Global Studies as an Academic

Discipline

Ahnaf Ashiqur Rahman

Lecturer
Global Studies and Governance
Independent University, Bangladesh
 Why Global Studies?

• The ‘global’ is heard and used a lot these days, like: global warming, global
citizenship, global market, etc.
• Issues transferred from a local or regional aspect to a global viewpoint is
what global studies are about.

❑ Global Communication:
Today, more than ever before, communication is global.
• Internet, email, blogs, satellites, cell phones, webcams, and various electronic
handheld devices allow human beings all over the world to connect with each
other instantly.
❑ Business is Global:
• Business has become International/Global Business!
• Take, ‘Subaru’ the car company as an example.
• A small number of Japanese cars were first imported to USA in 1968.
• Today, the company’s ‘Subaru Global’ still headquartered in Japan, but has
many facilities all over the globe including USA, Canada, Europe, Singapore,
and China.
Global Health Issues
❑

Corona Virus, a virus

originating in Yuhan city,
China- became a global
pandemic.
“Doctors without Borders”
• The academic field of global studies emerged in this contemporary
globalizing context.
• Global studies, as an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary subject, started
flourishing in academia since the 1990s.
• Global studies students and scholars analyze the social, political, and
economic processes and transformations that affect not only the world as a
whole but also individual localities in particular.
• Spread of viral infections, ecological disasters, human rights, business etc. as
examples of global issues that are appropriate for both study and action
within the global studies framework.
• Hence, Global studies classrooms are not simply academic in nature; rather,
issues such as the environment and cultural conflict are “pressing global
challenges” that demand ‘more effective policy’ (David Jacobson & Ning
Wang, Professor and Assistant Professor of Global Studies, Arizona State
University).
• Global studies is designed to educate people who are interested in finding
solutions to these kinds of global problems, or, put another way, in making
the world a better place.
• As a global citizen, conscious citizen, it is required for everyone to acquire
appropriate knowledge of global surroundings (be it through the IUB/GSG
Foundational Course!)
 You all are global consumers-

• Think & Write about 03 global commodities that you consume.