri ngs us further from
each other by conti nuously reminding us of the deep differences i n va lues, l ifestyle,
and opportunity that conti n ues to divide us, probably more pai nfu lly than ever before.
• G lobalization changes the risk environment because of increased interdependence

and ensu ing vul nerabil ity.
• Risk perception rarely corresponds with objective risk: what we fear rarely kills us.
• Climate change is simultaneously a result of (economic and technological) globaliza
tion and an example of a truly global risk.
• Transnational terrorism contributes to breaking down the boundaries between a soci
ety's inside and outside.
• Common pol icy di lemmas in the context of serious perceived risk consist in the ten
sion between security and rights.
RISK 151
Questions
• A distinction i s often made between natural a n d man ufactured risks. What i s the
main limitation of this perspective?
• What could be some of the social and economic consequences of climate
change, and how is it that cause, effects, and remedies must be seen as global i n
character?
• G ive a few examples of false alarms resulting from fear of unmanageable g lobal
processes. Why a re they so widesprea d ?
• What is t h e role o f experts i n assessing risks, and why do many feel that they
have fa i led ?
• How can politicized religion be a possible result of a heightened sense of risk and
vulnerability ?
• I n what way did the 9/1 1 terrorist attacks break down the i nside/outside boundary
of American society, and how does this relate to globalization I
Adger, W. Neil, I rene Lorenzon i , a n d Karen O ' B rien, eds. (2009) Adapting to Climate
Change: Thresholds, Values, Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge U n iversity
Press. This very comprehensive, i nterdisciplinary reader covers both h istorical
and (mostly) contemporary examples of societies' ways of adapting-or not
adapting-to climate change.
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt (2005) Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton U n iversity Press. Th is book by an a nthropologist
demonstrates the enormously complex networks and links creating alliances
and frictions around logging and environmentalism i n Borneo. It shows who the
actors are, what is at stake for them, why confl ict is inevitable, and how the
g lobal is con nected with the loca l .
8
Id e ntity Po l itics
Neo-tribal and fundamentalist tendencies, which reflect and articulate

the experience of people on the receiving end of globalization, are
as much legitimate offspring of globalization as the widely acclaimed
"hybridization " of top culture-the culture at the globalized top.
-ZY G M U N T BAUMAN, GL OBALIZATION-THE HUMAN CONSEQ UENCES, 3
Globalization is fundamen tally dual: It simultaneously leads to homogenization and new

forms of diversity, and its large-scale processes are recontextualized and embedded in
preexisting local realities and practices. It can even be said that a characteristic feature
of globalization is resistance to globalization, often by globalized means, such as new
information technology and transnational networking. The field of identity politics is
a particularly apt domain for s tudying this kind of dynamics: While such movements
res t on assumptions of cultural uniqueness and rootedness in a tradition, they have to
presen t and promote their interests in ways that have been standardized at a global
level. At the same time, identity politics represents a concerted effort to reembed
something under threat of being disembedded-namely, collective identity.
A
n i m portant i nsight from recent studies of global ization and modernity i s the fact
that mode rnization and i ncreasi n g scale in socia l orga n ization a re ma rked by a
complex process of s i m u ltaneous homogen ization a n d d ifferentiati o n . Some differences
vanish, whereas others emerge. As the anthropologi st Jonathan Friedman puts it:
Eth n i c and cultural fragmentation and modern i st homogenization are not two
a rg uments, two oppos i ng views of what is happening in the world today, but two
constitutive trends of global real ity. ( 1 990: 3 1 1 )
Phra sed more general ly, disembedding i s a lways cou ntered by reembedding. The
more abstract the power, the sou rces of personal identity, the media flows, and the
commodities available in the market become, the greater will the perceived need be to
strengthen and sometimes recreate (or even invent) local fou ndations for political action
and personal identity, locally produced books and songs, products with the smell. the
sound, the taste of home. We cannot general i ze bluntly a bout t h i s . Many people a re
perfectly happy to l ive in a disembedded world, and hu ndreds of m i l l ions are so poor,
disenfra nchised, and marginal ized that the problem never occurs to them-or if it does,
it appears as a dream of slick affl uence. Yet, reembedding processes a re s uffi ciently
comprehensive, varied, and i nfluential to defend its place as we approach the end of
this jou rney through some of the mai n dimensions of globalizati o n . Th i s chapter looks
at identity pol itics as a means to reembed, while the next chapter presents some
of the social movements previously described as the antigloba lization movement,
cu rrently more often described as alterglobal i zation movements .
While, as a postgraduate student in the mid-1 980s, I was planning my first fieldwork
i n M a u riti u s , recognizing the ethn i c p l u ra l ity of its population and the mixed composition
of settlements, I imagined M a u ritians to have a profoundly reflexive, negotiable, and
a mbivalent attitude to cu ltural practices and eth n i c identity. Being confronted with
a bewi ldering array of options, epitom ized in the everyday l ives of their neighbors,
I expected them to treat g roup identification with i ronic distance. Th i s did not turn out to
be the case. In fact, the majority of M au ritians took their own notions and conventions
for granted, more or less ignoring what their neighbors were up to. Moreover, the
social u n iverse i nhabited by most M auritians was m uch simpler than an a ssessment
of the actu a l ethnic diversity of the island would lead one to expect. Categories were
l u mped and taxonom ies were simplified, a n d group identification was usually taken
for gra nted. This reminds us of the trivial but often forgotten fact that cosmopol itan
societies do not necessari ly create cosmopolitans, that g lobal ization does not create
g loba l people. " The socia l th ickness of the globa l " spoken of by Sassia Sassen (2003:
262) refers to the webs of com mitment, sometimes spanning thousands of kilometers,
cu ltivated by denizens of transnational space (see Lien and Melhuus 2007).
I n other words, m i l l i ons of people a re transnational, not i n the sense of being
uprooted a n d free-floating agents, but i n the sense that they ma intain i mportant ties of
moral obl igations a cross vast d i stances. U pon close exa mi nation of these tra nsnational
ties, it often tu rns out that they resemble the old ties in the sense that they b u i ld on
s i m i la r commonal ities and obligations (see E r i ksen et al. 2 0 1 0 ) .
T h e G l o b a l i zat i o n of the I n s u l t
T oday, messages travel instantaneously and unpredictably across the globe. As

a result, they risk being taken out of context, misunderstood, or exaggerated
in significance. It should also be pointed out, however, that the globalization of
communication makes a truly global conversation among humanity possible for the
first time in history.
I D E N T I TY P O L I T I C S 155
Does such a global conversation make self-censorship necessary in order to avoid

offending the sensibilities of others, or does i ncreased openness rather enable a
deeper mutual understanding and empathy across countries a nd continents? The
Danish cartoon affair may shed l ight on this question.
The largest subscription newspaper in Denmark is the conservative Jyllands
Posten, based i n the second largest city of the country, Aarhus, i n the center of
Jutland. I n the summer of 2005. Flemming Rose (2006), the culture editor of the
newspaper. decided to invite the leading newspaper cartoon ists of the country to
make cartoons depicting the Prophet M u hammad, ostensibly in order to demonstrate
that the freedom of expression was nonnegotiable and absolute in l iberal Denmark,
or in his own words, to "find out how far the self-imposed censorship had gone." The
resulting twelve cartoons were published in the weekend edition of Jyllands-Posten
on September 30, 2005.
The cartoons were diverse i n their intentions and capability to enrage (although the
general ban on depicting the Prophet in Sunni I slam must be kept in mind. indicating
that any drawing of M uhammad might in principle be seen as offensive) . The most
infamous one is the depiction of M u hammad wearing a bomb in the shape of a turban
on his head.
Soon after the publ ication of the cartoons. and following a petition from Danish
imams. the ambassadors of eleven Muslim countries requested a meeting with Prime
M i n ister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. who declined , responding by letter that it was not
the Danish government's business to interfere with the freedom of expression and
the press. A few months later, two Danish imams travelled to Egypt and Lebanon,
carrying with them a dossier, which not only contained the cartoons, but also several
other pieces of alleged evidence of d iscrimination against M uslims i n Denmark. They
met with politicians and religious leaders, asking for support in protesting to the
Danish state. and were able to present their case at the summit of the Organization
of the I slamic Conference in Mecca. In Denmark, the M uslims who went to the
M iddle East were roundly denounced as traitors by some. including the leader of the
right-wing Danish People's Party, Pia Kjrersgaard.
By the beg i nn i ng of February 2006, protests in a number of countries had
turned violent. Embassies were bu rnt down in Damascus and Beirut; Libya closed
its embassy in Copenhagen, armed men stormed the EU offices in the Gaza Strip,
a nd there were angry demonstrations in many countries with substantial M uslim
populations. D u ring the riots in early February, people were killed in Gaza, Libya,
Pakistan, a nd elsewhere (but, i ronically, not in Europe) ; in N igeria alone, thirty-eight
people were reported ki l led during anticartoon riots.
At the same time, the cartoons were reprinted as an act of solidarity in several
other countries; Die Zeit, the Times of India, France-Soir, La Stampe, El Periodico.
and El Mundo, to mention a few, printed them-even the B B C showed the cartoons
on TV. This transnationally coordinated publication could be seen as a defense of the
freedom of expression, but it could equally wel l be seen as an oblique critique of
I slam and M uslims. Many other Western newspapers did not publish the cartoons.
seeing their inflammatory potential.
This was not merely a case of Western l i be ralism against Muslim censorship. The
Egyptian newspaper El Fagr actually reprinted six of the cartoons in October 2005.
The question of a boycott of Egyptian goods was, naturally, not raised at the time.
A Jordanian weekly, A/-Shihan, published three of them in February 2006, along with
the rhetorical question: What harms Islam the most these pictures or images of
violent hostage-takers in I raq? (The editor was dismissed, and the newspaper was
removed from the kiosks.)
Opinion rema ined d ivided, both in the West and in Muslim countries, about
the cartoons. Clearly, Jyllands-Posten was lega l ly entitled to publish them, but
many argued that it was unwise and a deliberate provocation . Others insisted that
the freedom of expression should entail the right to offend. There is no neutral,
objective solution to this kind of dilemma, but the case demonstrates that the
insult (and, perhaps, the misunderstanding) is global ized a long with everything else
( Eriksen 201 3).
The Pol iticized Concept of C u lture
C u lture, Raymond W i l l i a ms has written ( 1 976: 87) i n a much quoted passage, is one
of the two or three most complex words of the English l a ng uage. The meaning of the
word, Wil liams shows, has gone through ma ny changes s ince the original Lati n co/ere,
which referred to the cultivation of the soi l . Today, the word has severa l , if related,
meanings.
O n e of the most common mea n i ngs of cu lture posits it as synonymous with the
way of l ife and worldview the members of a particular group or community have in
common, which disti nguishes them from other groups. This definition may at fi rst
seem plausible, but it does not s u rvive closer scruti ny. With i n nea rly every group or
people there are varying ways of l ife and worldviews; the rich differ from the poor,
the men from the women , the highly educated from the i l l iterates, the urban from
the rura l , and so on. Additio nal ly, as s hown above, it is ofte n extremely d ifficult to
draw boundari es between cultu res. If one a rgues that a N orwegian cu lture exists
and is by default different from Da nish cu lture, one wi l l need to show what it i s that
all N orwegians s hare with each other but not with a single Dane. That i s not an easy
th i ng to do. Final ly, culture is not natura lly a solid object, even if the word un happ i ly
is a nou n . Culture is something that happens, not something that merely exists ; it
unfolds through social process and therefore also i n herently cha nges. It should have
been a verb.
Problems of thi s kind have made such a conceptual ization of culture difficult to
manage, and many scholars have ceased to use it, while others i nsi st on using culture
in the si ngular sense, as that which a l l humans have i n common, defi ning them as a
species as opposed to nature in genera l and other species i n particular.
H owever, ideologists and politica l entrepreneurs of many shades have embraced
this Romantic concept of cu lture. In recent decades, cultu re and cu ltural identity have
I D E N T I TY P O L I T I C S 1 57
become important too l s for the achievement of pol itical legiti macy and i nfluence i n
many otherwise very d ifferent societies-from Bolivia t o Siberi a . It i s used by pol itical
leaders of hegemonic majorities as wel l as by the spokespersons of weak minorities .
I ndigenous peoples a l l over the world demand territorial rights from the states i n
which they l ive, emphasizing t h e i r u n ique cu ltu ral heritage and way o f life as a crucial
e lement i n thei r plea . I m m igrant leaders in E u rope occasionally present themselves
as the representatives of cultu ra l m i norities, demanding, i nter alia, special l i ng uistic
and religious rights. The hegemonic e l ites of many countries also refer to their national
cu lture i n j ustification of warfare or oppression of eth n ic m i norities. Cu ltural pleas are,
i n other words, put to very different pol itical uses .
A frequently mentioned paradox concern i ng the brea kup of Yugoslavia in the 1 990s
and subsequent wars i s the fact that the fighting parties, Serbs, Croats, and Bosnian
M us l ims, were cu ltural ly very s i m i lar, yet j u stified their mutu a l a n i mosity by cla i m i ng
that they were actually profoundly different. This kind of situation, where eth n i c
relations between groups that a re culturally close take on a bitter and antagonistic
character, i s more common than wi dely assumed. I n Tri nidad, i n the southern
Caribbea n, the fol lowi ng develop ment has taken place in recent decades: The two
largest ethn i c g roups, Africans and I n dians (origi nally from I nd i a ; they are not American
I ndians), have gradually acq u i red more and more in common, culturally spea ki n g i n
terms o f language, way o f l ife, ambitions, a n d general outloo k. At t h e same time, they
have become ever more conce rned with expressing how utterly different they are;
cu lture and cu ltural differences are spoken about more often , and cultural differences
are brought to bear on daily l ife, public rituals, and pol itical orga n i zation to a greater
extent than what was earlier the case. Partly, this is because the groups a re i n closer
contact than earlier and compete for the same scarce resources; but it is also partly
because members of the two groups feel that their cultural boundaries are threatened
by tendencies towards creol ization and therefore feel a n acute need to advertise their
cu ltural diffe rences.
The groups have s i multaneously become more similar and more different. This
paradox i s characteristic of globalization processes, whereby differences between
peoples are made comparable and therefore come to resemble each other and
where sma l l differences a re enlarged . I t could, i n line with this, be said that the enti re
Western discourse over m ulticulturalism is embedded i n a s hared cu ltural framework
encompassing, and bringing out the contradictions between, the Romantic notion
of cultu re and the E n l ig hten ment notion of i ndividual rights. To put it somewhat
more crudely: To make demands on behalf of a self-professed cu lture i n dicates that
one subscribes to a s hared g lobal pol itical cultu re . The logic of mu lticulturalism and
ethnopolitics s h a res its dual origi n s with the logic of national ism i n the E n lightenment
and Romantic thought of early modern E u rope.
Perhaps it could be said, somewhat simplistical ly, that beca use people everywhere
become more s i m i l a r due to the forces of g l obalization, they try their best to be
d ifferent. H owever, the more different they try to be, the more s i m ilar they become
beca use everybody tries to be different in the same ways . Deep cultural differences,
which sti l l exist i n t h e realms of religiosity, t h e conceptualization of the person, kinship,

and so on, are less l i kely to be politicized.
I dentity Pol itics as a Response to G lobal ization
Recent years have witnessed t h e growth, i n societies in a l l continents, o f political

movements seeking to strengthen the collective sense of uniqueness, often targeting
gl obal ization processes, which are seen as a th reat to local disti nctiveness and self
determi nation. A E u ropean exa mple with tragic consequences is the rise of eth nic
nationalism i n Croatia and Serbia from the 1 980s, but even i n the more prosperous
and stable E u ropea n U n ion, strong ethnic and national ist movements grew during
the 1 990s and i nto the new m i l lennium, ranging from Scottish separatism to the anti
immigration Front National in France, nati onalist popu l is m in countries l i ke Austria,
Den mark, and the Netherlands, and, even more recently, neo-Nazis in G reece and
the fervent nationa l i sts of Jobbi k in Hungary. In Asia and the M iddle East two of the
most powerful examples from recent h istory were the rise of the Tal i ban to power i n
Afghanistan and the meteoric success of the H i ndu national ist B J P ( B haratiya Janata
Pa rty, I n dian People's Party) i n India towards the end of the last century; many African
countries have also seen a strong ethnifi cation of their pol itics si nce the late 1 980s.
To this could be added the rise of politica l I s lam i n the Sahel and the north of the
conti nent In the Americas, various minority movements, from indigenous groups to
African Americans, have with i ncreasing success demanded cultural recognition and
equal rights. I n sum, pol itics around the turn of the millennium has to a great extent
meant identity pol itics .
This new pol itical scene, difficult to fit i nto the old left-ri ght d ivide, is interpreted i n
very different ways b y t h e many academics and journal ists who have studied t h e m . T h i s
i s partly because identity politics comes i n many flavors: S o m e are separatist nationa l ist
movements, some represent h i storically oppressed m i norities, which demand equal
rights, some are domi nant groups trying to prevent mi norities from ga i n i ng access to
national resources, some a re religious, some are ethnic, and some are reg iona l . At the
very least, identity pol itics from above (the state) must be disti ngu ished from identity
pol itics from below (popular movements ) .
M a ny writers s e e identity pol itics i n genera l a s a n anti modern counterreaction
to the individua l i s m and freedom enhanced by globa l i zatio n , wh i l e others see it
a s the defense of the wea k aga i n st fore i gn dominance, or even as a strategy of
modernization using the language of tradition to garner popular support Some
emphasize the psychological d i mension of identity politics, seeing it as nosta lgic
attempts to retai n dign ity and a sense of rootedness i n a n era of rapi d change; others
focus on competition for scarce resources between groups ; some see identity
pol itics as a strategy of exclusion a n d an ideology of hatred, w h i l e yet othe rs see it
as the trueborn ch i l d of soci a l i s m , as an expression of the collective strivings of the

underdog .
N either of these i nterpretations and j udgments tells the whole story, both because
the concrete movements i n q uestion differ and because the phenomenon of identity
politics i s too complex for a simple explanation to s uffice. What i s clear, however, i s that
the centripetal , or unifyi n g , forces of globalization and the centrifuga l , or fragmenti ng,
forces of identity politics a re two sides of the same coin, two complementary
tendencies that must be understood well for a nyone wishing to make sense of the
gl obal scene at the turn of the m i llenn i u m .
A G rammar of I dentity Po litics
For a variety o f reasons, global ization creates conditions for localizatio�that is, various
kinds of attempts at creating bounded entities : countries (nationa l i s m or separati sm).
faith system s (religious revitalization), cultures (linguistic or cultural movements), or
interest groups (eth n icity ) . For this reason, a more apt term i s gloca l ization . Let us now
move to a genera l description of some features that the g local identity movements of
the turn of the m i l le n n i u m seem to have in common-the rudi ments of a grammar of
identity politics .
F i rst identity politics always enta i ls competition over scarce resources. Successful
mobil ization on the basis of collective identities presupposes a widespread bel ief that
resources are unequally distributed along g roup l ines. Resources should be interpreted
in the widest sense possible and could, in principle, be taken to mean economic wealth
or political power, recognition or symbolic power. What is at stake can be economic or
pol itical resources, but the recognition of others has been a n underesti mated, scarce
resource, as wel l as meani ngful social attachments where one i s in command of one's
own life to an acceptable degree .
Second, modernization and globalization actualize differences and trigger conflict.
When formerly discrete groups a re i ntegrated into shared economic and pol itical
systems, i nequa l ities are made visible, s i nce d i rect comparison between the groups
becomes possible. Friction occurs frequently. I n a certai n sense, eth n icity can be
described as the process of making cultura l d ifferences comparable, and to that
extent. i t is a modern phenomenon boosted by the i ntensified contact enta i l ed by
gl obal izatio n . You do not envy you r neighbor if you are unaware of h i s existence.
Th i rd, similarity overrules equality ideologically. Ethnic nationa l i s m , pol iticized
religion, and i ndigenous movements all depict the i n-group as homogeneous, a s people
of the same k i n d . I ntern a l d ifferences are glossed over, and for this reason, it can often
be argued that identity pol itics serves the interests of the privileged segments of the
g roup, even if the group a s a whole i s u n derprivileged, s ince it concea ls internal class
differences .
Fourth, images o f past suffering and injustice are invoked. To mention a few
examples: I n the 1 990s, Serbs bemoaned their defeat at the hands of the Tu rks i n
Kosovo i n 1 389; leaders o f t h e H indu BJP have taken great pains t o depict M ughal
( M uslim) ru le i n India from the 1 500s as bloody and a uthoritarian; and the African
American movement draws extens ively on the history of slavery. Even spokesmen for
clearly privileged g roups, such as anti-immigrant politicians in Western E u rope, may
argue along these l i nes.
Fifth, the political symbolism and rhetoric evokes personal experiences. This is
perhaps the most i mportant ideological feature of identity pol itics i n genera l . Us ing
myths, cu ltura l symbols , and kinship terminology i n addressing thei r s upporters,
promoters of identity politics try to downplay the difference between personal
experiences and group h istory. I n this way, it became perfectly sensible for a Serb, in
the 1 990s, to ta l k about the legendary battle of Kosovo i n the fi rst person ( " We l ost in
1 389 " ) . The logic of revenge is extended to include metaphorical kin, i n many cases
m i l l ions of people. The i ntimate experiences associated with locality and fam i ly are
thereby projected onto a national scree n .
Sixth, first-comers are con trasted with invaders. Although this ideological feature i s
by no means u n iversal i n identity pol itics, it tends t o b e i nvoked whenever possible,
and in the process , historical facts are frequently stretched .
Finally, the actual social complexity in society is reduced to a set of simple contrasts.
As Adolf Hitler a l ready wrote in Mein Kampf, the truly national leader concentrates
the attention of his people on one enemy at the time. Since cross-cutti ng ties reduce
the chances of violent confl ict. the collective identity m ust be based on relatively
unambiguous criteria (such as place, rel igion, mother-tongue, kinship). Aga i n , i nternal
differences are undercommunicated i n the act of delineating boundaries towards the
frequently demonized Other.
Identity politics is a trueborn ch i l d of global ization . The more similar we become, the
more different we try to be. Paradoxical ly, however, the more different we try to be,
the more similar we become-s i nce most of u s try to be different i n roughly the same
ways worldwide.
Aga i nst the view that i dentity politics i s somehow anachroni stic, it has been argued
many times, always correctly, that although it tends to be dressed in traditional garb,
beneath the s u rface it is a product of modernity and its associated dilemmas of identity.
The strong emotions associated with a tradition, a cultu re, or a religion can never be
mobil ized u n less people feel that it i s u nder siege.
Viewed in this way, the collective emotions that id entity pol itics depend on
revea l them selves to be deeply modern emotions associated with the sense of loss
experi e n ced i n s i tuations of ra p i d cha nge, d i s embedd i n g , a n d deterritorial izati o n .
The need for security, bel o n g i n g , a n d e n d u r i n g social ties based on trust i s
u n iversal a n d c a n n ot be w i s h ed away. Eth n i c nationa l i s m , m i n o rity move ments,
a n d pol iticized re l i g i o n offer a l a rger share of the cake a s well a s a positive sense
of se lf, a n d these movements a re bound to rem a i n i n f l u ential in large pa rts of the
worl d .
I nd igenous Strategies
I nd i genous peoples a re u s u a l ly defi ned a s eth n i c groups associated with a

n o n i n d u strial mode of production a n d a stateless political orga n i zation ( Eri ksen
201 0 ) . The ide ntity politics engaged i n by s u ch groups d i ffer from that of nati o n s and
migrant m i norities in that territoria l a utonomy and cu ltural self-determi nation a re
their m a i n political goals. E n g u lfed by domi nant states and i ncrea s i n g ly i n co rporated
i nto the g l obal economy, i ndigenous g roups fight legal battles on m a ny fronts,
c l a i m i ng rig hts to land and water, lan guage, their own a rtistic prod uctio n , and
political autonomy.
The forms of res ista nce engaged i n by i ndigenous movements a re diverse,
ra nging from i n stitutional politics among the Sarn i of northern Scandinavia, who have
sepa rate parliaments with real but l i m ited legislative power, to the armed uprising
among peasants of C hiapas in southern Mexico, and less spectacular forms of
everyday resista nce. H owever, as Thomas Hall and James Fenelon (2004) point out
i n a n i mportant review of indigeneity and g loba l ization, i nd igenous struggles against
global ized external dominance tend to differ from class-based struggles through thei r
emphasis on the followi n g :
local commun ity, identity politics, l a n d claims, and rights t o a variety o f traditional
practices, which include a lternative fam i ly orga nizations s uch a s matr i l i neal ity and/
or polygyny, communal owners hip of resources s uch as land, the use of land for
sacred ceremonies, and in digenous knowledge, that occasionally incl udes use of
psychoactive s u bsta nces. ( 1 56)
Although i ndigenous groups may occasion a l ly profit economically from globa l

i ntegration, t h e i r identity depends on a certain degree o f political auton omy. Following
Hall and Fenelon (2004), we may say that states have traditiona lly subdued i n d i genous
groups through genocide (exterm ination), ethnocide (their enforced assi m i lation
i nto the majority) , or cu ltu ricide (the destruction of group cultu re, if not necessa rily
group identity) . In defending their group identity as wel l as the cu ltural content of
this identity, i ndigenous groups ru n i nto a broad range of problems, some of them
to do with human rights, national law, and the universal rights and obl igations of
citizenship, and some s i mply to do with the brute force of the state and ca pita l i s m
i ndigenous peoples usually reject private property i n favor of the communal ownership
or stewa rdship of resource s . A final set of probl ems perta i n to the character and nature
of indigenous cu lture, which is, l i ke a l l other cu lture, i nfl uenced and transformed by
reflexive modernity. What exactly does it mean to be a Lakota, a San, or an I nuit? Such
issues are discussed vividly among scholars and i ndigenous peoples a l i ke, but it must
still be stressed that their m a i n struggle is over land rights with accompanying political
autonomy. Paradoxical ly, perhaps, many i ndigenous peoples have been assisted in their
q uest for self-determination by tra nsnational agencies and even global organ i zations,
1 62 G L O BA L I ZAT I O N
such a s the WC I P (World Council of I ndigenous Peoples ) , leveling pressure o n nation

states from a tra ns national or s upra national point of leverage.
A recent development in i ndigenous identity work i s the tendency, which can
be observed i n many areas, of shifting the emphasis from political rig hts claims to
commercial ventures: Rather than portraying the eth n i c com m u n ity as a political entity,
it becomes a kind of commercial orga n ization . John Comaroff and Jean Comarott
(2009) have stud ied this process, drawing on examples from a l l over the world but
with a particular emphasis on South Africa, seeing it as a feature of the global spread
of neolibera l i s m . Let u s consider a short example.
The Sarni of northern Sca n d i navia have been obliged to relate to the state and
Ch ristian missions for more than two centu ries, and s i nce the Second World War,
their organizati ons have worked politically to promote their eth n i c and cu ltural
i nterests. Th i s struggle has m a i n ly i nvolved claims to land, political a utonomy, and
language rights. In recent yea rs , l i ke in the examples descri bed by the Comarotts,
there has been a perceptible s h i ft in the predominant Sarni approaches to identity.
I ncrea s i n g ly, Sarni territories a re being marketed with a view to i ncreasing tourism,
a n d the market for Sarni handicrafts has l i kewise grown steadi ly, especia l ly i n the high
designer e n d . One Sarni woma n , who now receives touri sts i n her home, servi ng
traditional foods and enterta i n i n g the visitors with Sarni tales a n d myths, explains that
this activity brings her i n contact with her ori g i n s i n ways that feel more a uthentic
than pol itical activity wou ld ( F l emmen and Kra mvig 2008). N ow, she says, people
vol u ntarily pay to hear her stories, to fam i l iarize themselves with the Sarni way of
l ife, and to eat Sarni food . This in turn has made it necessary for her to rel earn her
half-forgotten heritage. She contrasts her commercial venture with sta ndard ide ntity
politics, which in her view represents a more negative a pproach, where the state or
county wou l d eventually give in to pressure , not because they see the i ntri nsic val u e
o f S a rn i c u lture, b u t because they feel they have t o . A t t h e s a m e t i m e , t h i s k i n d of
revita l izatio n is i ndividualized, u npolitica l , and framed by a narrative of self-rea l i zation
and personal achievement.
Attempts among i nd i genous peoples around the world, from Siberia and the
Pacific to the Americas a nd South Africa, to a ch i eve copyright to their i m material
c u ltu ra l products a n d handi craft tech n i q ues, in order to p reve n t p i racy and eco n o m i c
loss, have s i m i larly become a pres s i n g concern recently. Wh ereas t h i s k i n d of
identity wor k ca n be effective in strengthen i n g coll ective pride and boosti ng self
esteem within the group i n q u estion, i t can a l s o be controversial, precisely beca use
it moves the project of m a i n ta i n i ng a cultural identity i n a n i n divi d u a l i zed, goal
rational, a n d commerc i a l ized d i recti o n . M a ny spokesperson s from i n d i genous
groups reject the logic of the market a n d the com mercia l izati o n of their c u ltu ra l
identity, a n d t h i s l e a d s t o frictions with i n t h e gro u ps n ot d i s s i m i l a r to t h e ones
res u l t i n g from the tension between c u ltural p u rification a n d m ix i n g , which w i l l be
considered below.
I n d i g e n o u s Cos m o p o l i ta n s
G
lobalization a n d indigeneity are two words that seem to sit uneasily together:
Globalization refers to the spread of modernity, intensified contact across
boundaries. cu ltural impurities (and reactions to it). uprooting, a nd creol ization-while
i ndigeneity is associated with a nonindustrial, nonmodern way of l ife, usually denoting
h istorically stateless peoples with an oral cultural tradition rooted to a specific locality,
la ndscape, or a rea.
It may, accordingly, be assumed that when indigenous peoples become
urbanized and begin to enjoy the mixed blessings of modernity, wh ich may i nclude
formal education, wage work, and l ife in a consumer society, they somehow cease
to be indigenous. Yet, the l ives of the small, stateless peoples of the world have
been influenced by their contact. voluntary or not. with the outside world, before
contemporary globalization and in most cases even before colonialism. Some of
these groups have perished, some were assimilated and swallowed up by larger
a nd more powerful entities, while a great many i ndigenous groups have survived
into the twenty-first century, a lbeit not in unchanged form, and some are indeed
experiencing a boost in their identity projects precisely i n an age characterized by
accelerated, intensified, and sometimes overheated transnational contacts. The
transnational indigenous movement, which includes peoples from southern Africa,
North a nd South America, northern Europe, and the Pacific, is itself made possible
by globalization, as a re some forms of cultural expression enabling contemporary
i ndigenes to defi ne a nd negotiate their identities in new ways.
Writing from the vantage point of North America, Craig Proulx (2010) notes that
it is a common non-Aboriginal perception (Aboriginal is used as a synonym for
indigenous) that "Aboriginal people become somehow less authentica l ly Aboriginal
when they move from reserves to cities and beyond " (39) . He then moves on to
describe a hybrid cultural form that has become popular among some F i rst Nation
and I nuit peoples in Canada, as well as among young Austra l ian Aborigines-namely,
rap a nd hip hop, a musical subculture with origins in Jamaica and among city-dwelling
African Americans.
Speaking of his use of rap to express his cultural identity, M C Wire, a Gumbaynggirr
man from New South Wales, explains that he cannot become a traditional man.
I nstead, as a " modern-day black fella;· he uses hip hop as a " lyrica l healin;· enabling
him to establish contact with the worldview and dreaming of his a ncestors. Moreover,
Proulx notes. hip hop has contributed to preserving some indigenous languages
in Australia, a s when the rapper M unki M a rk raps in his grandmother's language
Jardwadjali (from western Victoria ) .
I n Canada, t h e i ndigenous Tribal Wizdom cooperative based in Vancouver uses hip
hop as a means to raise consciousness about politica l issues, helping to "translate
indigenous oral traditions into youth-friendly contemporary forms at a time when
youth tend not to have time to sit and listen to elders or grass roots leaders " (Proulx
201 0 : 46) . Other native rappers are more concerned with cultural identity than with
political rights, and yet others do not emphasize their ethnic origins at a l l . The point
is, nonetheless, that just like everybody else. indigenous people do not necessarily
become less authentic by appropriating globalized, hybrid cultural forms. The
conclusion may be that it is not where it comes from that matters but what you do
with it.
Reem bedd ing i n Diasporas
National and other modern identities founded in traditional ist ideologies (they claim.
persuasively, to be premodern) have proved to be extremely res i l i ent. The enthusiasm
for the proposed European Constitution i n the E U member states i s very modest,
and the Constitution has fai led to get a majority in a ny of the cou ntries that have held
referendums. With the emergence of the Euro cris i s s ince 2010, affecting southern
European countries in particular. both the common currency and the very project of
European i ntegration have been chall enged forcefu lly in many countries, revea l i ng that
the common E u ropean identity may be a thi n veneer above deeper and stronger national
and local identities . M oreover. identification with national soccer teams in Europe
and South America remains very strong , eth n i c networks giving career opportun ities
for members of the in-group i n polyethnic societies are thriving i n many pa rts of the
world, religions demanding the undiluted loyalty of their followers a re on the rise. and
everywhere. most people seem to prefer to watch local ly produced programs on TV.
The human need for secure belonging i n a community, however abstract (such as
a nation or a religion of convers ion). seems to be a n anthropologica l constant. but it
can be satisfied in many d i fferent ways and dealt with politically i n different ways, too .
Com mitment to a group, wh i ch forms part of a larger. pl ural social universe. does not
necessarily l ead to xenophobia and confl ict; it may equally wel l result i n cosmopolitan
tolera nce (see Appiah 2 006 on cosmopolitanism; Hannerz 1 989 on " the global
ecumene" ) .
Creating a sense of security i n an environment that changes rapidly can be hard work,
and it seems particularly difficult for transnational migra nts and thei r descendants.
who a re confronted with opposing pressures from their immediate s u rroundings. The
states i n which they l ive may demand their ful l and undivided loyalty, or they may do
qu ite the opposite and deny them citizenship and pol itical rights. Both a lternatives
create stress and ambigu ity a mong migrants . The classic modern notion of citizens h i p
as t h e s o l e key t o political identity i s difficult t o maintain a t a time w h e n dual loya lties,
exile, and movement a re widespread.
Sol utions to dilemmas of identity and belonging among uprooted people vary. Some
seek to be assimilated i n the new country and effectively to change their group identity.
Th i s h a s to a great extent happened over the last 1 50 years with Poles in G ermany and
Swedes i n N orway, but not with I ri s h i n B rita i n . With transnational migra nts who may
have a different skin color and religion than the majority, full assimi lation does not seem
to take place anywhere, a lthough N ew World countries l i ke the U n ited States and
Canada have a more open-ended national identity than most O l d World countries, from
I reland to Japa n . As a ru le, migrants and their ch ildren remain attached to their country
of origin . The tie tends to be wea kened in the second generation, whose members
have i nvested more in the new country than their parents, but what happens i n the
third generation depends to a great extent on the abi l ity of the host cou ntry to expand
its national identity to encompass the descendants of relatively recent migra nts.
Whether or not full assimi lation i s possible, most migrants and their ch ildren retai n
i m portant transnational ties (see Cohen 1 997 for a wealth of hi storical and contemporary
examples) and draw extensively on ethn i c or religious networks in the new country.
Fa r from being the fragmented and a l i enated people one might expect migrants to be,
given their ambiguous pol itical and cu ltural position, they tend, broadly, to reproduce
i mportant aspects of their original cu lture in the new setti ng. This is often met with
a n i mosity i n sections of the majority population, who may i n sist that the newcomers do
their best to adapt to the host society; but at the same time. this option is often closed
to i m m igrants who face discri m i nation and differential treatment from the majority.
A con nection to a homeland, be it the tiny Caribbean island of N evis ( O lwig 2003) or
a future independent Kurdista n , gives a sense of attach ment, which can otherwise be
difficult to develop in alien surroundings. The cultu ral conservati s m often witnessed
in migrant populations, not least among M uslims i n E u rope, is understandable as a
reaction to hostil ity and indifference i n the majority population . M oreover, as James
Rosenau has a rgued i n a n u mber of works (e.g., 1 990), the a uthority of the state has
become i ncreasingly problematic, not only with respect to i m migrants, but i n general,
beca use of i ncreased turb ulence and uncertainty-what we might call effects of
globalization (cf Croucher 2004: 5 1 -52) The sociologist Daniel Bell, writi ng as early as
1 973, spoke p rophetica l ly of the nation-state as being too small for some tasks and too
large for others; it was too small to solve the problems facing h u manity and too la rge
to g ive the i ndividual a secu re sense of identity.
Trust and Social Capital
A successful i mmigra nt entrepreneur i n Oslo expla i ned on television i n 2004 that the
secret of his s uccess consisted in employing only people from his own eth n i c group.
H e knew their fathers, their cu ltural idioms, and their norms. H e could exert moral
pressure on them i n a way that would have been i mpossible with eth n i c Norwegi a n s .
Thi s k i n d o f practice i s typical o f ethn i c entrepreneurs everywhere A s John G ray
( 1 998: 1 82 ff. ) notes, the guanxi ethos of reciprocity and mutual trust is a key element
i n the economic s uccess of C h i nese businessmen overseas , m u ch more i mporta nt
than formal agreements .
I t i s also known that i nterest-free l oans among relatives are common a mong many
mora l commun ities consisting of migra nts, as is the kind of transaction typified through
the hawala transmission of money via middlemen from refugees to kinspeople in
Soma l i a . First-generation Tam i l mig rants may, i n some respects, be poorly integrated
into g reater Norwegian society, but they a re tightly i ntegrated among themselves
and, in i m portant ways, in their Sri Lankan commun ities, through kin and caste-based
loya lties with economic, pol itica l, and social dimensions.
The burning question is what or who to trust. I n the classic soci ology of Weber,
Ton n ies, and thei r s upporters, it was believed that trust tended to be i nterpersonal i n
t h e Gemeinschaft, or traditional society, while i t wou l d b e l i n ked t o abstract i nstitutions
i n the Gesellschaft, or modern society. The citizen of a modern state i s expected to
trust the state, while the tribesman s upposedly trusts his relatives and covi llagers. I n
fact, things a re less simple. The networks of the " network society " (Castel l s 1 996)
are often i nterpersonal, and what keeps them going i s trust. A Man hattan ban ker or a
Danish bu reaucrat depends crucially on i nformal networks enabling h i m to do h i s work
and to feel part of a commun ity, j ust as a Turkis h immigrant i n Germany depends on
eth nic networks to satisfy his needs, of which the sense of security i s one.
I n formal i nterpersonal networks conti nue to exist side by side with the formal
organ i zation of any society, and i nterpersonal trust conti nues to be crucial. In a society
with a great deal of mobil ity and few historical ly based commun ities-namely, the
U n ited States-scholars and commentators have for years been deeply engaged i n
a discussion o n the future o f com mun ity. The sociologist Robert Putnam argued i n
Bowling Alone ( 2 0 0 0 ) that c i v i l society and t h e webs o f com mitment and trust that
made up American commun ities were erod i n g-in effect that the moral commun ities
( Gemeinschaften) of the U n ited States were being wea kened . Putnam's perspective,
and not least his concept of social capital, has been taken on by scholars i n many
cou ntries trying to i nvestigate the extent of trust in our changing, complex societies.
Trust presupposes fam i l iarity, and fa m i liarity presupposes regular contact. The
amount of work i nvested i nto networks j ust to keep them going is tremendous in the
i nformational network society. Thi n k of yourself as a student or scholar. Responding to
e-ma i ls, sending and receiving S M S messages, or talking on the phone to people in
conversati ons where the main objective consists in reminding them of your existence,
is l i kely to take u p a major proportion of you r precious time. The vulnerab i l ity of moral
commun ities based on trust and reciprocity thereby made tangible is chron i c . This
does not mean that they no longer exist or no l onger exist in the West but that keeping
them operative requ i res conti nuous effort when society is complex ( i . e . , does not
consist of a single mora l com mu n ity) and especial ly so when one's personal network
is partly transnational . In this sense, Anthony G iddens ( 1 99 1 ) is right in claiming that
our era i s post-traditional. Tradition no longer recommends itself-it must be defended
actively; s i m i la rly, commun ities of trust and commitment no longer perpetuate
themselves through convention but m ust be guarded and n u rtured . Yet, they remain
powerful attractors-the first place to look for ordering i nstances i n a world of teeming
movement.
The vision of the individual as a hybrid, moving , u nstable entity engagi ng in networks
of variable duration, dominant in the anthropological global ization discourse, is l imiting
and exaggerated . Moral commitments i n relationships, cultural conservatism, and
coercive pressures to conform remain extremely powerful everywhere. However, they
no l onger encompass a l l of society. This is why l ife on the New York streets is so unsafe;
the reason is not that i ndividuals are not full members of moral communities based on
trust and reciprocity, but that the people they a re l i kely to encounter in dark alleys belong
to other mora l commun ities. If I may make a brief comparison to traditional societies, this
situation resembles that of i ntertribal encounters i n h ighland N ew G uinea a s described
by the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins ( 1 972). With in the tribal group, generalized
reciprocity i s the norm-that is, sharing based on trust. Among neighboring people, the
main kind of relationship is exchange i n the market place. With total strangers, however,
any kind of action, including theft ( " negative reci procity " ), is legitimate. Simila rly,
i nterpersonal trust and mora l commitment in plura l , complex societies are u n l i kely to
encompass everybody. The single mother of Somali origin l ivi ng in Amsterdam is l i kely
to find a sense of security among other Somalis, but not in greater Dutch society.
Transnational networks are interpersonal, i mbued with trust and i nti macy, and these
q u a l ities form the moral basis for exchange. In order to understa nd g loba lization, it is far
from sufficient to look at macro processes; we m u st a lso pay attention to the webs of
trust and reciprocity that create transnationalism at the micro level-and towa rds the
situations where reciprocity fails, creati ng u n payable and h u m i liating debts of gratitude,
silencing at the receiving end of unidirectional systems of exchange, exclusion from
dominant ci rcu its, and a lack of respect. When the late Osama bin Laden spoke about
the U nited States or I srael , he sounded a l most l i ke a disencha nted ragamuff i n : as
mentioned in the last chapter, there i s nothing about economi c domi nation o r world
i mperi a l i s m i n his rhetoric, but words translated as arrogance and h u m i l iation recu r. The
i m p l ications of not being seen and respected a re clearly an u nderestimated affl iction
in the contemporary world and a re a main ca use of such forms of reembedding as
pol itical Islam and nationalist ethnopolitics.
N eonationalism and l slamism: Two Sides

of the Same Coin?
A s I have shown i n Chapter 6, hybrid cu ltura l forms are often counteracted by q uests for
purity and authenticity, which may be, but are not necessarily, politi cized in situations of
i ncreased eth nic diversity due to i m m igration. What i s , nevertheless, clear is that one
main effect on the public sphere of the forms of mixing engendered by globalization is
a heightened polarization and a strengthened conflict potential a round group identities.
Although few i n the Western world today subscribe to the fiction of cultural p u rity,
neonationalist movements reacting to the i mpu rities and un predictable changes taking
place by i n s isti n g , often i n m i l itant ways , on the authenticity and moral s uperiority
of that which i s rooted a n d l ocal . Neonationalism, often targeting i m m igrants and

especi a l ly M uslims as the unwanted other. i s on the rise in many Western cou ntries.
I n G reece, the openly neo-Nazi party " Golden Dawn" has g rown steadily and was i n
201 2 fo r t h e first t i m e represented i n t h e G reek parliament, while the extreme right
wing Jobbik party in H u n ga ry rose from 2 percent in 2006 to 1 6 . 7 percent of the votes
in 201 0 . In these cases, it is easy to see the xenophobic right as a reaction to economic
hardship, u nemployment, and u n certainty. H owever. l slamophobic and eth nonational ist
tendencies have also been on the rise i n countries relatively u naffected by economi c
crises, such as Denmark. Norway, Austra lia, and the U n ited States.
M uslims a re the main enemy of the new right, and in particular, M us l i m immigrants,
but ostensibly multicu ltural ist national el ites are also targeted. It i s therefore a matter of
some i nterest that the ideology and rhetoric of these movements are closely paral leled
by the m i l itant identity pol itics a mong M us l i ms attempti ng to redraw a clear bou ndary
between u s and them, purifyi ng Islam and positing the Western world as the Other.
One main form of ideological pola rization, thus. seems to be that obta i ning between
two emerging forms of identity pol itics-namely, nationa lism and lslamism. H owever,
the two share the same u nderlying logic, trying to stem the tides of global hybridi zation
by withdrawi ng into something rooted, old, and clearly bounded. It may thus be
more accurate to speak of a polarization between. on the one hand, various forms of
antagonistic localism (nationa l i s m , l s lamism, etc . ) and on the other hand, celebrations
of-or at least acceptance of-hybridity and impurity.
I n this way, neonationalism and lslamism can be seen as two sides of the same
coi n . Apparently starkly different from each other, they conform to the same grammar
and represent very similar reactions to the turmoil and impurities generated by
globalization.
Let us tentatively ask. then, if globa l i zation at the end of the day l eads to
homogenization or to heterogenization-do we become more s i m i lar or more different
owing to the i ncrease i n transnational mobil ity and comm u n ication ? In one sense, people
worldwide arguably become more simila r. I ndividua lism, the bel ief that i ndividuals have
rights and responsibilities rega rdless of their place in wider social configurations, is a
central feature of global modern ity. It is also easy to argue that simi larities in consumer
preferences indicate a certai n flattening or homogenization. Yet, at the same time, local
adaptations of u niversal or nearly u n iversal phenomena show that global mode rnities
always have local expressions and that the assumed s i m i larities may either concea l rea l
differences in meaning or that they may be superficial with no deep bearing on people's
existential condition. Although neonationalism and lslamism share many of the same
formal featu res. their content varies, not only mutual ly, but also from local ity to locality
H u man Rights and I dentity Pol itics
I n earlier chapters, I have spoken of stan dardization i n the domains of excha nge
(money) , com m u n i cation (language) , political organization (the state) . and a few
aspects of everyday l ife (consumption ) . H owever. the flattening, or leveling, forces of

sta ndardization on a global canvas can be studied from other poi nts of view as wel l . I n
fact. it may well b e argued that the spread o f human rights ideas a n d practices was one
of the most spectacu larly successful forms of g lobal ization i n the twentieth centu ry.
First established as a global ethics when the e mbryonic U n ited Nations passed the
U niversa l Declaration of H u man R i g hts in 1 948, h uman rights a re i nvoked frequently
in politics at the domestic, l ocal, and transnational l evel worldwide. A main critique
of transnational business practices (see Klein 1 998) has been thei r fai l u re to respect
the human rights of the i r workers. Debates about i m m igration i nto Western E u rope
are often concerned either with human rights violations with i n immigrant groups
(especially with respect to women) o r with transgressions o n the part of the majority.
Powerful North Atl a ntic aid don ors now use good governance, which includes the
implementation of human rights. as a crite rion for giving aid to poor cou ntrie s . Rebel
g roups, petitioners , and pol itical m i n ority g roups worldwide use cla ims of human rights
violations as thei r main cla i m to be heard.
The tra nsnational monitori ng of and canvassing for an extension of human rights
has grown tremendously. N G Os ( nongovernmental o rganizations). governments, and
UN agencies i nvoke human rights regula rly. Special izations, such as human rig hts and
gender, o r human rights and the environment. o r human rights for indigenous groups,
are firmly establi shed i n the global discourse about j u stice and ethics.
I n its report on culture and globalization, Our Creative Diversity, the U N ES C O
( U nited Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, 1 995) simultaneously
favors cultural diversity and the protection thereof. and a g lobal ethics based on a
shared recognition of human rights. While the possible contradictions in this position
have been poi nted o ut (see E ri ksen 2001 b), the aim for the U N E S C O is to ensure the
u n iversal respect for some shared va l ues while s i m u ltaneously resi stin g global cultural
homogenizatio n . In other words, standardizatio n at the level of moral ity is good but not
at the level of expressive cu lture.
It has often been shown , not least by a nthropologists, that human rights are always
implemented in a particular local context (Cowan et a l . 2001 ; G oodal e 2009; Wilson
1 997), meshing the u niversal with the particular i n a glocal way. H u man rights have
to be i nterpreted, contextualized, and sometimes prioritized in order to be usef u l .
Lim itations o n the use of freedom o f expressio n , f o r example, vary i nternational ly.
Whethe r to put the greatest emphasis on social and economic rights, for exa mple, or
civil and political rights, is a political issue. In some countries, governments make efforts
to reduce income dispa rities and see this as a human rights q uestio n ; in others, free
competiti on (with ensuing d isparities) i s i nterpreted a s conforming to human rights.
I n some societies, the freedom of the i ndividual i s seen as the highest va l ue, while i n
others, the i ntegrity o f t h e fa mi ly, which gives the i ndividual security, i s deemed more
important.
H u m a n rig hts a re thus u n iversal principles, which , tra nslated i nto practice, a l ways
have a local element. H owever, and this is i mportant. they g ive m ost of the world
a set of benchma rks, o r a shared language of comparison, in which to frame thei r
differences.
The notion o f a shared grammar may b e a very fruitful one when we consider
various tra nsnational flows and practices. Ethnicity, it could be said, is a mea ns of
renderi n g cultural differences compa rable. There has evolved a g lobal d i scourse about
eth n i city, wh ich enta i l s a great n u m ber of formal commonal ities between eth nic groups
struggl i n g for recognition everywhere . The emphasis o n cultural heritage, shared
customs, and a h istory of oppressi o n i s shared by eth n i c m i n o rities everywhere. To
a great extent. they have learned from each other. even if their battles are local and
unique. We shall consider this i n greater deta i l in the last chapter.
At a different level of identity pol itics. it could be argued that global commun icatio n
makes i t easier both t o try t o i mplement standardized forms o f religion a n d t o resi st such
attempts . I n a sl ower era. Islam would. from M o rocco to I ndonesia, appear in disti nctly
local forms without this pos i n g a problem, S u n n i Islam being a decentralized religi o n .
I n M o rocco, saints were revered ( l i ke among t h e neighbori n g Spa n i s h Catholics);
i n Pa kistan. the i nfluen ce from H i nduism has been perceptible; i n I ndonesia, the
articulation of Islam with adat (traditional custom) in its time led to the development of
a local blend of Islam. With the i ncreased mobil ity and i n stantaneous communication of
the present age, the pressure to conform to certa in sta ndards i s more perceptible than
formerly. Puritan movements. which have grown in significance in Pa kistan, attempt
to p u rge Pa kistani Islam of H in d u elements, and the hijab (headscarf). rare in Malaysia
some decades ago, i s now seen a l m ost u n iversally among Malay M us l i m women .
The tensions between pu rity and i mpu rity, or hybridity (mixing) and multicu ltu ralism
(separate cultures). highl ights not only identity pol itics as a reembedding strategy,
but also shows that there are frictions a n d i n deed contradictory processes taking
place wit h i n the social fields affected by the disembedd ing and destabilizing forces of
globalizatio n .
• Identity politics-religious. nationalist. ethnic. or regional-is a typical form of resis

tance to globalization. especially in its economic dimension .
• Paradoxically, identity politics insisting on the primacy of the local and un ique tends to
draw on globalized resources. such as international NGOs and computer networks.
• Indigenous and migrant identity politics tend to pursue different goals: autonomy
from and recognition by greater society, respectively.
Q u e st i o n s
• I n which ways does the author claim that globalization is dua l ?

• What are some o f t h e typical forms of reembeddi ng ?
• What are some o f the elements o f a grammar o f identity politics proposed by the
author?
• What are some central differences between the reembedd ing engaged in by
diaspora populations and the identity politics of indigenous peoples?
• What are the main differences between commercial ization and politicization of
identity?
Chua, Amy (2003) World on Fire. How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds
Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability London: Heinema n n . Stri kingly written,
provocative, and wide-ra nging study (by a law professor, but there isn't much law
here ! ) of the tense relationship between ethnic elites (like C h i nese in I ndonesia,
Lebanese i n West Africa, etc . ) and majorities i n democratizing societies.
Comaroff, John L , and Jean Coma roff (2009) Ethnicity, Inc. C hicago: U n iversity of
Ch icago Press. In a wide-ranging, critica l, but a lso often enterta i n i ng way, this
book explores contemporary commercial ization of identity, presenting examples
ranging from Native American casinos to Zulu cultural tourism and attempts to
patent i ndigenous knowledge for commercial p urposes.
9
A l t e rg l o b a l i z at i o n
Disembedding inspires reembedding in the form of identity politics, but it also leads to
other reactions. Notably, the forms of disembedding created by global neoliberalism
(the Washington Consensus, deregulation of markets, etc.) have inspired strong,
diverse reactions worldwide. The Occupy movement, the World Social Forums, and
the millions demonstrating in Spain are familiar in the Global North, but grassroots
globalization in the Global South can be even more effective in demonstrating that "a
different world is possible," as a rejoinder to the so-called TINA maxim: " There Is No
Alternative."
I
n several significant ways, the human world is presently more tightly i ntegrated than
at any earlier point i n h i story. In the age of the jet plane and satellite d i s h , the age
of global capita l i sm , ubiqu itou s markets, and tra nsnational mediascapes, it i s time and
again claimed that the world i s rapidly becoming a single place. Yet, a perhaps even
more stri king development of the post-Cold War world is the emergence-seemi ngly
everywhere-of political movements whose expl icit aim is the restoration of rooted
tradition, religious fervor, or commitment to eth n i c or national identities, majoritarian as
wel l as m i noritaria n . I dentity politics seen as a reaction to global ization was the topic of
the last chapter. This chapter deals with a different kind of critical reaction to neolibe ral
globalization, a different form of reembedding, consisting of a broad fam i ly of social
movements and strategies for change, which may be subsumed u nder the general label
of alterglobalization. Literally, the globalization of the others or the other globalization ,
t h e term i s preferred t o antiglobal ization b y most activists and theorists i n t h e f i e l d as
being less negative and more accurate. The movements and i n itiatives described i n this
chapter are not opposed to interconnectedness, i nformation technology, tra nsnational
trade, or mobility, but a rgue i n favor of a more equitable, democratic, and decentra l i zed
form of global ization. I ncluded in this chapter is also a brief review of some im portant
controversies over i nformation, su rveil lance, and openness . Wh i l e the groups and
i ndividuals who fight agai nst centra l ized control over i nformation do not necessarily
share a l l the objectives of the social movements associated with alterg loba l ization.
they share their concern to strengthen local autonomy and pol itical accountability in
the face of powerf u l governments or corporati ons.
G loba l i zation i s always glocal i n the sense that human l ives take place i n particular
locations-even if they are transnational , on the move, dislocated. Anthropologists
have written about the " i ndigenization of modernity" (Sa h l ins 1 994), s howing how
modern artifacts and practices are i ncorporated i nto preexisti ng worlds of mea n i n g ,
modifyi ng t h e m somewhat, b u t not homogenizing or flattening loca l rea l ities. Many
of the di mensions of modern ity seen as u n iform worldwide, such as bureaucracies,
markets, computer networks, and human rights discourses, a l ways take on a disti nctly
local character, not to mention consumption : A trip to McDonald's triggers an enti rely
different set of cultu ra l connotations in Amsterdam from what it does i n Ch icago, not
to mention Beij ing or Moscow.
Some write rs on g l o b a l i zation have argued that the s h r i n k i n g of the world wi l l
a l most i nevitably lead t o a n e w va l u e orientati on, some i n deed h e ra l d i n g the
com i n g of a new k i n d of person ( e . g . , Anderson 1 999) . These writers, w h o seem to
procla i m the advent of a n ew m a n , o r at least new set of u prooted, deterritorialized
va l u e s , a re often accused of g e n e ra l i z i n g from the i r own N o rth Atlantic m id d l e-class
habitu s . The i nfluential sociologist John U r ry, l e n d i n g h i mself easily to this criti c i s m ,
a r g u e s i n the fi n a l chapter of h i s Global Complexity ( 2 003) t h a t global ization has
the potential of sti m u lating widespread cosmopolita n i s m ( h owever, h e does not
say among who m ) . B ut, as U rry rea d i l y a d m its in a n earl i e r chapter i n the same
book, the principles of closeness a n d distance sti l l h o l d-for exa m p l e , i n viewing
patterns o n televi s i o n , where a g lobal trend c o n s i sts i n v i ewers' prefe rences for
l oca l ly produced p ro g ra m s .
I n other words, t h e disembedding characteristic o f global ization creates global
cultural homogeneity only at a very s uperficial leve l . It creates a global g ram mar of
comparison enabling commun ication and exchange to be chan neled relatively easily
across borders. It thereby sti m ulates an awareness of difference, preci sely because it
entails a lang uage of comparis o n . At the same time, homogenization clearly does take
place at the l evel of formal orga nizati ons, such as transnational NG O s (nongovern mental
organ izati ons), the formal economy of neoli bera l ca pita l ism. and in a n u m ber of other
area s . Yet, even here, at the operative level of practice. even ostensibly identical forms.
such as educational systems or banking, are i nfused with local content and adjusted to
fit local ways of doing things.
G l obal ization i s dual and operates, we m ight say, through d i a l ectica l negati o n :
I t s h r i n ks t h e world b y fac i l itating fast contact across former boundaries. and i t
expands t h e world b y creating a n awa reness o f d ifference. I t homogenizes human
l ives by i mposing a set of common denomi nators (state orga n i zatio n , labor ma rkets ,
cons u m ption, etc . ) , but it also leads to heterogenization through the new forms of
divers i ty emerg i n g from the intensified contact G l obal ization is centripetal i n that
it co n n e cts people worl dwide, and it is centrifugal in that i t i n spire s a h e i g htened
A L T E R G L O BA L I ZA T I O N 1 75
awareness of, and i ndeed (re-) con structi ons of l ocal u n iq ueness. It centra l izes
power and prompts movements a m o n g i n digenous peoples, s m a l l nations, and
others, fi ghti n g for l oca l a utonomy a n d self-determ i nati o n . F i n a l ly, global izati on
m a kes a u n ivers a l i st cosmopolitanism possible i n pol itica l thought a n d action
because it rem i nds u s that we a re a l l i n the same boat and have to l ive together
in s pite of our mutual differences, but it a l so encourages fundamen talism and
various forms of m i ss i onary u n i versa l i s m as wel l a s pa roch i a l loca l i s m beca use
g lobal i ntegration leads to a sense of a l ienation th reate n i n g identities and noti o n s
of p o l i t i c a l sovereig nty.
Protest Movements
Third ways or th i rd alternatives a re often created through t h e working o u t of these

tensions . They represent attempts to find a balance between openness and closu re,
between the near and the di stant, the local and the global, whose parameters are not
defined by powerful corporations or states. These alterglobalization movements ra nge
from the Italian-origi n slow food movement to the transnational Occupy movement,
the Spanish indignados (the indignant) , and a dazz l i ng ra nge of grassroots i n itiatives
a i ming to regain control of local l ife-worlds without delin king from modernity or, for
that matter, the globalized world . I ndeed, the a nthropologist David G raeber, h i mself a
key figure in the Occupy movement, a rgued in 2001 :
if one ta kes globalization to mean the effacement of borders and the free movement
of people, possessions and ideas, then it's pretty clear that not only is the [anti
neoli bera list] movement a product of globalization, but that most of the groups
i nvolved i n it-parti cularly the most radical ones-are in fact fa r more s upportive of
global ization in genera l than supporters of the I nternational Monetary Fund or World
Trade O rganization . ( 1 2)
Neolibera l i s m necessarily creates both wi nners a n d losers . Centra l to this doctrine

(and practice) i s the concept of comparative advantage: If it i s cheaper and more
efficient to grow bananas in Costa Rica than in Domin ica, one should; as a resu lt,
banana growers i n Domin ica suffer s i nce they ca nnot effectively compete. If South
Korea can build supertan kers at a lower price than Norway, they should; as a resu lt,
N orwegian s h i pyards a re closed down and h u ndreds lose their jobs. (Th is, in fact, is
exactly what ha ppened i n my hometown in the 1 980s . ) A world economy based on
s uch principles of competiti on and free markets (although the markets of the rich
countries tend to be protected, particularly i n the real m of food production) leads to
an overa l l growth in the world economy, b ut in hig hly u neven ways . Social inequal ities
have grown steadily in most countries s i nce the ea rly 1 980s, and global competition
renders vi rtu a l ly every producer everywhere v u l nerable. I t i s agai nst this kind of
uncerta i nty a n d powerlessness, coupled with d isgust a t t h e greed a n d u n deserved

wealth of a few su pe rrich person s , as wel l as deep global i nequalities, that these
social movements di rect the i r efforts . It has been esti mated that the 2 2 5 richest
individuals in the world have a combined wea lth equal to the i ncome of the poorest
47 percent of the entire world's popu latio n . The richest fifth of the world's popu lation
consumes 86 percent of all goods and services, while the poorest fifth consumes
j ust 1.3 percent
The h eterogeneous groups that were for years called the new social movements
or antiglobal izers fi rst came to prominence d u r i n g the protests at the WTO (World
Trade O rga n i zatio n ) meeting in Seattle in 1 999. Demonstrators protested against
global i nequalities, a world economic order, wh ich was i n i m i ca l to human va lues
and a utonomy at the national or local leve l , and one that had plunged previously
we l l-fu ncti o n i ng cou ntries l i ke Argentina i nto disarray and cris i s . As M a rianne
M aecke l bergh ( 2009) has shown, this coalition of students, environmental activists,
trade u n i o n i sts, i n d i genous orga n i zations, wo me n's rig hts g roups, and many others
did s hare some va l ues, but most importa ntly, they were u n ited in their opposition
to the Wa s h i ngton Consensus, wh ich saw u nfettered ma rkets a s a main recipe
for prosperity. The alterg lobal izers began to come together, not only i n la rge-sca le
demonstrations, but a l so at the annual World Social Foru ms, a convention fi rst
organized in Porto Alegre, B razil in 2001 . Aga i n st the so-ca l l ed T I N A doctrine ( " There
is no alternative" [to global neoliberal ism] , a quote from the late M a rga ret Thatch er),
these meetings were fo un ded i n the conviction that " a nother world is possible."
Participation i n these meetings i ncl uded political parties, mostly l eft-w i n g , but was
dominated by a broad range of organ izations with l i ttle i n common, perhaps, except
the conviction that global neolibera l i s m was a bad idea for h u m a n i ty a s a whol e . They
included:
trade u n ions, fa rmers, and other workers' orga nization s ; ethnic organizations
representing both native populations and migrant g roups; consumers associati ons
cha l lenging m ultinational companies; religious organizati ons and ch urch groups;
envi ron mental groups; women's associations; radical autonomous youth centers
( I taly's " centri socia l i " ) ; and the l i ke . (Della Porta and Diani 2006: 4)
Yet, protest aga i n st a fl awed g l ob a l order te nds to be m o re p ronou nced than the
e l u c i dation of a lternative s . The i n d i g nation of /os indignados i n Spa i n , a movement
that e me rged in the spring of 2 01 1 , was not primarily motivated by a sense of
g l obal i nj u stice but by the m i s m a nagement of S pa i n . H u n d reds of thousands of
you n g people protested aga i n st a u sterity measu res and mass u n e m p l oyment,
orga n i z i n g mass d e m o n strations i n dozens of S pa n i s h citi e s . A h eterogeneous
coa l i tion betwe e n oth e r w i s e q u ite d i fferent groups, t h i s move ment i s u n ited
through a concern with jobs, welfa re, and a more transparent, acco u nta b l e p o l itica l
system .
A L T E R G L O B A L I Z AT I O N 1 77
"An o t h e r Wor l d i s Possi b l e "
T
h e global financial crisis beginning i n 2008 has had repercussions worldwide (see
Tett 2 01 0 for an excellent overview and critical analysis) and has been l i n ked to the
subsequent E u ro crisis and the mounting unemployment numbers a nd social u n rest
in countries like G reece a nd Spain. However, the beginning of the contemporary
alterglobalization movement can be traced to another financial crisis-namely, the
Asian crisis of 2007, which led to major economic setbacks i n several Southeast and
East Asian countries. While the causes of this economic crisis were complex. it was
clearly exacerbated by c urrency speculation leading to the destabilization of several
of the region's currencies.
D u ring the Asian crisis, the editor of the renowned French monthly Le Monde
Diplomatique, Ignacio Ramonet. wrote a lengthy editorial where he proposed the
establishment of an organization committed to fighting currency speculation through
the introduction of a small tax (the Tobin tax, named after the economist James Tobin)
on all international c u rrency transactions. In 1 998, ATTAC was formed in France, later
to spread to several dozen countries.
ATTAC, an acronym for Association pour la taxation des transactions financieres
et /'aide aux citoyens, was among the first transnational organizations to champion a
globalization from below where ordinary people were benefactors instead of bei ng
overrun a nd a sked to pay the bill. Although it started with a specific aim-namely,
the introduction of a Tobin tax, ATTAC soon evolved into a more wide-rang i ng
organization targeting, in particular, corporate power and trade agreements (e.g.,
through the WTO ) . which seemed to favor the rich countries disproportionately.
ATTAC have taken part in protests at WTO meetings (the first being in Seattle i n
1 999) a nd function a s a lobbying group at G S summits. O n i t s official website,
ATTAC declares that they "fight for the regulation of financial ma rkets, the closure
of tax havens, the i ntroduction of global taxes to finance global public goods, the
cancellation of the debt of developing countries, fai r trade, and the implementation
of l imits to free trade and capital flows " (ATTAC n . d . ) . Their main slogan is "Another
World Is Possible."
Decentralized in its structure, ATTAC suffers from the same problems and is faced
with similar challenges to other sprawling, transnational g roups trying to develop
viable alternatives to global neoliberalism. Although everybody in the movement
believes that a nother world is possible. they do not agree about the details of this
world. Politically, ATTAC comprises a great variety of i nterest groups, from communists
to l iberals and anarch ists, trade u nioni sts to environmentalists, indigenous activists
to farmers' orga nizations. They a l l nonetheless share the conviction that unfettered,
corporation-driven global capitalism is good news for the few a nd bad news for the
ma ny. I n this, ATTAC comes across as the archetypical a lterglobalization movement.
indicating that although local understandings of the good life and the good society
vary, their criticisms of the dominant economic system in the world can be s u rprisingly
similar.
The Transnational Occupy M ovement
Protests against a u sterity measures, i ncreasing i nequalities, m is management. a n d a

loss of democratic accountabil ity as results of g l obal ized neoliberalism have emerged
i n many parts of the world in recent years, perhaps most i nteresti ngly in the very
heart of global financial capita l i s m-namely, New York City. The Occupy movement,
starti n g i n New York as Occupy Wal l Street in September 201 1 , but soon spreading
to other Western cou ntries, directed its attention chiefly to corporate greed and the
kind of financial wizardry that a few years earlier had created huge fortunes for a few
very rich persons and corporations, before s howing its i n herent i nstabil ity with the
meltdown of markets and ensuing financial crisis starti ng in 2008. I nterestingly, the
inspiration for Occupy Wal l Street came from a s diverse sources as B ritish student
protests agai nst h ig her tuition fees, the beginning of the Arab Spring i n Tunisia, and the
sati rical magazine Adbusters ( Bolton et a l . 201 3 ) .
W h i l e t h e richest percentage of t h e U . S. population h a d di sposed o f 1 0 percent of
the total nati onal i ncome in 1 980, the figure in 2 0 1 0 was 2 3 . 5 percent. Using slogans
such as " We are the 99 % ;' referri ng to the disproportionate wealth and power held by
the top 1 percent i n society, thousands of Americans staged a demonstration i n the Wal l
Street a rea on September 1 7. 2 0 1 1 Withi n j u st a few weeks, s i m ilar demonstrations
were orga nized i n more than ninety cities i n and outside the U nited States. The broad
aim of the Occupy movement is to contribute to the creation of a world with less
i nequality and injustice, but its spokespersons (being a flat structure, it has no formal
leadership) also emphasize the need for alternative political organization, based more
on cooperative principles than on h iera rch ical and formal structures.
While some main objectives withi n Occupy are broadly shared by the activists,
there i s also disagreement over key questions, as vividly documented by Susan Kang
(201 3 ) , concern i ng the role of ma rkets i n the economy and the desired political mode l .
A proposed mission statement, which " incl uded a criticism of corporate domi nation
over politics, cultu re, and social life, promoted greater democracy withi n major
i n stitutions, and urged others to join in occupying Wal l Street" ( Kang 201 3 : 63) was
voted down at an early meeti n g . There has even been disagreement as to whether or
not the movement should i n fact voice clear demands, since their shared com m itment
to reduce corporate power should be the overarch ing goa l .
T h e Occupy movement, a latecomer i n t h e fam i ly o f a lterg l obalizing social
movements, i s part of a complex network of l i kemi nded groups, such as the critical
media hub l ndymedia, the French-origin m ovement ATIAC, some of the protesters
in Arab-spea king countries (see boxed text on the Arab Spring), enviro n mentalists,
and socialists. I nteresti ngly, several politicians i n high positions, from B razi l 's president
Dilma Rousseff to the British ex-prime m i nister Gordon B rown and U . S . President
Barack Obama h i mself, have expressed sympathy with some of the criticisms of
corporate power and greed coming from the Occupy movement.
These and other protest movements conti nue to question global neoliberalism
and may soon be a pol itical force to be reckoned with . As pointed out by Geoffrey
A L T E R G L O B A L I ZAT I O N 179
Pleyers (2010), the growth in participati on at World Social Forum s has been staggering,
reachi n g a peak i n 2005 with 1 70,000 participants.
Alterglobal i z i ng Strategies in the South
An econo m i ca l ly and pol iti cal ly marg i n a l a rea, t h e southern Pacific coast o f Colombia
was for many years-u ntil the 1 950s-only partly i ntegrated i nto the state . The
l argely Afro-Colombian pop u l ation deve loped viable l i fe strategies, sometimes
a utonomously, sometimes under conditions of servitude. Towards the latter part of
the twe ntieth century, state power, capita l ism, and the a rmed confl i cts hau nti n g
C o l o m b i a i n crea s i n g ly encroached t h e a rea, leaving t h e loca l population i n a diffi cult
s ituati o n . In a complex and rich study of a network of local organ izati ons known as
the PCN ( Proceso de Comunidades Negras-Process of B lack C o m m u n i ties), the
a nthropologist Arturo Escobar explores how these comm u n i ties are " attempting
to rei nvent themselves through a new relation to the state, themselves, the
environment, and global force s " (2008: 309). Far from wis h i n g to withdraw from
the state and the market economy, the P C N i s creati ng a n economy based on l ocal
n eeds and reso u rces but i nvolved i n external trade, a politics emphasizing d i rect
democracy a n d a relationship to the environment based on the val ues of d iversity
a n d s u sta i n a b i l ity. Escoba r a rgues that the pec u l i a r form of modern ity evolving on the
southern Colombian coast i s better e q u i pped to meet the cha l l e n ges of the twenty
fi rst centu ry-env i ron mental cris i s , centra l ization of power, rac i s m , and i ntolerance,
to mention a few-than the d o m i nant neolibera l model . A l ong-standing critic of
conventional theories of development, Escobar (see 1 99 2 ) describes n u merous
exa mples of local economic enterprises, s uch as the Coagropacffico cooperative,
which a re profitable without creating h uge dispa rities or envi ron mental destru ction
l ocal ly. H e also describes l ocal cosmologies a s positing a dyn a m i c u n ity between
h u m a n s a n d the environment rather than seeing them as opposed forces, i nt i mating
that Westerners have many lessons to learn from the commu nities organized thro u g h
t h e P C N . What they represent i s a g e n u i n e form o f a lterg lobal izatio n , founded
s i m u ltaneously i n locally e mbedded l ife-worlds a n d a reflexive positi o n i ng in la rge
scale, u lti mately global netwo rks . Their refashioning of their economy and social l i ves
to meet local n eeds rather than sati sfy i n g systemic demands, i n ci dental ly, can be
seen as a ta ngible exem p l i fication of Karl Polanyi's ( 1 957 [ 1 944]) aforementioned,
classic critique of ma rket domina nce, where he a rg ues that society wi l l tend
to be res i l i ent and resistant to bei n g ta ken over completely by the a n onymo us,
disembedded market logic.
I n another part of the world-namely, Maharashtra state i n l ndia-Arj u n Appadurai
(201 3) has explored a d ifferent kind of reembedding strategy, or alterglobal ization
movement. U n l i ke E scoba r 's site, M u mbai i s a b ustl ing world city, a commercia l hub
with major i n d u stries i n or near the city and, of course, the undisputed capital of
Bol lywood movies. It is a l so a crowded and poll uted city with severe i nfrastructural
problems. ra nging from housing to sewage. Most o f M u mba i 's i n habitants can rightly
be descri bed as u rban poor.
The movement i nvestigated by Appadura i consists of a coalition, or a l l ia nce.
between three partners focusing on d i fferent issues pertai n i n g to s l u m dwellers and
disenfranchised i nhabitants of the city. Like Escobar i n Colombia, Appadu rai sees the
work of the all iance through the lens of the post-Cold War world-that i s to say the
world of deregu lation and neoli beralism. economic global ization. and transnational
networki n g . Eschewing divisive party pol itics a s wel l as expert-driven projects. the
a l l iance i n sists on the slow and cumbersome " mobilization of the knowledge of
the poor i nto methods driven by the poor and for the poor" (Appadurai 201 3 : 1 6 1 ) .
Flexible i n its organizational structure and capable of working both with long-term
plans and u rgent issues. the a l l iance embodies some of the same features as the
PCN in Colombia: a democratic form of decision making, rel ia nce on local skills and
knowledge, and commitment to the principles of grassroots activism. At a transnational
level, the all iance takes part i n the Shack/Slum Dwellers I nternational (SD I ) , visiting and
exchanging experiences with slum dwe l l ers i n South Africa. Thailand, and elsewhere in
India. At the time of writi ng, the SDI i s working to develop a funding mechanism that
wou l d both l iberate member orga n izations from u npredi ctable local and private sources
and strengthen the global cooperation between the constituent local movements.
As these two examples indicate, grassroots g l obal ization, or alterglobalization ,
shares s o m e formal traits with neol iberal or state-driven g lobalization b u t differs
crucially in i ns isting on the right to l oca l autonomy and engagement with the global
system on one's own terms, as an equal actor, and not as a recipient of charity.
Sat i re against N e o l i be ra l i s m
Q
II urs i s the age of bill ionaires. From a mere dozen i n the early 1 980s to
more than a thousand today, their numbers have surged along with their
influence." Thus begins anthropologist Angelique Haugerud's book No Billionaire
Left Behind: Satirical Activism in America (201 3), a study-pa rt hilarious, part critical,
part analytical-of a group of comedian activists who ta rget corporate greed, tax
evasion, dithering politicians. and mounting inequalities in American society. The
group, variously named " Bi l lionaires for B u s h " (2004). " B illionaires for Plutocracy"
(201 1 ) , and " M ulti-M illionaires for Mitt" (201 2). tend to dress in cocktail dresses or
expensive suits and top hats, more often than not with the additional props of a
large cigar and a champagne flute, rally under slogans such as " Taxes Are Not For
Everyone," " It's A Class War-And We're Winni ng," and "Widen The I ncome Gap ! "
Their preferred sport seems to be badminton.
The tenor of the B i l lionaires' rhetoric is captured well in its self-presentation on the
stil l open (but historically obsolete) Billionaires for Bush website (2004): " Bi l l ionaires for
Bush is a grassroots network of corporate lobbyists, decadent heiresses, Halliburton
A L T E RG L O BA L I Z AT I O N 181
C EOs, and other winners under G eorge W. B ush's economic policies. Headquartered
in Wal l Street and with over 60 chapters nationwide, we' l l give whatever it takes
to ensure four more years of putting profit over people. After a l l , we know a good
president when we buy one."
I n satire, the message is by defin ition implicit. As pointed out by Haugerud, the
B i l l ionaires demonstrate, by lampoon i ng the neoliberal rhetoric of free markets a nd
l i berty, that there are always socially defined rules regulating both economies and
societies, that there i s no natural law stating that it is acceptable for i ndividuals to
amass unl imited wealth in a society and a world of scarcity, and that a different
politics would distribute the world's assets more equitably.
Adopting names like Iona B igga Yacht (Alice M eaker) and P h i l T R i ch (Andrew Boyd)
and using hyperbole (exaggeration)-slight or outrageous-to get their message
across, the B i llionaires are firmly anchored in a long tradition of political satire, which
may be traced at least to the E u ropean carnival tradition . D u ring carniva l , it was
legitimate to turn hierarchies on their heads with a comic intent, but the function of
carnival performances could often be subversive a nd critical of the powers that be. B ut
there appears to be a greater un iversality to satire and parody as political instruments.
The anthropologist Max G l uckman ( 1 952). writing about rituals and politics in South
Africa in the 1 950s, described " rituals of rebellion" as events where hiera rchies were
turned on their heads and social roles inverted: Women dressed and behaved l i ke
men, and men behaved as if they were entitled to the throne. H owever, Gluckman
( 1 952) sees these rituals, at the end of the day, not as inherently subversive but rather
as confirmations of the status quo. By posing as the king, he argues, the " rebel s "
confirm the i r support o f t h e i nstitution o f kingship. Gluckman, i n other words, sees
this form of satire as a security valve. The B i llionaires' message is d ifferent: Their a i m
is t o expose t h e shallowness and callousness o f t h e microculture o f t h e superrich
a nd to call for a politics that puts ordin a ry people first-they ask politicians to focus
on the possibilities of a human economy rather than basing policies o n figures on a
spreadsheet.
The Slowness Movement
A l e s s v i s i b l e a n d l ess overtly political form o f pol itical resistance t o global izatio n t h a n

the a lterglobalizers i s offered b y the tra n s n ational slow movements (see H o n o re 2005),
n otably Slow Food and S l ow C ities ( citta slow). Favor i n g traditio n a l a lternatives to the
tra nsnational a n d stan da rdized, these movements emphasize the val u e of locally
p roduced food and n ot least l ocal food traditions, s l ow n ess a s a va l u e superior to
speed i n l ifestyle q uestions, a n d a pol itics that p uts the q u a l ity of l ife before material
sta n da rds of l i v i n g .
Typical Western middle-class p h e n o m e n a , t h e slow movements fi rst e m e rged i n
n o rthern Italy, where they a re associated both w i th t h e p reservation of medieval towns
a n d with local specialties, s uch a s C u latella ham, w i n e , and lardo di Colonnata (yes,
i t sounds l i ke l a rd, a n d lard i t i s , cf. Leitch 2003) To use the d i stincti ons s uggested
by George R itzer (2004), the slow movements fit the category of " the glocal izati on
of somethi n g " si nce they play by the rules of global capita l i s m but try to f i l l it with
something local and nonscalable.
The i n itiative to the Slow Food movement ca me fol l owing a concerted attempt i n
1 986 t o prevent the opening o f a M cDonald's resta u rant n e a r t h e fa mous Spa n i s h Steps
in Rome. The people behind the i n itiative felt that the homogenizing and flattening
aspects of global ization were profoundly at odds with not only historical traditions
and the u n ique cha racter of h i storical Rome but a lso-in the case of McDonald's
represented a trivialization of food and an affront to traditional cuisine. The movement
was fou nded by Carlo Petri n i (2007 ) , a former left-wing activist who had written about
food for the Com mun ist newspaper L:Unita si nce the 1 970s. It attempts to combi ne
an attention to l ifestyle and qual ity of l ife with a systemi c criticism of large-sca le
agribusiness using food-in pa rticular, food that has been produced on a small scale i n
a local setting where i t h a s a l o n g tra d ition . Ecological a rguments about u n i ntentional
consequ ences of i ndustrial farm i n g as wel l as the i mportance of preserving genetic
diversity are also emphas ized by the movement, which-appropriately-uses a garden
snail as its symbol.
S low cities, or Cittaslow, is a l igned with the Slow Food movement and was a lso
fou nded i n northern Ita ly, but a decade later (in 1 999) . Concerned-l i ke Slow Food
with the preservation of the l ocal cha racter and u n i que a mbience of u rban spaces, it is
a membership organ ization associati n g the qual ity of l ife with a slower, more h umane
pace compatible with environmental preservation. Existi ng chi efly i n E u rope and As ia,
Cittaslow a n d the entire Slow movement can be criticized for representi ng a n affluent
middle-class comm u n ity concerned chiefly with self-real ization and personal well
bei n g . H owever, the a i ms of the slowness movements a re by and la rge compatible
with those of other social movements fighting global neol i bera l ism, as wel l as local
or regional i nitiatives i n the G lobal South, s u ch as the Colombian example described
above . The key viewpoint is that profit-drive n , globa l ized neoliberalism represents a
threat to local autonomy, social j ustice, and the environment.
From the Arab Spring to the Snowden Affai r
O n e of the most obvious features o f contemporary globalization i s the i nformation

revolution. The proportion of the world's population who are online in one way or
another, who use cell phones, a n d who make Google searches and o n l i ne pu rchases
has soared s i nce the 1 990s, and the technology itself has also evolved. For years,
scholarly attention to the new i nformation tech nology was mainly di rected towards
understa n d i ng its consequences for everyday life and work, knowledge producti on,
and social networking from below. I n recent yea rs, a different aspect of the i nformation
revol ution has become i ncrea s i ngly apparent-namely, its potentia l political uses.
A L T E RG L O B A L I Z ATI O N 1 83
Electronic i nformation can both be used from below, to criticize a n d expose powerful
agents, and from above, to monitor citizens . Social scientists have also discovered big
data of the kind that i s produced thro u g h m i l lions of Google searches and other o n l i ne
activities, as a new source of i nsight i nto key social and cultural processes ( Mayer
Schonberger and C u kier 201 3 ) .
Three exam ples revea l , i n very different ways, the potential o f t h e new information
tech nol ogy to chal lenge power or to wield it:
F i rst, the so-called Arab Sprin g , beg i n n i n g i n Tu n i s ia in December 201 0, wou l d have
been difficult to orga n i ze without cell phones and i nternet connectivity. The series of
protests a n d demonstrations, both peacefu l and violent, stretchi n g across the Arab
speaking world from Morocco to O ma n , leading to the downfa l l of four governments
and major reforms in several countries, p l u s a dreadful civil war in Syria, were generally
i l legal o r semi lega l . In most of the countries i n q uesti o n , the press and other media were
subjected to state censorshi p , and open protest against mounting social i nequalities,
corruptio n , a n d the lack of democracy was often dangero u s . Through i n n ovative use of
i n expensive communicati on tech nologies, mostly cell-phone-based, protesters were
able to coordi nate the i r efforts without being i ntercepted by state a uthorities, a nd
n ot least i m portant-to report about events in real time as they u nfolded, prompti n g
reactions from t h e international com m u n ity.
Second, the m uch-publ icized revelations of diplomatic secrets by Wikileaks, a
nonprofit orga n izatio n relaying i nformatio n brought to them by a nonymou s sources,
demonstrates the v u l nerabi l ity of a system whereby classified and sensitive
i nformation i s com m u n icated electronical ly. S i n ce 2 007, W i k i leaks have publ i s hed
secret files, private e-mail correspondence, and s i g nificant documents, which have
often revea led a discrepancy between official statements from governments a n d
actual practices. Targeting t h e U n ited States i n particular, W i k i leaks have publ icized
material about conditi ons in the prison camp at G uantanamo Bay and about the
wars in Afg han istan and I raq, but they have also relayed evidence of corruption in a
n u mber of cou ntries and many other kinds of i n formation that the organization argues
deserves to be made known to the publ ic. The founder of Wikileaks, the Austra l i a n
activist J u l ia n Assange, has risked prosecution i n t h e U nited States s i n c e 2 0 1 0 ( a n d ,
f o r a l l eged sexual offenses, i n Swede n ) . H e was granted pol itical asyl u m by Ecuador,
a n d he moved i nto the Ecuadorian embassy i n London, refus i n g to l eave for fear of
extraditi o n , s i n ce J u ne 201 2 . The U . S. soldier B radley M a n n i n g , who was convicted i n
201 3 for revea l i n g mil itary secrets about the American wars abroad, had been a major
s o u rce for W i ki leaks until h i s arrest i n 201 0 .
The third example concerns the N SA ( National Secu rity Agency) and Edward
S n owden and reveals the other side of the coin-namely, how government a uthorities
may collect massive amou nts of data about citizens based on their I nternet use, i n
order t o mon itor possible th reats to the i ntegrity a n d security o f the state.
While W i k i leaks strives to make i nformation that wou l d otherwise have been
secret available to the greater public, the N SA has for years collected i nformati on
about o rdinary people, both America n s a n d foreig ners, i n the hope that this might
1 84 G L O B A L I ZATI O N
help them to identity potential terrorists a n d other enemies o f the cou ntry. U s i ng the
tech n iq ues developed to ana lyze big data fast and i nexpensively, they use algorithms
that, for exa mple, look for combinations of certai n search terms on G oogle or other
forms of suspicious behavi or. Whereas the research methods u s i ng big data have been
used for other purposes, such as locating recent outbreaks of the flu or tracking down
cybercri minals, the U . S . state's usage of data bel ieved by most users to be confidentia l
a n d private, i n order t o spy on its own citizens ( a n d foreigners ! ) , was immediately
perceived as highly problematic when it became widely known i n 201 3 .
A s a n active user o f the I nternet, you contin uously leave electron ic traces beh i n d .
Anyone with access to data from m y b a n k , Facebook, Amazo n , Google, and (god
forbid) my e-mai l , would easily patch together a fa i rly accurate depiction of my personal
economic situation, my literary a n d m usical i nterests, my i ntel lectual orientation, politica l
views, a n d social networks, regardless o f m y citizenship or cou ntry o f residence. I f you
read books on a Kindle, data on which sentences you've highli ghted will be stored
electronica lly i n cyberspace and l i n ked directly to you . In the past, nobody would be
able to know what kind of seditious and subversive l iterature you indu lged i n-least of
a l l the government.
M ost users of various I nternet-based i nformation and commun ication servi ces
have p resumably assumed that the i nformation they left behind was safe a n d
confidentia l , a lthough many have speculated about its possible useful ness to a n
unfriendly government. Few, however, suspected that t h e N SA secretly collected
massive a mou nts of i nformation about ordi n a ry citizens, among oth er things
i ntercepting telephone cal l s a n d search ing for pernicious terms i n e-mails-a n d that
Google had g iven them access to their enormous databa nks. I t was only after the
computer speci a l i st Edward Snowden, who had worked for the C IA and the N SA,
leaked i nformation about these and other mass survei l la nce programs to the Guardian
i n M ay 201 3 that the extent of these activities began to be know n . Facing prosecution
for espionage and theft of govern ment property, Snowden fled to Hong Kong a n d
subsequently to R u s s i a .
At t h e t i m e o f writi ng, i t i s sti l l unknown whether Assange and/or Snowden will
eventual ly be sentenced and i mprisoned. Public opinion is divided on both. What
makes their stories a nalytically i nteresting is the way in which they demonstrate the
connection between i nformation and power, by reveal i n g the existence of secret mass
su rvei llance progra ms even i n a country l i ke the U nited States. The examples also
indicate that interpersonal com munication through electronic networks makes it easier
not only for people to stay in touch with each other and get the i nformation they need
from a nywhere in the world but also facil itates the task for governments who wish to
monitor people's movements and activities.
All the exa mples of a ltergloba l i zation d iscussed in this chapter confirm the
fundamenta l dual ity, or dialectics, of global ization emphasized throughout this book.
There i s a continuous tension, sometimes expressed as confl ict, between the
standardized and scalable on the one hand and the locally u n ique and nonscalable
on the othe r hand, sometimes expressed as a tension between state power and civil
A L T E R G L O B A L I Z AT I O N 1 85
society. This kind of contradiction. or friction, is not g o i n g away: it is a defi n i n g feature

of gl obalization a nd of the contemporary world.
• The disembedding forces of globalization are complemented by reembedding proj

ects seeking to retai n or recreate a sense of contin uity, security, and trust
• Even disembedded institutions take on local meanings and flavors in different
societies.
• The alterglobalization movement consists of thousands of locally embedded or trans
national organizations that have l ittle in common except a common rejection of global
neoliberal capita lism.
• Any bel ief i n T I NA ( " There I s No Alternative") is disproved by the myriad forms of
reembedding and resistance engaged i n worldwide. but also by the exclusion of mil
lions from global networks.
Q u e st i o n s
• How can globalization simultaneously lead to i ncreased cosmopolitan ism and

increased fundamentalism?
• What was the ideological background of the Occupy movement?
• I n what ways are social movements such as los indignados and ATIAC products
of global ization ?
• Is the Slow movement a critical force i nterrogating global neoliberalism . or is it
mainly focused j u st on changing middle-class l ifestyles in the affl uent countries?
Appadurai. Arj u n (201 3) The Future as Cultural Fact: Essays on the Global Condition.
New York: Verso. Th is collection of essays by one of the foremost i nterpreters of
globa lization emphasizes its dual nature as an u neven process of connectedness
taki ng place equally from above and from below With great erudition and
tempered optimism, Appadurai identifies tendencies i n urban l iving, design,
finance, and thought, wh ich may define our common future.
Maeckel berg h , Maria nne (2009) The Will of the Many: How the Alterglobalisation
Movement is Changing the Face of Democracy. London: Pluto. An ethnography
of the transnational protest movements written by a scholar-activist. who is
equally skilled as an observer and analyst as she is an engaged participant in
many of the convention s and demonstrations she describes.
Afte rwo rd
A n Ove r h eated Wo r l d
D
isembedding, acceleration, standardization, connections, mobility, mixing, globalized
risk: It is easy to conjure up a vision of the world as being i n constant flux. In this book,
I have argued against simplistic versions of this view, and even if one is fascinated by the
idea of a world in continuous movement. one has to keep in mind that different social and
cultural fields are moving at different speeds and even i n different directions.
Truly global processes affect the conditions of people living i n particu lar localities,
creating new opportu n ities and new forms of vul nera b i l ity. R isks are globally shared in
the era of the n uclear bomb, transnational terroris m , and potential ecological disasters .
On the same note, the economic conditions i n particular loca lities frequently (some
would say always) depend on events taking place e lsewhere i n the globa l syste m . If
there is a n i ndustrial boom in Taiwa n , towns i n the English M idlands will be affecte d .
If oil prices r i s e , that m e a n s salvation f o r the oi l-exporting Tri n idadian economy and
di saster for the oi l-i mporti ng, neighboring Barbadian one.
Patterns of consu mption also seem to merge i n certa i n respects; people nearly
everywhere desire similar goods, from cell phones to ready-made garments .
A precondition for this to happen is the more or less successful implementation of
certai n i n stitutional dimensions of modern ity, notably that of a monetary economy
if not necessarily evenly distributed wage work and l iteracy. The ever-increasing
tra nsnational flow of commodities, be they material or i mmateria l , creates a set of
188 G L O BA L I ZATI O N
common cultural denom i nators, which appear to eradi cate local distinctions. The
hotdog ( halal or not, as the case may be), the pizza, and the hamburger (or, i n I ndia, the
lamburger) are truly parts of world cuisine ; identical pop songs are played i n i dentical
discotheques i n Costa R ica and Tha iland; the same Coca-Cola commercia l s a re shown
with m i n i mal local va riations at cinemas all over the world, volumes by Dan B rown and
E. L. James are ubiquitous wherever books a re sold, and so on. I nvestment capital ,
mil itary power, and world l iterature are being disembedded from the constraints of
space; they no longer belong to a particular local ity. With the development of the
jet plane, the shipping contai ner, the sate l l ite dish, and more recently, the I nternet,
distance no longer seems a l i m iting factor for the flow of influence, investments, and
cultural mean ing .
Yet, disembedding is never total , and it is a l ways cou nteracted by reembedding
attempts. Someti mes, reembedding does not even seem to be req u i red-if one
cares to look, the social world i n which most of human ity l ive remains embedded
i n i mportant respects, notwithstanding decades of i ntensive, technology-driven
global izati o n . The impact of g lobal ization-or, rather, its s i gn ificance for the lives we
lead-is considerable, but every one-sided account is ulti mately fa lse. Wa rn ing against
the view of global ization as somehow the outcome, or the end product of modern ity,
James M ittelman (2001 : 7) writes that if " g l oba lization is a contested and political
phenomenon, then it can not have a predetermined outcome. A political agenda of
i nevitability overlooks the fact that gl obal ization was made by humans, and, if so,
ca n be u n made or remade by h u mankind ." I t i s far-reach i ng and consequential, b ut
globa lizing processes are always full of contradictions, which are not l i kely to go away
soon . Some are globalizing, some are j ust being globalized, and many a re scarcely
affected by globalization.
John G ray (2005) puts it even more strongly i n a critique of a book mentioned i n
t h e preface o f this book, so it seems appropriate t o e n d with s o m e reflections from
his essay. In a review of Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat, polem ica l ly entitled
" The world i s round;' G ray compares Friedman's bel ief in the " levelling of the world "
with the bel ief in " u nfettered " global capitalism underpi nning Marx and E ngels's 1 848
Communist Manifesto, and concludes that both have been proven wrong, Friedman
incidentally much faster than M a rx and Engels . G ray (2005 : 22) reminds his readers,
as a n antidote to Friedman's opti mism on behalf of the power of global capita lism to
spread prosperity worldwide, that for two hundred years, " the spread of ca pitalism
and industrialization has gone hand i n hand with war and revol utio n ."
G ray further argues that Friedman conflates two notions of globalizati o n :
t h e bel i ef that w e a re l i v i n g i n a period o f rapid and conti nuous tech nological

i nnovation, which has the effect of l i n king up events and activities throughout
the world more wi dely and q u i ckly than before; and the belief that this process i s
lead i n g t o a single worldwide economic system . T h e fi rst i s a n empirical proposition
and plainly true, the second a groundless ideological assertio n . Like M a rx , Friedman
elides the two. (2005: 23)
AFTERWORD 1 89
H owever, G ray remarks, communication technology affects the everyday l ives of

people less than petroleum and electricity did. And gl obalization does not necessari ly
lead to a global free ma rket, nor does it make the world more peaceful or more l ibera l .
M a ny o f the exa mples i n this book lend support to Gray's view O n e typical
consequence of g l obal ization has been the rise or rekindling of va rious forms of identity
pol itics . To G ray, al-Qaeda is j ust as typical a product of global ization as the World
Trade O rgan ization (see G ray 2003). Tra nsnational capitalism creates both wealth and
poverty. M i l lions of people-indeed hundreds of m i l l i ons-will never have access to the
wealth because they are s i mply ignored and squeezed i nto i ncreasingly marg i nal areas,
l i ke hu nter-gatherers encou nterin g armed, well-organ ized agricu ltura l i sts i n a n earlier
period. The s uffering of s l u m dwel lers , dispossessed peasants, u nemployed men and
women i n cities, victims of war and of economic exploitation, and their occasionally
wel l-orchestrated rebell ions or alternative projects seeking autonomy from global ized
capita l i s m , are the trueborn children of g lobal ization , j ust as the cell phone and the
I nternet, the prol ife ration of i nternational N G O s (nongovernmental organi zations),
the cheap tropical holi day, and the growth of tra nsnational soccer fandom are res u lts
of global izati o n . The ambiguities and paradoxes of global ization are not going away,
s i mply because they are constitutive of global ization-a fundamentally contradictory
phenomenon, which constitutes the very fabric in which you and I l ive, in an overheated
world where coo l i ng may be patchy and partia l , but sometimes s ufficiently effective to
al low us to reta i n personal autonomy and a real i nfluence on our destiny.
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I nd ex
abstract societies, 23, 28, 37 description, 1 2

acceleration N SA/Snowden and, 1 83-4
capita lism and, 49 protest movements, 72, 1 75-6, 1 78-9
counteractants of, 1 2 Southern strategies, 1 79-80
criticism of, 52, 53 t transnational slow movements, 1 8 1 -2
cultu ra l mixing, 1 1 8- 1 9 Amazon website, 1 84
global communicatio n , 1 0, 39, 44 Amin, Sam i r, 1 5
h i storical background of, 4 1 -2 Among the Believers (Naipa u l) , 1 26
i mplications of, 52 Amselle, Jean-Loup, 65, 1 1 8
i ndustrialization. 44-5 anarchist con nectivity, 93
media. 47 Anderson, Benedict
standardization compa rison, 60 Imagined Communities, 20, 28, 93
time-space compression and, 4 1 -3 " long-distance nationalism " of, 1 1 1 -1 2
tra nsportation, 10, 39 anthrax scare, 1 37-8
Africa Anthropocene era, 1 39-40
A I D S epidemic in, 1 46-7 antigloba l ization movement, see
apartheid in, 1 30 alterglobalization movement
cell phone use, 84 apartheid, 96, 1 2 9 f, 1 30
i nvasive species problems, 1 39 Appadurai, Arjun, 97, 1 01
limited globa lization in, 1 5 Aqu i nas, Thomas, 22
l i mited I nternet access in, 1 3, 44 Arab Spri ng, 50, 1 78, 1 82-3
migration from , 1 00 Asian crisis ( 1 997-98), 1 45
music i n , 1 2 5 , 1 44 Assange, Julian, 1 83-4
popular culture s hortfalls in, 66 ATIAC social movement (France), 1 2, 1 77
rituals/politics in, 1 81 Auge, M a rc , 35-6, 65
slums in, 5, 95 Austra lia
soccer's popularity i n , 9 1 invasive species in, 1 38-9
tourism in, 1 09 large-scale immigration, 1 02
transnational i ndigenous movement in, avian i nfluenza (bird flu), 1 43
1 63 Aztec Empire, 6
witchcraft accusations in, 1 47
AI DS, 1 1 , 1 34, 1 46-7 Bangladeshi G rameen Bank, 1 5
Alexander the G reat, 3 Bauman, Zygmunt, 1 05 , 1 1 3
Ali, Tariq, 1 49 o n accelerated consumption, 46
al-Qaeda terrorist organ izatio n , 20, 1 37, 1 38, Globalization-The Human
1 45, 1 49, 1 89 Consequences, 99, 1 53
Al-Shihan Jordanian newspaper, 1 56 " l iquid modern ity " of, 1 34
altergloba lization movement, 5, 1 73-85 risk-related concerns. 1 38
anti-capitalism protests by, 72 on tourism vs. refugees, 1 1 O
Arab Spring, 50, 1 78, 1 82-3 Bayart, Jean-Fran<;:ois, 7 1 , 72
202 IN DEX
Beck, U l rich global equalization status of, 6

risk-related concerns, 1 38 global ra nking, 3
Risk Society, 1 34-5 great plague devastation i n , 40
Berger, Rachel, 1 45 ma rket i n roads of, 1 5
Bergson, H e n ri, 24 mobile phone use growth, 79
Bevond Belief (Naipaul), 1 26 musical notation development in, 26
Bharatiya Janata Party ( I ndia; " The People's spread of A I D S in, 1 47
Party " ), 4 text message growth i n , 1 3, 44
Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge writing development in, 22
Comparisons (Ti lly), 75 Chipko ecological movement (Himalayas),
b il i ngualism and standardization, 63-4 1 45-6
b i n Laden , Osama, 1 48 , 1 49, 1 67 Chua, Amy, 1 36-7
B lack Deat h , 40 Clarke, Arth u r C. 80
Black Skin, White Masks ( Fanon), 1 2 1 climate change
Borneo environmental movement, 1 45 causes of, 1 4 1
Bosnians, 1 1 1 , 1 57 consequences of, 5 , 9 , 1 4 1 -2
Bourdieu, Pierre, 48-9 expert system trust factors, 1 42-4
Bowling Alone (Putnam), 1 66 global democracy and, 1 4 1 -2
B razilian rubber tapper movement, 1 45 global risk factors, 1 33, 1 34, 1 35, 1 39-41
B retton Woods i n stitutions, 87 h u man contributions, 1 4
Bush, G eorge W, 1 9-20, 1 48 local responses to, 1 4 1
nation-states and, 7 7
Castells, Manuel opportun ities created by, 9
o n " crisis of the large organ ization;· 81 tou rism and, 1 7
The Information Age, 1 4, 78-9 clocks and clock time, 23-4
i nternational terrorism prophecy by, 1 50 Coca-Cola, 7, 62, 65, 69, 1 88
" network society " vision of, 67, 78-9, Cold War, 4, 1 4 , 79, 87, 1 50
8 1 , 1 50 , 1 66 commun ication networks, 79-81
on new age music, 5 1 see also cell phones; communication
Caxton , Wil l iam, 2 7 satellites; I nternet; tra nsnational
cell phones connections; World Wide Web
Africa use data, 79, 84 commun icatio n satell ites, 80
China use data, 79 commun ication technologies, 4 1 -4
commun ication acceleration benefits, 55 see also I nternet; cell phones
evo l ution of, 79, 90 The Communist Manifesto (Marx and
Furedi, on benefits of, 1 38 Engels), 1 88
Jamaica u se data, 89-90 comparabi lity, 1 , 2 0 , 57, 58, 60-1
Nokia sales data, 82 computer virus, 40
pervasiveness of, 4, 44, 49, 76, 89 concrete societies, 23, 27
spread of I nternet services for, 43-4, The Condition of Postmodernitv (Ha rvey) ,
79-80 41
Central I ntel ligence Agency (C IA), 1 43, 1 84 Congolese rh umba m usic, 1 25
Chanda, Naya n , 6 Congolese sapeurs, 1 03
change, acceleration of, 43 connections/con nectedness (networks),
Chase-Dunn, C hristopher, 3 75-97
Chile, 28 Castells' " network society" vision, 67,
China 78-9, 8 1 , 1 50, 1 66
African traders i n , 84 defi ned, 1 1
Christian calendar challenges by, 68 disju nctures and, 1 3 , 96-7
economic impact of, 5, 1 7, 45 economic global ization, 1 5, 8 1 -3
I NDEX 203
European h i story and, 1 7 pri nti ng/factories and. 27-8

global governance and, 1 5, 86-7 reembedding counteraction of, 1 88
Hegel on, 2 standardization comparison, 60
intercity networks, 83 temperatu re measurement and, 2 5
isolation ism and, 93-5 t i m e measurement a n d , 23-4
language tra nslation and, 87-8 writing form, 2 1 -3
opportunities, vulnerabilities created by, disiunctures (in con nectedness), 1 3, 96-7
5 distance a nd global ization, 2 1
power concentration and, 83-4 dromology, 43
remittances/cheap calls and, 88-90 Durkheim, E mile, 59
soccer/global ization and. 90-2
see also communication networks; earthquakes, 1 35
tra nsnational connections Eastern E u rope, 1 5, 50, 1 43
creolization, 1 1 8 , 1 20, 1 2 1 -3, 1 30 , 1 57. 1 6 3 Ebola virus, 1 43
" crisis o f t h e large orga nization" (Castells). economic anthropology, 58
81 economic g lobal ization, 1 5, 8 1 -3
Critique of Pure Reason ( Kant), 48 educatio n , forma l, 58-9, 72, 1 63
Croatia, 1 09, 1 1 1 , 1 57 EFL (English as a foreign language), 62-3
Cuban exceptionalism, 84-5 Elements ( E uclid), 22
Cuban music, 1 25 E l Nino weather phenomenon, 1 40-1
cultural decreolization, 1 23 e-mai l , 4, 39-40, 43, 46, 49, 50, 53t, 75, 80
cultural identities, 1 1 9 Empire (Hardt and Negri). 82
c u ltural m ixing, see mixing (cultural m ixing) Engels, Frederick, 1 88
c u ltural pluralism, 1 05, 1 23 The Enigma of Arrival (Naipaul), 1 25
c u ltural purita n is m , 1 1 7. 1 29-30 Ensor, Jonathan, 1 45
environmental refugees, 1 42
Darwin's Nightmare film (Sauper). 1 39 epidemics , 40, 1 46-7
" democratic deficit " of global ization, 36 see also AIDS; H IV-A I D S epidemic
deterritorial ization, 1 9 , 20, 4 1 , 46, 80, 89, eternal peace essay (Kant), 2
1 01 , 1 44, 1 60 eth n ic categories, 1 1 9
diasporas/diasporic groups, 1 00, 1 01 -2, eth nic el ites, 1 36-7
1 64-5 Euclid, 22
diasporic identity (defi ned), 1 23 Europe and the People Without History
diffusion (defined). 1 2 3 (Wolf). 3
Disappearing World documentary series
(G reat B ritain). 62 Fabian , Johan nes, 49-50
disembedding, 1 9-38 Facebook, 9, 29, 33, 5 3 t 75, 94, 1 27. 1 84
abstract music and, 26 El Fagr Egyptian newspaper, 1 55-6
of capital of wealth, 1 5 Fanon, Frantz, 1 2 1
critics of, 35- 7 Federa l B u reau of I nvestigation ( F B I ) . 1 43
defi ned, 1 0 , 1 9, 37. 4 1 Feld, Steven, 1 24
detemtorialization form of, 1 9, 20, 4 1 , Ferguson, James, 54
46, 80, 89, 1 01 , 1 44, 1 60 Fernandez-Armesto, Fel ipe, 1 7
examples of, 2 1 Flannery, Tim, 1 4 1 , 1 42
gated commu nity form, 34-5 flatteners (of Friedman). 45-7
identity politics a nd, 32, 1 54 food exports, 65
money/value standards and, 1 9, 25-6 Ford, Henry, 59
nationalism and. 29-31 Fordism/Post-Fordism, 8 1
nations, 28-9 formal educatio n , 58-9, 72, 1 63
neoliberal economics a nd, 33-4 Frank, Andre Gunder, 1 5, 1 6
204 I N DEX
Fra n kl i n , Benjamin, 24 Robertson on, 5

French Revolution, 29 skepticism about. 7-9
Friction (Tsing), 1 4 5 slum g rowth from, 94-6
Friedman, Jonathan, 1 01 , 1 53, 1 88 soccer and, 90-2
Friedman , Thomas, ix, 45-7. 94 wars on terror and, 1 9-20, 1 47-8
Furedi , Fra n k, 1 38 ways of looking at. 1 2-1 3
Fury ( Rushdie), 1 26 world players in, 6
wrong notions about. 5-7
Gabriel, Peter, 1 24 Globalization-The Human Consequences
" Gaia hypothesis" (Lovelock), 1 40 ( Bauman), 1 53
gated commun ities, 34-5 G lobalization 3 . 0 , 45
Gell ner, E rnest. 29 The Globalization of Nothing ( R itzer), 64-6
Gemeinschaft (trad itional society), 1 66 global neol iberalism, 1 2
gendered migration, 1 1 2- 1 3 G lobal South, 1 , 1 3 , 47. 7 7. 83, 96, 1 00, 1 1 3,
General Conference on Weights and 1 36, 1 73, 1 82
Measures ( 1 889), 69 g lobal switchboards, 60
geological h istory divisions, 1 39-40 global uniformity, 1 3
Geological Society of London, 1 39-40 glocalization ( Robertson), 7. 1 3, 64-5, 67.
G iddens, Anthony 9 1 , 94, 1 59, 1 82
on disembedding, 2 1 , 32, 41 Godelier, Maurice, 7 1 -2
" post-traditional society " of, 1 1 3, 1 34, G oody, Jack, 1 7
1 66 Google, 1 82, 1 83, 1 84
risk-related concerns, 1 35, 1 38 G PS (global position i ng system), 80
Runaway World, 1 1 7 G ray, Joh n , 1 65, 1 88-9
G i ul ianotti, R ichard, 90 The G reat Western Railway, 60
Global Complexity ( U rry), 1 74 G rotius, H ugo, 23-4
global financial crisis (2008), 1 7 7 G uantanamo Bay detention camp (Cuba),
global governance, 1 5, 86-7 1 48-9, 1 83
global information society, 50, 1 5 1 guanxi ethos of reciprocity, 1 65
globalization G utenberg, Joha n n , 27
anarchist connectivity and, 93
compa rabil ity feature of. 1 , 20, 57. 58, Hall, Thomas, 3
60-1 Halliday, Fred, 86- 7
criticism of. 52, 53t Hannerz, U lf
defined, 2 1 on cultural creolization, 1 2 1
" democratic deficit" of. 36 o n global culture, 1 01 , 1 1 8
dimensions of, 4-5, 1 0 - 1 2 , 1 7 o n g lobal switchboards, 60
distance and, 2 1 Ha rdt. M ichael, 82, 86
early history of, 1 -3, 5-6 Harris, Olivia, 1 20
identity pol itics as response to, 1 58-9 Harvey, David, 34, 4 1 , 52
indigeneity and. 1 6 1 -4 Hegel, G . W F , 2
of the i n su lt. 1 54-6 H eld, David, 8, 86-7
key debates about, 1 3- 1 7 Hellen istic Empire, 3
M ittelman on, 50 H i rst. Paul, 82
modern world, 3-5 H I V-A I D S epidemic. 1 43
nationalism as template for, 29-31 Home Territories (Morley), 1 33
of noth i n g , 64-6 A House for Mr. Biswas (Naipaul), 1 25
objective vs. subjective, 1 3 The Human Consequences (Zygmont), 99
overheating metaphor, 9 - 1 0 human rights
power concentrations and, 83-4 global ization's opposition to, 7
I N DEX 205
global solida rity about. 8. 1 4, 93, 1 4 5 I O M migration data, 1 1 0

identity pol itics a n d , 1 68-70 I T boom i n , 45, 50, 1 44
as mai n dimension o f global ization, 5 McDonald's menu l ndianization, 65
political science d iscussions about, 1 01 new age religion origins in, 1 44
secu rity and, 1 48-50 people d isplacement i n , 5
transnational organ izations and. 86 S D I movement actions i n , 1 80
H u nti ngton , Samuel, 87 spread of AIDS i n , 1 46-7
H uyssen, Andreas, 46 I ndian mathematics, 22
hybridity I ndian People's Pa rty ( I ndia), 4, 1 1 1 , 1 58 ,
cultu ral creolization and, 1 1 8, 1 2 1 -3 1 60
defi ned, 1 22 i ndigenous cosmopolitans, 1 63-4
i ndividual ism a nd, 1 67 indigenous strategies, 1 6 1 -2
mixing and, 1 30 industrial revolution, 27, 28, 47, 55,
m u lticulturalism comparison, 1 23, 1 70 141
nationalism and, 1 68 industrial society, 44, 45, 53t, 55, 80
neonationalism and, 1 67-8 see also standardization
objections to, 1 3 1 The Information Age (Castells), 1 4
see also mixing (cultural mixing) information society, 1 4, 44-5, 50, 53 t, 79,
hyperglobal izers. 8 151
The Information Society (Castells), 79
identity politics, 1 53-70 I nter-American Commission o n H u ma n
c u ltural purity and, 1 29-30 Rights, 1 42
described, 4, 1 1 -1 2 I nternational Criminal Court ( I CC), 1 49
disembedding and, 32, 1 54 internationalization process, 8
emergence of, 7 I nternational Monetary Fund ( I M F) , 72, 1 44,
goals of, 8 1 75
grammar of, 1 59-60 I nternational O rganization for M ig ration
human rights and, 1 68-70 ( I O M). 1 1 0
i ndigenous strategies, 1 6 1 -2 I nternational System of U nits ( S I ; metric
l slamism and, 1 67-8 system), 69
neonationalism and, 1 67-8 I nternet
overheating metaphor and, 9-1 0 Africa's l imited access, 1 3
politicized cu lture and, 1 56-8 Arab Spring and, 1 83
reembedding i n diasporas, 1 64-5 ch ild pornography and, 1 49
as response to global ization, 1 58-9 Cuba's l i m ited access, 85
standardization and, 57 diaspora Chi lea n s and, 35
trust and social capita l , 1 65-7 global growth of, 4, 8, 1 0-1 1 , 43-4, 76,
Imaginary Homelands ( Rushdie), 1 26 1 33, 1 88-9
Imagined Communities (Anderson), 28, 93 historical background, 79
I M F ( I nternational Monetary Fund), 1 4, languages used o n , 8 1 , 88
33-4 methods of studying, 1 00
l ndex Tran slationum (website), 88 newspapers on, 47
I ndia open standards of, 68
a lterglobalization strategy in, 1 79 political uses of, 29
call center outsourcing to, 8 1 significance of, 55
c u l i na ry expan sion of, 76 tracking usage on, 1 84
expansionist period, 1 6- 1 7 Viril io's opinion of, 43
global equalization status of, 6 virtual commun ities on, 28-9, 77
I ndian People's Party rise to power, 4, see also " The Love Worm " computer
1 1 1 , 1 58, 1 60 virus; World Wide Web
206 I N DEX
I nternet Corporation for Assigned Names man ufactured risks, 1 35-6

and N u mbers, 87 Marti n , B i l l , 50-1
I n u it organ izations, 1 42 Marx, Ka rl, 2, 45, 59, 1 88
i nvasive species risks, 1 38-9 Matthews, Gordon, 84
lslamism, 1 67-8 Mauritius, 53-4, 80, 1 25-8, 1 54
lslamophobia, 1 68 Mauss, Marcel, 58
Mayan astronomy, 22
Jihad vs. McWorld (Barger). 94 med ia acceleration, 47
Jyllands-Posten newspaper (Denmark). Mexico
1 55-6 la fayuca hormiga (ant trade) in, 84, 87
pirated CDs/DVD in, 6, 84
Kant, I mmanuel. 2, 48 Microsoft Word, 67-9
Kearney, M ichael, 1 01 Midnight's Children ( Rushdie). 1 25
Kyoto Protocol, 1 40 migrant remittances, 88-90
accelerated growth of, 9
languages defi ned, 75, 88-9
bi l i ngualism and standardization, 63-4 global economics of, 89
global domi nance of English, 87-8 migrant remitta nces, 75, 77, 84, 88-9
standardization of, 59 spending variations, 89
variety of, on the I nternet, 8 1 , 88 staying in touch with, 90
see also EFL (English as a foreign transnational, 9
language) migrants
Latin America i nterconnectedness of, 1 , 1 1 , 4 1 , 80-1 ,
cultural decreolization in, 1 23 1 04-5, 1 1 2
decl ine of u rban economy i n , 95 labor migrants, 6 , 1 01 , 1 03, 1 1 2
elites i n , 1 37 transnational, 89-90, 1 65
m igration to, 99 u ndocumented, 59, 1 03, 1 33
mixi ng i n , 1 20 webs of security created by, 1 04-5
resistance to standardization i n , 7 1 see also mobility
telephones i n , 47 migration
Levi-Strauss, Claude, 6 1 , 1 28 Africa and, 1 0 0
Lewellen, Ted, 1 25 Canary I slands and, 9 9 , 1 00
Lisbon, Portugal, earthquake, 1 35 gendered, 1 1 2-1 3
l iterate societies, 22-3, 28 h i storical perspective, 1 03
long-distance nationalism, 1 1 1 -1 2 i nternal, 1 4
las indignados social movement (Spain). 1 2 national deterritorialization and, 20
Lovelock, James, 1 40, 1 42 opportu nities created by, 9
" The Love Worm " computer virus, 40 transnational, 1 0, 9 1 , 1 02-3
types of, 1 00-1
The McDonaldization of Society ( R itzer). migration regimes, 9
1 08 Millennium ( Ferna ndez-Armesto). 1 7
McDonald's/McDonaldization Mittelma n , James, 5 0 , 1 88
global ization and, 65, 1 07-8, 1 74 mixing (cultural mixing), 1 1 7-31
Slow Food movement and, 1 82 acceleration of, 1 1 8- 1 9
Th i rd World employment and, 72 causes of, 8 , 1 1 7
McG rew, Anthony, 8, 86-7 defi ned, 1 1
McLuhan, Marshal l , 3 forms of, 1 1 9-20
Maeckelbergh, Marianne, 1 76 in Mauritius, 1 25-8
Mali nowski, B ronislaw, 6 1 Naipa u l 's views on, 1 25-6
Manning, B radley, 1 83 options/examples, 1 30
I N D EX 207
Rushdie's views on, 1 25-6 disembedding and, 29-31

world music and, 1 22 , 1 23-5 globa lization and, 29-3 1
see also hybridity hybridity and, 1 68
mobile phones. see cell phones long-distance, 1 1 1 - 1 2
mobil ity nation-building, 52, 58, 64, 96
Bauman on. 99 Nations and Nationalism (Gell ner), 29
in the Canary Islands, 99, 1 00 nation-states
choosing/enforcing of. 99 importance of. 7-8. 29
contemporary extent of, 1 00 language, b i l i ngual ism. and, 63-4
defi ned, 1 1 loss of pol itical power of, 1 5
economic global ization and, 83 n onstate confl icts with, 3 1
in E u rope, of students, 6 1 , 64 outsourcing a n d , 1 05-6
forms of. 1 00-1 risk mediation by, 1 1
growth of tou rism and, 1 06-9 rol e of, 29
h i storical perspective. 1 03 social organization of. 30
long-distance nationalism and, 1 1 1 - 1 2 twentieth century emergence of, 32
North Atlantic expatriates. 103 u nambiguous boundaries of, 20
nosta lgia and, 1 1 3- 1 4 natural risks, 1 35-6
outsourcing/nation-states, 105-6 Negri, Anto n io , 82, 86
tourists vs. refugees, 1 1 0 neolibera lism, 8-9
transnational connections. 1 04-5, 1 1 2 criticism of. 34
transnational migration, 1 0 , 9 1 , 1 02-3 d i sembedded economics and. 33-4
see also migra nts; migration g lobal neol iberalism. 1 2
Monbiot. George, 86 Harvey's def i n ition of, 34
monetary economy, 58, 82. 1 87 as synonym for globalization, 1 4
money, disembedding and. 1 9, 25-6 w i n ners vs. losers of, 94
M orley, David, 1 33 neonationalism. 1 67-8
m u lticulturalism neo-Nazi party, 1 68
cultural p l u ralism comparison. 1 23 networks. see connections/connectedness
hybridity comparison. 1 23 , 1 70 (networks)
segregation and, 1 30 " network society" vision (of Castells), 67.
types of. 1 20, 1 29 f 78-9, 8 1 , 1 50, 1 6 6
Western discourse about. 4 , 1 57 New G u i nea intertri bal encou nters, 1 67
world music and, 1 24 9/1 1 terrorist attack. see September 1 1 ,
Yugoslavia and, 1 30 2001 , terrorist attack ( U . S )
m ultiethnolects, 1 30 " nodes " of global commun ication. 60
music nongovernmental organizations ( N G Os)
African. 1 25 i nternational. 86, 1 45, 1 47. 1 70. 1 89
disembedding and, 33 transnational. 2, 7. 1 46, 1 74
g lobal markets for, 6-7 non l iterate societies. 22-3, 32
Martin's critique of. 50- 1 non-places, 35, 66
new age, Castells' on, 51 North Atlantic countries
notation development. 26 agricultural sector protections, 1 36
soul music. i n the U S . 1 25 AIDS epidemic i n , 1 46
world m usic, 1 22, 1 23-5 climate change and. 1 4 1 , 1 43
economic growth compariso n , 1 7
NAFTA ( North American Free Trade expatriates i n , 1 03
Agreement), 8 fashion styles. 7
Naipaul, V S . , 1 25-6 globalization resistance i n , 72
nationalism identity politics i n , 1 69
208 IN DEX
I nternet access i n , 44 regionalization process, 8

mu lticultu ralism i n , 1 30 remittances. see migra nt remittances
obsolescence examples, 62 The Revenge of Gaia ( Lovelock), 1 40
piracy threats, 83 revital ization of space, 2 1
North Korea, 4 Riccio, B runo, 1 03
Norway risks
c u ltural mixing i n , 1 30 anthrax scare, 1 37-8
culture of, 1 56 climate change, 1 33 , 1 34, 1 35, 1 39-41
electronic news media i n , 47 disaster-related, 1 34
emigration patterns, 1 05 expert system trust factors, 1 42-4
folk tradition issues, 1 1 3- 1 4 globalized, 1 1
foreigner assimilation i n , 1 64-5 health-related, 1 1 , 40, 1 34, 1 43 , 1 46-7
identity choice issues, 1 30 invasive species, 1 38-9
outsou rcing of work by, 1 06 investment-related, 1 5, 84
soccer club fa ns i n , 9 1 -2 local management of, 1 45-6
terrorist attacks (201 1 ) i n , 1 50 natural vs. manufactured, 1 35-6
tou rism i n , 1 08-9 perceived/consequences of, 1 37-8
transmigration patterns, 1 05-6 security/human rights, 1 48-50
N SA (National Security Agency), 1 83-4 travel-related, 2 1
" risk society" (of Beck), 1 34
Obama, Barack, 1 49 , 1 78 R itzer, George, 64-6, 1 24
objective g lobal ization, 1 3 Robertson , Roland, 5, 7, 90
obsolescence, 46, 6 1 -3 Roman Empire, 6
Occupy movement ( U . S ), 1 2, 1 73 , 1 75, Roosevelt, Theodore, 41
1 78-9 Rose. Flemming, 1 55
oral religions, 22 Rousseau, Jean�acque, 1 35-6
Organ ization of the I slamic Conference, 87 Runaway World (G iddens), 1 1 7
Orienta/ism (Said), 1 2 1 Rushdie, Salman, 4 , 1 25-6
Our Creative Diversity report ( U N ESCO),
1 69 Sahlins, Marshall, 1 67
Said, Edward. 1 2 1
pessimism (of Bourd ieu), 48-9 Sars virus, 1 43
phonetic writi ng, 2 1 -2 Sassen, Saskia, 83
plantation economies, 1 2 1 The Satanic Verses ( Rushdie), 4, 1 25, 1 26
Pliez, Ol ivier, 84 scalabi lity, 7 1
Polanyi, Karl, 9, 58 Scholte, Jan Aart, 1 0 0- 1
political parties, 59, 1 76 Senegalese Wolof cu lture (in Italy) , 1 03
postcolonialism, power of defi n ition a nd, September 1 1 , 2001 , terrorist attack ( U .S ) ,
1 2 1 -2 2 0 , 1 33, 1 37, 1 43, 1 48 , 1 50
postindustrial society, 44 Serbs, 1 1 1 , 1 57, 1 58
printing, i mportance of, 27-8 Seth, Vikram, 1 1 7
proletariat workforce (precariarj , 1 33-4 sex workers, i n I ndia and Thailand, 1 47
protest movements, 72, 1 75-6 Shack/Slum Dweller Alliance (S D I ; I ndia),
purita nism, cultu ral, 1 1 7, 1 29-30 1 2, 1 80
Putnam, Robert, 1 66 Shakespeare, William, 28
shared grammar, of globalization, 17, 1 7 0
reembedding shipping contai ner, and standardization, 7 0
i n d iasporas, 1 64-5 Silk Road trade route, 3
disembedding and, 32, 1 54 simultaneity (of events), 49-50
Facebook and, 33 skepticism about globalization, 7-9
IN DEX 209
S low Cities movement, 1 8 1 -2 Taliban regime (Afg hanista n). 1 48

Slow Food movement, 1 8 1 -2 Tam i l m ig rants, 1 66
slum g rowth, 94-6 telegraph , 2, 42-3, 55, 60, 93
S M S messages (short message service). telephone. 9, 42-3, 46-7, 53t
80, 1 66 see also cell phones
S nowden, Edward. 1 83-4 temperature measurement, 2 5
soccer and g lobalization, 90-2 territorial ity, 1 00-1
socia l movements, 1 2, 1 54, 1 73-4, 1 76 , terrorist attacks
1 78, 1 82 anthrax scare. 1 37-8
societies experts' i nabil ity for stopping, 1 43
a bstract, 23, 28, 37 as global risk factor, 1 34
concrete, 23, 2 7 global suspect a rrests, 1 49
Friedman's " flatteners " of, 4 5 -7 London, 1 33
industrial, 44, 45, 53 t, 55, 80 Madrid, 1 33
i ntegration withi n , 29 see also September 1 1 , 2001 , terrorist
literate, 22-3, 28 attack (U S.)
nonliterate, 22-3, 32 text messaging, 1 3, 44
postindustrial, 44 Thatcher, Margaret, 1 33
South Korea, 6, 1 08, 1 75 Thompson , G rahame. 82
Soviet U n ion, 4, 84 Tilly, Charles, 75
speed (of tra nsport and commu nication). Time and Free Will ( Bergson). 24
1 0- 1 1 , 39-56 time measu rement, 23-4
accelerated change, 43-4 time-space compression ( Harvey). 4 1 -3
Bourdieu's pessimism and, 48-9 T I N A ( " There Is No Alternative " ) doctrine,
Friedman's "flatteners " and, 45-7 1 73, 1 76, 1 85
media acceleration, 47 Tob i n , James. 1 77
popular music and, 50-1 tourism
simu ltaneity and, 49-50 as g rowth industry, 53
time-space compression, 4 1 -3 growth of, 1 06-7
unevenness of, 53-5 perspectives on, 1 08-9
see also acceleration study methodologies. 1 00
S ri Lankan communities, 1 66 tourist vs. refugees. 1 1 O
sta ndard ization, 58-73 see also mobility
bilingual ism and, 63-4 tran s national con nections, 1 , 1 1 , 4 1 , 80- 1 ,
defined, 1 1 1 04-5, 1 1 2
h istorical background, 57-8 tran s national corporations, 83
metric system and, 69 transnationa l ism (defined), 1 23
MS Word and, 67-9 tra n s national migration. 1 0, 9 1 , 1 02-3
obsolescence from. 46, 6 1 -3 tran s national N G Os, 2, 7
resistance to, 70-2 tra n s national slow movements, 1 8 1 -2
sca labil ity condition for. 71 Tristes Tropiques ( Levi-Strauss), 6 1
shipping container and, 70 Trotsky, Leo, 2
The State Nobility (Bourdieu), 48 Tsin g , Anna, 1 45
Stigl itz, Joseph, 82 tsunamis, 1 35
structural adj u stment programs (SAPs). 1 36
subjective globa l ization, 1 3 U N ESCO ( U n ited Nations Educational
A Suitable Boy (Seth ) . 1 1 7 Scientific and Cultural O rgan ization).
S u n n i Islam, 1 55 88, 1 24, 1 69
supermodern ity, 3 5 U nited Nations
syncretism, 1 23 democratic legitimacy of, 86
210 I N D EX
global governance role, 87 Williams, Raymond, 1 56

g rowth of, 3 Wilson, Godfrey, 54
U n ited Nations Declaration of Human Wilson, Richard A, 1 48-9
Rights ( 1 948), 1 69 Wisner, Ben, 1 35-6
U n ited Nations High Commission for Wolf, Eric, 3
Refugees, 1 1 0 WOMAD music festiva l , 1 24
U n ited States ( U S ) World B a n k, 1 4- 1 5 , 33-4,
Cold Wa r vs. Soviet U n ion, 4, 1 4 , 79, 87, 1 44
1 50 The World is Flat ( Friedman), ix, 45-7, 94,
i nvasive species problems, 1 39 1 88
soul music, 1 2 5 world music, 1 22 , 1 23-5
see also Occupy movement (U.S.); NSA World on Fire (Chua), 1 36-7
(National Security Agency); September World Social Forums, 1 73 , 1 76
1 1 , 2001 , terrorist attack (U S ) world-system theory (Wal lersetin), 3, 1 5
U rry, John, 52, 1 74 World Trade Center terrorist attack. see
U . S. Treasury Department, 34, 72 September 1 1 , 2001 , terrorist attack
uttera nces, 2 1 -2 ( U . S. )
World Trade O rgan ization (WTO), 7 2 , 87,
value standards, 25-6 1 75-6, 1 89
Vertovec, Steven , 1 01 -2 World War I , 2, 82
Virilio , Pau l , 36, 43, 52 World War I I , 2
see also dromology World Wide Web
volca n ic eruptions, 1 35 g lobal use expansion, 43-4, 75, 79
i ntroduction of, 4
Wal lersetin, I mmanuel, 3, 1 5 writin g , as a form of disembedding, 2 1 -3
wars o n terror, 1 9-20, 1 47-8 WTO (World Trade O rganization), 1 5
Washi ngton Consensus, 33-4, 1 76
Watson, Thomas, 143 Y2 K (millennium bug) issue, 1 43-4
Weltgeist (world spirit; Hegel), 2 Yang, Yan g , 84
WHO (World Health O rgan ization), 1 4 Yugoslavia, 4, 1 1 1 , 1 30, 1 57
Wikileaks organ ization, 1 83 Yunus, Mohammad, 1 5
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KEY CONCEPTS SERIES

Design: The Key Concepts

Fashion: The Key Concepts

Film: The Key Concepts

Food: The Key Concepts

Globalization: The Key Concepts (1st Edition)

Technoculture: The Key Concepts

The Body: The Key Concepts

New Media: The Key Concepts

Photography: The Key Concepts (1st Edition)

Photography: The Key Concepts (2nd Edition)

Design: The Key Concepts

Fashion: The Key Concepts

Film: The Key Concepts

Food: The Key Concepts

Globalization: The Key Concepts (1st Edition)

Technoculture: The Key Concepts

The Body: The Key Concepts

New Media: The Key Concepts

Photography: The Key Concepts (1st Edition)

Photography: The Key Concepts (2nd Edition)

THOMAS HYLLAND ERIKSEN

50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway

London New York

WC1B 3DP NY 10018

Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Pie

First edition published in 2007

This second edition published in 2014

©Thomas Hylland Eriksen, 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

transmitted 1n any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval

system, without prior permission 1n writing from the publishers

Designs and Patents Ac t, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on

British library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

ISBN: HB: 978-0-85785-727-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Eriksen, Thomas Hylland.

Globalization : the key concepts I Thomas Hylland Eriksen. - Second edition.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-85785-742-2 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-85785-727-9 (hardback)

ISBN 978-0-85785-765-1 (epub)

3. Globalization-Social aspects. 4. Culture and globalization. I. Title.

Typeset by Apex CoVantage, LLC, Madison, WI, USA

Printed and bound in Great Britain

Introduction: A Shrinking Planet

Globalization and Distance 21

Some Standards of a Global Modernity 58

The Globalization of Nothing 64

Criticism of Methodological Nationalism 77

Natural and Manufactured Risks? 135

The Politicized Concept of Culture 1 56

Afterword: An Overheated World 1 87

consequences. A different take on global ization from Friedman's upbeat assessment

G lobal ization i n Earl ier Ti mes

T h e fact that t h e term globa li zation i s n e w d o e s n o t m e a n that various pa rts o f the

G lo bali zation Today: A Com pressed World

These three dimensions of globalization-increased trade and transnational economic

What G lobal ization is N ot

• Globalization is just a new word for economic imperialism or cultural

• Globalization means homogenization. Th i s view is always simpl istic and usually

entails a vitalizati on of l ocal cultura l expressions, be it African art Caribbean