The Contemporary World

Letecia V. Banez, LPT

Objectives:

▪ Differentiate the competing conceptions of globalization.

▪ Identify the underlying philosophies of the varying definitions of
globalization.
▪ Agree on a working definition of globalization for the course.
What is contemporary?
What is contemporary world?

▪ The circumstances and ideas of the present age; “in modern times
like these”
▪ Modern time, modern world, present times.
▪ Modern world we are living.
▪ The current world we are living.
Globalization……

▪ Our discussion should begin with this intuitive sense

that something is happening, and it is not affecting
everyone in the same way.
Example:
1. It is very common for young women in developing countries
to be recruited in the internet as “mail-order brides” for foreign men
living in other countries. After being promised a good life once married
to a kind husband in a rich city, they end up becoming sexual and
domestic servants in foreign lands. Some were even sold off by their
“husbands” to gangs which run prostitute rings in these cities.
Globalization……

Example:
2. Governments that decide to welcome the foreign
investments on the belief that they provide jobs and capital for the
country offer public lands as factory or industrial sites. In the process,
poor people living in these lands, also called “urban poor communities”
are being evicted by the government.
Our discussion begins with two premises:

▪ First, globalization is a complex phenomenon that

occurs at multiple levels.
▪ Second, it is an uneven process that affects people
differently.
What is globalization?

▪ Globalization is a very important change, if not, the “most

important” (Bauman, 2003).

▪ The reality and omnipresence of globalization makes us see

ourselves as part of what we refer to as the “global age”
(Albrow, 1996).
Two classifications on the definitions
of globalization:

1. Broad and Inclusive

“…..globalization means the onset of the borderless world…”

(Ohmae, 1992).
2. Narrow and Exclusive
Robert Cox’s definition “the characteristics of the globalization
trend include the internationalizing of production, the new
international division of labor, new migratory movements from South
to North, the new competitive environment…making states into
agencies of the globalizing world” (as cited in RAWOO Netherlands
Development Assistance Research Council, 2000, p.14)
What is Globalization?

▪ Swedish journalist Thomas Larsson (2001) saw

globalization as “the process of world shrinkage, of
distances getting shorter, things moving closer. It
pertains to the increasing ease with which somebody
on one side of the world can interact, to mutual benefit
with somebody on the other side of the world”(p.9).
▪ In the mid-1990s, Martin Khor, the former president of
Third World Network (TWN) is Malaysia, once regarded
globalization as colonization.
What is Globalization?
▪ Manfred Steger describe the process as “the expansion and
intensification of social relations and consciousness across
world-time and across world-space.”

▪ Expansion refers to “both the creation of new social

networks and the multiplication of existing
connections that cut across traditional political,
economic, cultural, and geographic boundaries”.
▪ Intensification refers to the expansion, stretching,
and accelerations of networks.
▪ Globalization processes do not occur merely at an
objective, material level but also involve the
subjective plane of human consciousness.
How can we better understand and appreciate
the different definitions of globalization?

1. The perspective of the person who defines globalization

shapes its definition. The overview of definitions implies
that globalization is many things to many different
people.
Example:
If one sees globalization as positive, the person can say
that it is a unifying force. On the other hand, if it is
deemed as creating inequalities among nations,
globalization is negatively treated.
How can we better understand and appreciate
the different definitions of globalization?

2. To paraphrase the sociologist Cesare Poppi:

Globalization is the debate and the debate is
globalization. One became part and parcel of the other.
As Poppi (1997) wrote: “The literature stemming from
the debate on globalization has grown in the last decade
beyond any individual’s capability of extracting a
workable definition of the concept. In a sense, the
meaning of the concept is self-evident, in another, it is
vague and obscure as its reaches are wide and constantly
shifting. Perhaps, more than any other concept,
globalization is the debate about it” (as cited in Kumar,
2003, pg.95).
How can we better understand and appreciate
the different definitions of globalization?

3. Globalization is a reality. It is changing as human

society develops. It has happened before and is
still happening today.
Metaphors of Globalization

1. Solidity – refers to barriers that prevent or make difficult the

movement of things.
Examples:
Natural solids – landforms and bodies of water
Man-made barriers – Great Wall of China and the Berlin Wall.
Modern Man-made solid – Nine-dash line
Metaphors of Globalization

2. Liquidity – refers to the increasing ease of movement of people,

things, information, and places in the contemporary world.
Example:
1. In global finance, changes in the stock market are a matter of
seconds.
2. Videos uploaded on YouTube or Facebook are unstoppable
once they become viral. The so-called internet sensations
become famous not only in their homeland but also to the
entire world.
3. The forces (liquid ones) made political boundaries more
permeable to the flow of people and things (Cartier, 2001).
Metaphors of Globalization

3. Flows – the movement of people, things, places, and information

brought by the growing “porosity” of global limitations (Ritzer,
2015).
Example:
1. Global financial crisis
2. different cuisines being patronized and consumed by the
Filipinos.
3. foods that are introduced to us by foreign cultures.
 GLOBALIZATION VS. INTERNATIONALIZATION

The Basis of Comparison GLOBALIZATION INTERNATIONALIZATION

Between Globalization vs
Internationalization
Task/Result Globalization is a result which Internationalization is the
is desired by the global task/process with which
economies. globalization can be achieved.

Internationalization is part of
Globalization is the structure that structure, hence can be
Set and Subset
that people want to set up. termed as a subset of
Globalization.

Internationalization is more
Globalization is more related related with the individual,
Related to
to the economies of the nation firm or business for their goods
and services.
 GLOBALIZATION VS. INTERNATIONALIZATION
The Basis of Comparison GLOBALIZATION INTERNATIONALIZATION
Between Globalization vs
Internationalization

Infrastructural setup, Cultural tastes and

telecommunications, logistics, preferences, Local traditions,
Factors that affect
etc. highly affect the etc. plays a major role in the
globalization process internationalization

Sourcing, producing and

Eliminating 1. visa obligations
selling materials from one or
for visitors, 2. tariff and non-
more countries, set up of
Example tariff trade barriers, 3.
branch or subsidiaries in other
Liberalization of investment
countries for carrying out
regulations etc.
business, etc.
 GLOBALIZATION VS. INTERNATIONALIZATION
The Basis of Comparison GLOBALIZATION INTERNATIONALIZATION
Between Globalization vs
Internationalization

It is an improvisation
Process It is an economic process.
process.

European Union, Asia

International Monetary Pacific Economic
Fund, World Bank, World Cooperation, North
Organizations handle Trade Organizations, etc. American Free Trade
are handling globalization Agreement, etc. work for
implementation boosting
Internationalization.
GLOBALIZATION

▪ Means connecting the economies of the world for free

trade and economic policies to integrate the world into the
global village.
▪ Is at the core in any of the policy planning by the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) or United Nations (UN).
▪ It is the process of opening the economies of the nation for
the other nations and to sync the rules and regulations with
other nations.

https://www.educba.com/globalization-vs-internationalization
INTERNALIZATION

▪ Means to produce goods or deliver services that have the

capability of entering into the international markets and have
the standards that are globally accepted.
▪ Means to expand the business and enter into the market of
different countries.
▪ It is process in which a business, firm or individual expands and
becomes part of the other countries, it may be for goods supply,
customer base such other demand fulfilment.

https://www.educba.com/globalization-vs-internationalization
GLOBALISM

▪ Is a widespread belief among powerful people that

the global integration of economic markets is
beneficial for everyone.
▪ Spreads freedom and democracy across the world.
Arjun Appadurai

▪ A cultural theorist and anthropologist

▪ According to him, different kinds of globalization occur on
multiple and intersecting dimensions of integration he calls
“scapes”.
▪ His argument is simple and there are multiple
globalizations.
Kinds of globalization according to
Arjun Appadurai:

▪ Ethnoscape – global movement of people.

▪ Mediascape – flow of culture
▪ Technoscape – circulation of mechanical goods and
software
▪ Financescape – global circulation of money
▪ Ideoscape – political ideas move around