Today's New Globalised World example essay topic

BA Honours Criminology and Sociology Globalisation, Identity and Social Conflict Q) What, if anything, is new about globalisation? Introduction Globalisation is a short way of describing how people all around the world have become much more interconnected. Those people who geographically live far apart have been brought closer together by a kind of revolution in global trading, electronic communication and the faster spread of ideas and cultures. Before I continue with 'new' globalisation I will define exactly 'what is globalisation?' There are a number of definitions of globalisation. Some see it as a primarily economic phenomenon, which involves the increasing interaction, or integration, of national economic systems through the growth in international trade, investment and capital flows. However, also pointed out could be the rapid increase in cross border social, cultural and technological exchange as part of the phenomenon of globalisation.

Sociologist, Anthony Giddens, defines globalisation as, "A decoupling of space and time, emphasising that with instantaneous communications, knowledge and culture can be shared around the world". (See Donnellan, C: 2002: Page 2) Globalisation is also known as the rapid increase in cross-border, economic, social, technological exchange under conditions of capitalism. According to Allow (1990: 9), globalisation refers to, "All those processes by which the peoples of the world are incorporated into a single society, global society". Overall, globalisation is about processes of change affecting our lives. There are other important aspects of globalisation, such as, the principle of 'the market', where the amount of buying and selling is seen as the main measure of company's success. The power of transnational companies, whereby a third of world trade takes place between transnational or between parts of the same corporation in different countries.

Equally important is the nationalisation of culture, where the same goods and services, such as food and television, take over and swallow up local customs and traditions. (See Cohen & Kennedy: 2000: Page 27) It can be said that we now live in an inter-connected or globalised world. The world has become increasingly more inter-connected due to trade and commerce. Globalisation refers to a set of fundamental changes and these changes are new.

Changing concepts of space and time being one of them. David Harvey referred to this as, "time space compression". Whereby people find themselves doing more and more in a shorter amount of time. Physical space seems less important now than it did ever before, due to the fact of cheap transport, which moves both people and goods around the world.

Having access to transport such as, cars, vans, tractors, ships etc allows us to do this, all of which wasn't possible thirty years ago. Harvey also argues that in pre-modern societies, "space was understood in terms of concrete localities."Movement was dangerous and difficult where war, pestilence and famine often made social life unpredictable". In the past, for most individuals it had been safer to remain in those places where they and their families enjoyed fixed and unchanging rights and obligations. Since the 1950's, mass television ownership coupled more recently with today's satellite communications this, "makes it possible to experience a rush of images from different spaces almost simultaneously, collapsing the worlds spaces into a series of images on a television screen", Harvey (1989: 293).

Thus the speed in which information and images appear before us is also new. Years ago people didn't have the equipment that is available today. Today people all around the world know about something, which has happened simultaneously through satellite television e.g. 11th September-attacks on America. Thus reducing time. Time seems to be shrinking all the time. Even those people who are less fortunate and can't afford their own televisions are able to get access to a television.

Distance also doesn't seem to be as important anymore. We now largely judge distance in terms of the time required to complete a journey rather than the number of kilometres between the two points. (See Cohen & Kennedy: 2000: Pages 25-26) Also for the first time ever time-space compression, facilitated by the electronic media, has brought many of the world's people on the same stage together in their lives. Even those people who do not know each other personally are able to interact with one another meaningfully.

Via satellite television, relatives who may be strangers to one another are able to share their leisure activities, make business deals or even participate in a world media event, all of which is happening at the same moment in time and across vast distances. However, what we must remember is that not all people have access to experience these changes equally. There are some people in the world that can't afford such things as telephones. For example, people living in two villages located 30 miles apart in a particularly poor part of India, may find that the only telephone they had access to was not working. People such as these, remain almost as far apart in terms of their ability to interact effectively as they had done say 100 years ago.

"It can be said, that in a sense they are now even more distant from one another than people living in for example, Sydney and Paris", says Kennedy (2000). Another component of globalisation is the increasing cultural flows. Fragments of culture have always moved around the world through warfare, transport, religion etc, but not as it does today. Years ago it happened slowly, fragments of culture were evident, but just not as speedy as they are now. A prime example being Oxford Road, Manchester - a street full of a range of cuisines, take-outs, health practices etc.

Fragments of culture are coming at us from everywhere. Many would say and believe that culture is now being freed, which is new. We are now able to obtain full pictures of other lifestyles, especially through the power of visual images conveyed in television and film. Some people are disturbed by to much exposure to different cultures i.e. grandparents not to long ago wouldn't have travelled far and would only know those people that were local to them whom they shared customs with. Now some would regard this to be boring, but the elder generation would argue that everyone knew their place. They were all stable.

Only in the last twenty-thirty years this has disappeared. Today, however, it is both increasingly possible and necessary to our very survival to know about other people's culture. If we do not, we run the risk of being excluded from many potential benefits. Today if you were to stay in the same place, you have the opportunity to meet others who have travelled, thus share and experience different cultures, beliefs, religions etc all from your own home. Similarly, local cultures in which most of us remain rooted at anyone point in time are now altered by our comparisons with and understandings of other cultures. These local cultures become sufficient as a resource in enabling us to make decisions about ourselves and where we belong.

Conversely, the reserve process also becomes important to us, as we need to judge and reach some decision on how we feel about other cultures in the light of participation in the local. Robertson (1992: 100) says, "there is a steady increase in the interpretation of the local and the global by each other". The electronic mass media of communication, along with fast transport have the capacity to manipulate all of those who are exposed to it, and to incorporate them into a single experience. According to McLuhan (1962: 102) we live in what he described as a "global village". Just as we witness British culture in other cultures, alike we witness a variety of cultures here in Britain e.g. Japanese, American, and Australian etc. People are now conscious that we live in a multicultural world and are invited to engage in its many different possibilities embodied, for example, in cuisine, music, religious practices and marriage customs.

Growing transnational connection is another new concept of globalisation. It can be safely said that society and culture are not containable anymore, as borders are breaking down. For example, football and pop music is extending globally worldwide. As sociologist Castells (1996) says, "We are now living in a network society". We are now easily able to network people around the world and we are, for example, through pen pals in China, America, family living abroad etc. we are now forming inter-personal relationships across the world.

One major way in which connections are made is through tourists, whereby relationships are formed. International tourists numbers reached 593 million in 96 compared to 159 million in 1970, (The Economist, 8 Feb 97: 145). There are also a wide number of people migrating from the south to the north. People bringing along their families, opening shops, restaurants etc. Professionals, such as, lawyers, journalists, scientists, rock / pop personalities, students, airline pilots, drug dealers, au pairs etc are all people travelling around the world who get to meet different people, which is how they develop social relationships worldwide, which couldn't be done thirty years ago. Whether it's for leisure, family, business, celebrity etc there are now endless networks that bring people together.

International non-governmental organisations (IGNOs) are autonomous organisations, which aren't accountable for governments although they may work with them at times. Particular IGNOs are often powerful in world affairs. The number of IGNOs has grown since the 1950's at a remarkable rate. Today, their activities are vast, including religious, business, professional, labour, political, women's, sport amongst many others.

(See Cohen & Kennedy: 2000: Pages 31-33) What is clearly evident in the world today is the emergence of 'globalism'. Al brow (1990: 8) believes that globalism concerns those "values, which take the real world of five billion people as the object of concern... everyone living as world citizens... with a common interest in collective action to solve global problems". Similarly, although referring to 'globality' rather than globalism, Robertson (1997: 132) defines this as "consciousness of the problem of the world as a single peace". It has been argued that the distinction between globalism and globalisation would not be important except for two reasons. Firstly, globalisation is causing so many problems that we cannot afford to be confused, live in isolation nor be nave any longer, as it effects people all around the globe. Secondly, true globalism is the only weapon we still have for tackling the level of economic, ecological and social dislocation caused by unbridled globalisation and the resulting political violence of war and the personal violence related to crime and racism".

(See web). Globalism is the belief that we share one fragile planet, the survival of which requires mutual respect and careful treatment of the earth and of its entire people. Globalism, like all values and ethical beliefs, requires active practice in our day-to-day lives. (See web) All these dimensions of new globalisation - economic, technological, political, social and cultural all appear to be coming together at the same time, each reinforcing and magnifying the impact and importance of the others. After considering all these fragments of globalisation there clearly is a 'new globalisation'. We are seeing a huge quanta tive increase in the sheer amount of globalisation, which is unquestionably new.

We have now begun to rethink in the way in which we feel about ourselves and the things surrounding us due to globalisation. Rolland Robertson says, "something qualatively has definitely happened". Human beings are beginning to experience thinking about themselves collectively, as part of humanity, as they are now aware of multicultural flows. Living in today's new globalised world we know that no one culture dominates another. For example, India won their independence to have their own country. They have their own food, clothes, magazines, schooling, films, and music etc.

The British do not dominate them. Today no society can live in isolation from another culture. Conversely, although new globalisation with it brings advantages, it also brings a number of disadvantages. Although many individuals are taking advantage of the new freedoms and opportunities these processes of globalisation bring, many others are bypassed by the benefits, harmed by globalisation dark side, anxious about its impact, and eager to have it governed for the benefit of all.

New globalisation has clearly affected the rich and poor differently. Those children who don't even have electricity for example, get left further and further behind in the global race. The Internet being one aspect of new technological globalisation would seem meaningless to billions who lack the skills and technology to use it. The gap between rich and poor children is also growing.

Although some people are coping a few global companies control most of the wealth and power, leaving the great majority of people poor outsiders. Half of the world's poor are children. At least 600 million children exist on less than 60 p a day. Increasingly family poverty and cross-border trade exposes children to particular risks.

One of the worst being commercial sex abuse, traffickers forcing children to become sex workers and 'trading' them like cheap goods across international borders. (See Donnellan, C: 2002: page 1) Similarly, another disadvantage globalisation causes is global problems. We are all aware there are common problems, which every citizen in the country has to face, e.g. global warming. The media have always brought the events and crisis taking place in both near and distant locations on a daily and hourly basis.

We can recall both those events / crisis, which took place in the final decade of the twentieth century and those that took place in the beginning of the twenty-first, 11th September-attacks on America. We now face worldwide problems such as terrorism and poverty. We also face environmental problems, e.g. diseases such as aids, HIV etc. Yearly (1996 a: 28) says, "the world's growing environmental problems are connecting the lives of people in very different societies... it is ultimately impossible to hide oneself away from these phenomena altogether". There appear to be certain global problems, which need global solutions, and in order to solve them we must all work together. Conclusion To conclude, I would say that yes there is such a thing as 'new globalisation', which I have discussed in my essay.

We are now living in a new globalised world. Although globalisation brings along with it many opportunities, such as, offering people unique opportunities to develop both socially and economically as I have mentioned, it is now mush easier to trade goods between countries and continents. However, it does appear to me that the only people benefiting from globalisation are those that are already rich. The poor still seem to be where they were many, many years ago.

New globalisation only seems to benefit those whom are already rich and powerful, giving them more power and making them richer. Thus leaving the poor further and further behind. Finally, I would say that I don't oppose globalisation in principle. However, I do feel that it should benefit everyone and not only some.

Bibliography

Books: Cohen, R and Kennedy, P (2000) Global Sociology, Macmillan Press Ltd: Great Britain Donnellan, C (2002) Globalisation Issues, Cambridge: Independence Shipman, A (2002) The Globalisation Myth, Cambridge: Icon Books Ltd Internet: web web web web web web Lecture Notes: Lectures one to three.