In this module, we will explore some of the issues related to globalization. We will read in the social science literature on globalization theories and examine empirical data that relate to its causes and consequences. In an effort to come to deep understanding of the meaning of globalization in contemporary society, we'll look for aspects of our lives in our neighborhoods that are affected, in part, by global forces and related developments. This will require looking at various layers of social life, including economic organization, the built environment of cities, the environment, social practices and institutions, among others.
Use the opportunities for self-assessment in this module to make sure that you understand the material. Key concepts are highlighted in the margin. There are several lateral links to materials on other sites; after visiting these sites, use the self-assessment tasks to make sure that you can collect and use the kinds of information needed to make a sociological argument about globalization.
Globalization is a term used to describe a set of complex, related phenomena. It refers, in its most general sense, to the global circulation of people, wealth and power, products and services, culture and information, as well as forms of association and interaction. It is significant because, increasingly, the movement of these things affects the ways that people live in communities all over the world. As any good social scientist will tell you, social life is structured in time and space. Globalization reflects a shrinking and compression, if you will, of distances in our social networks. In other words, the effects of events now have a farther and faster reach than ever before.
That nation-states are interconnected is, itself, not new. People, wealth and commodities have been navigating the globe since at least the fifteenth century, or even earlier. What is new, though, is the extent which significant social actors (i.e., institutions and groups) are oriented towards global phenomena rather than local or national events. Many sociologists and political scientists are asking whether or not the significance of the nation-state is declining. Kenichi Ohmae notes, "what we are witnessing is the cumulative effect of fundamental changes in the currents of economic activity around the globe. So powerful have these currents become that they have carved out entirely new channels for themselves—channels that owe nothing to the lines of demarcation on traditional political maps. Put simply, in terms of real flows of economic activity, nation states have already lost their role as meaningful units of participation in the global economy of today's borderless world" (Ohmae, K. 2000. The End of the Nation State. In The Globalization Reader, edited by F. J. Lechner and J. Boli. Oxford: Blackwell, 207). More and more, researchers and theorists are examining processes that transcend national boundaries in a profound way.
These social forces bring social change, and with it, social conflict. There is, to begin, a tension between partisans favoring globalization and those opposing it. This is, in part, a matter of competing interests; globalization affects different groups differently. It is also a matter of principles. One provocative articulation of the conflict of values is expressed by political scientist Benjamin Barber. The forces of globalization, he says, have created a paradox in which the "grim prospect of retribalization" opposed to all interconnections is set against the "onrushing economic, technological, and ecological forces that demand integration and uniformity"—Jihad vs. McWorld (Barber, B. 2000. Jihad vs. McWorld. In The Globalization Reader, edited by F. J. Lechner and J. Boli. Oxford: Blackwell, 21).
The paradox here is that the momentum of each force supplies energy to its opposite. The more the world becomes interconnected and univeral, the more that jihad forces rage against modernity. And as more tribal violence erupts, pro-globalization forces call for ever greater homogenization. "After all, Jihad and McWorld operate with equal strength in opposite directions, the one driven by parochial hatreds, the other by universalizing markets, the one re-creating ancient subnational and ethic borders from within, the other making national borders porous from without" (ibid. 23).
This conflict between a backward-looking tribalism and a forward-looking universalization poses a significant risk to peoples all over the world. Those caught in the violence are, obviously, in danger. But even those in the most developed nations are seeing unwanted changes as a result of the struggle for control. Neither Jihad nor McWorld is particularly interested in liberty or democracy. Tribalism tends to favor traditional hierarchies while global markets prefer authoritarian order. A world defined exclusively by the choice between the one or the order will not be especially conducive to individual rights and freedoms. "Unless we can offer an alternative to the struggle between Jihad and McWorld, the epoch on whose threshold we stand—postcommunist, postindustrial, postnational, yet sectarian, fearful, and bigoted—is likely also to be terminally postdemocratic" (ibid. 26).
One way to think about globalization is as a flow of populations. Sociologist John R. Logan points out that New York has always been a gateway for immigration. This, he believes, is what explains the growth of inequality in the metropolitan area. As he notes, "the metropolis [is] a mechanism of shaping and reinforcing inequalities, at least as much as it is an engine of incorporation" (Logan, J. R. 2000. Still a Global City: The Racial and Ethnic Segmentation of New York. In Globalizing Cities: A New Spatial Order?, edited by P. Marcuse and R. van Kempen. Oxford: Blackwell, 170).
Some sociologists believe that globalization has exacerbated this mechanism. According to Saskia Sassen, the globalization of finance capitalism has created a new kind of global city. The concentration of financial service industries in cities like New York, London and Tokyo results in increased inequality. This sector tends to produce both high-paying professional and low-paying service jobs, but few jobs in the middle of the wage spectrum. The agglomeration of high-paying jobs also creates subsequent development of low-wage service occupations needed by the wealthy to support their lifestyle.
Logan, though, believes that this has more to do with changes in the labor market associated with de-industrialization than the globalization of finance. He argues that the growing inequality results from factors such as the decline of unionism, contracting out of jobs in production, and the general reliance on low-wage labor pools. In New York, he notes, "race and ethnicity lend a particular colorization to these economic cleavages. ... In this dimension of globalization the region has continued to develop rapidly since the 1950s" (ibid., 159).
The movement of peoples has effects beyond the lives of the immigrants themselves. As people move into and out of communities, the communities themselves change. Both the physical and social environments may take on new forms. The pattern of associations that constitutes the day-to-day life of a neighborhood may be altered. For the residents of these communities, a new self-definition and the salience of group affiliation may result.
According to Logan, "New York is still a global city, and its global character principally derives today as in the past from its role as a receiver of people. It creates global neighborhoods, segmenting the metropolitan space by race and ethnicity" (ibid., 182). In addition to looking for globalization in economic relations and institutions, Logan suggests that we need to examine trends in the movement of peoples.
One way to examine population change is to look at the extent to which racial or ethnic groups are integrated or segregated. If we look at the extent to which two groups tend to live in different areas—one such measure is the index of dissimilarity—we can get a sense of the separateness of the groups. Regardless of their overall numbers, groups living in different places are disconnected from one another to some extent.
Let's examine the index of dissimilarity for the metro-NYC area. First, we'll visit the Mumford Center at SUNY-Albany. In the window that opens when you click on the link, click on "Census 2000." Next, click on "Data" in the left-had margin. In the table near the top of the page, click on the link to "View Metro Areas" in the row for "Segregation - whole population." In the second drop-down list, "Select a Metropolitan Area," find the metro-NYC entry and click on the submit button. The page for "New York, NY PSMA" includes the suburban counties. We'll look at these data to get a broader sense of the city.
Notice how the population of NYC has changed over time. This information is depicted in the table (as percentages) and the pie chart. How would you characterize this change? See if you can answer a few questions about the metro-NYC area.
Now, close the window for the metropolitan area data. From the Mumford Center page, click on "Data" on the left side of the page (or click on the back button in your browser). Click on "View Metro Areas" in the row for "Dimensions of Segregation." In the second drop-down list, "Select a Metropolitan Area," find the metro-NYC entry and click on the submit button.
Take a look at the tables for segrgation by income and by nativity. See if you can answer a few more questions about the metro-NYC area. When you are finished, close the window for dimensions of segregation.
Next, we'll consult the data on immigration. Click on "View Metro Areas" in the row for "The New Americans." In the second drop-down list, "Select a Metropolitan Area," find the metro-NYC entry and click on the submit button. See if you can answer another set of questions about the metro-NYC area. When you are finished, close the window for dimensions of segregation.
When we think about the movement of populations, we tend to assume that 'immigrant' is a meaningful designation only when applied to the first generation—those who actually migrate from one place to another. Recently, though, researchers have begun to turn their attention to the second generation. How are the children of immigrants similar to their parents? How are they similar to residents of the host society? These studies have the potential to change the ways that we think about issues such as assimmilation and acculturation, and indeed, the very meaning of culture for ethnic communities and the host society.
For more information about the second generation in New York, take a look at this report by Mary Waters, John Mollenkopf, and Philip Kasinitz. (The report is a PDF document. If your browser is set up to view PDF files, it should appear in the browser or Acrobat Reader application.)
Now that we have a better sense of who lives in New York, let's consider the changing meaning of the social identities. As globalization accelerates the movement of populations, neighborhoods change in response to demographic and economic shifts. Different interactions within a neighborhood, and across them, can alter the ways that people represent themselves to each other and to "outsiders." The meaning of ascribed characteristics can seem to us, most of the time, fixed by external circumstances (or, perhaps, by nature). But we can observe the flexibility of identity when considering how socially constructed symbols of these ascribed characterics change and become more or less salient as a result of population flows.
The idea that people (alone and in groups) present themselves as social actors comes from a social theory called "symbolic interactionism." According to George Herbert Mead, the self is the result of an internalized conversation. There is no identity prior to the presentation of identity. Even our self-reflection is a presentation of the self, with an imagined self as the audience, as it were; the "voice inside our heads" that we understand as "me" is a dialogue rather than a monologue. In interactions, our behavior—including verbal behavior—takes on a meaning-carrying function that is separate from any instrumental or practical qualities. This semiotic dimension is flexible and dialogic. Just like words often have multiple meanings (connotations) and confusion can arise if the speaker intends one meaning but the hearer interprets another, the symbolic quality of our self-presention is subject to social negotiation; conflict can arise because the interpretation of these social symbols is not always what is intended.
If you would like to learn more about symbolic interactionism, take a look at Mind, Self and Society by George Herbert Mead, Symbolic Interactionism by Professor Paul Gingrich, and Erving Goffman: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Adam Barnhart.
The self is also a product of group identities. Groups represent themselves, just as individuals do. These presentations are both internal and external to the group. With the increased circulation of people, commodities, and ideas that define our times, the issue of identity is no longer a local phenomenon. Because the materials that give our social contexts meaning are, very often, global, we live in what Arjun Appadurai calls "imagined worlds." This refers to "the multiple worlds that are constituted by the historically situated imaginations of persons and groups spread around the globe" (Appadurai, A. 2000. Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy. In Globalizing Cities: A New Spatial Order?, edited by P. Marcuse and R. van Kempen. Oxford: Blackwell, 325). That people act in "imagined worlds" does not mean that their actions do not affect the actual, material world. Rather, it means that identity and behavior are wrapped up in ideas about what the world is like that draw upon information circulating in the global economy.
In the U.S., where residents in cities often define themselves in terms of the ethnic neighborhoods in which they reside, the meaning of ethnic identity owes more to the circulation of ideas about origins than to the daily practices of the communities of origin. Italian-American communities, for example, may not bear much resemblance to Italian communities because the source of collective practices is not direct knowledge of the communities of origin as much as currently circulating ideas about what it means to be Italian-American. Looking at the issue from another angle, for those groups around the world that foment a hostile anti-Americanism, the meaning of 'America' is derived not from an awareness of the daily goings-on in American communities, but rather, the global circulation of symbols of America. These symbols may be products of companies marketing them as 'American,' or images of 'American life' portrayed in the global media, or even the actions of state agencies taken 'in the name of America.' None of these things derive from the local practices of American communities.
For more information about the social construction of identities in urban communities, take a look at Self and Community in the City by urban sociologist Jerome Krase. Professor Krase has also studied Italian American neighborhoods in the U.S. and Chinatowns in cities around the world.
Globalizing institutions tend to be concentrated in urban settings. Corporations need workers to produce their goods and services, and they need consumers to purchase them. This is often easier when the density of people is higher. Political actors and institutions also tend to be located in the higher-density locations. Although the effects of globalization are felt also in rural settings, research has tended to focus on cities. One question that is frequently asked concerns livability.
The concept of urban livability is varied. It means different things to different people. In the developed world, livability can be a complex function of economic, social and aesthetic factors. For much of the world, though, livability is more straightforward. Outside of the developed world (and in pockets of underdevelopment within cities of the developed world), this issue has more to do with survival than lifestyle.
Urban planner Willem van Vliet explains, "From the perspective of [the urban poor], who make up a majority of the world's population today, the answer to the question 'What are livable cities?' is simple enough. Livable cities are places where residents can find jobs that pay a living wage. A livable city provides its citizens with basic services including safe water and adequate sanitation. The inhabitants of a livable city have access to educational opportunities and health care. They are not at risk of forced eviction and enjoy secure tenure in affordable housing. They live in communities that are safe and environments that are clean. And, perhaps most importantly, livable cities are void of discriminatory practices and governed through inclusive local democratic processes" (van Vliet, W. 2002. Cities in a globalizing world: from engines of growth to agents of change. Environment & Urbanization. 14(1):31-40).
One aspect of urban livibility that has received a good deal of attention in recent years is gentrification. Gentrification is a process by which existing residents of a neighborhood are displaced by newcomers of a higher class or status position. Gentrification can dramatically alter the way people live in a particular community; it is both a cultural and economic process.
We can employ an analytic technique called spatial semiotics to look at the ways that social space is marked by socially meaningful signs and symbols. Humans have an extraordinary capacity to interpret the world; we are able to see meaning in almost any material object or behavior—so much so, in fact, that we often attribute meaning to things and events that are essentially random. This aptitude for meaning-making adds a dimension of complexity to the social world. The build environment is not just practical or adaptive, it is also socially significant. For this reason, social scientists often refer to the city as a kind of text. An important part of our socialization is learning to "read" our surroundings.
The text of the city is not a simple narrative. Unlike the typical book, such as a novel, this text is not the creation of a single mind. Indeed, the social environment is a text that is constantly changing. It contains layers of social signification. It is as if we are hearing a babel of voices from the present and the past when we interpret the signs of our surroundings.
We can take a virtual walk down Court Street in Brooklyn to illustrate the visual signfication of gentrification. In these images, we can contrast the indicators of the older neighborhood with those of the new, gentrifying one. Because neighborhoods rarely change quickly and completely, there is a mixture of old and new elements which provide clues to the nature of the changes occuring there. (These photographs are from Professor Jerome Krase's archive of Brooklyn neighborhoods.)
The pastry shop, above left, has the appearance of an older, established business. The signage is old and often employs colors and language to connote ethnicity. The sign for the pastry shop is red, green and white—the colors of the Italian flag—suggesting that this is an Italian-American business or catering to the long-time Italian-American residents of Carroll Gardens. Businesses like this rely on familiarity to stay in business. Residents of the neighborhood know of the places by their location, so fancy signage is not needed.
The facade of the shops in the second photo, above middle, are similar in appearance. The signs are old and suggest how the neighborhood used to look. The window tend to be cluttered and strictly functional; they are intended to display the kind of products available.
In the third photo, above right, you can clearly see the same visual style.
Now, let's take a look at some visual indicators of gentrification. In the first photo, above left, we see the facade of Bklyn Bakery. Notice how different the business looks from those we've just seen. This storefront is new and modern. The tall thin windows set this facade apart from the adjacent businesses. The color is bright red and the sign is new. It is meant to attract the attention of the traffic that passes by. The windows are not to display the baked goods, but rather, to connote the upscale ambience.
You can see more of the same in the second and third photos.
Gentrification is a global phenomenon. To learn more about the global dimension, take a look at this visual sociological study of Brooklyn and Poland by urban sociologist Jerome Krase. As Professor Krase explains, we can recognize the displacement of older by newer through markers of an identifiable style. Gentrification is occurring in many New York neighborhoods, but it is also occurring in cities around the world. As Professor Krase showed, some of the same signs of gentrification in the Polish neighborhood in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, are occurring in Krakow, Poland. The fact that the look of gentrification is the same in Brooklyn and Krakow suggests that gentrification is a part of the global circulation of consumer culture.
At the other end of this continuum stands a community defined by isolation, the ghetto. The term is contested, but today there is emerging a critial scholarship in urban studies that focuses on the spatial ordering of globalizing cities. Urban planner Peter Marcuse defines a excluded ghetto as an area "in which race or ethnicity is combined with class in a spatially concentrated area whose residents are excluded from the economic life of the surrounding society, which does not profit significantly from its existence" (Marcuse, P and R van Kempen. 2000. Introduction. In Globalizing Cities: A New Spatial Order?, edited by P Marcuse and R van Kempen. Oxford: Blackwell, 18). Globalizing cities tend to exacerbate inequalities of income and wealth, leading to extremes of affluence and poverty. Increasingly, these areas are cut off from one another, and from the older mixed neighborhoods, to the point of existing practically as separate, self-contained cities within the city.
This emerging spatial order is not entirely new. It is the result of processes that have been at work in the U.S. and Western Europe—and other parts of the world to a lesser degree—since the beginning of the twentieth century. These forces have not completely remade the city, in part because the massive physicality of cities is not so easy to alter, and also because the agents of these forces often act in unpredictable and sometimes contradictory ways.
Let's examine some of the data on livability in Brooklyn. The Department of City planning produces reports on all the community districs in the city. These include a lots of useful information about standard of living and neighborhood stressors, such as poverty, crime and overcrowding. Follow the link to the NYC web site. In the drop-down list of city agencies, select "City Planning." From the DCP home page, select "District Profiles" from the drop-down list that appears when you roll your mouse over "Reference" in the "City Planning" list in the upper left corner.
Brooklyn College is located in CD 14. So click on this area on the map to get a profile. (The profile is a PDF document. If your browser is set up to view PDF files, it should appear in the browser or Acrobat Reader application.) In this document, you'll see a map of the CD, and several tables describing the population. In addition, you'll see a table of community services, such as schools, day care facilities and other health services. One especially useful feature of the profile is that it lists some of the population attributes by Census Tract, so you can observe variation within the CD itself.
It is difficult to fully understand the data in the profile report without some point of comparison. We'll use the borough as a whole as a standard. After you've browsed the report for CD 14, see if you can answer a few review questions.
These are just a few of the places you might visit for more information about globalization. Some of the sites below advocate positions in favor of globalization, or aspects of it, and others against. It is always a good idea to find out a bit about the organization when visiting their site.
International Forum on Globalization
The Globalization Website from Profs. Frank Lechner and John Boli.
Centre for Research on Globalization
Globalization, a journal of the ICAAP
Globalization, from CorpWatch
Barber, B. 2000. Jihad vs. McWorld. In The Globalization Reader. Oxford: Blackwell.
City of New York. 2002. Annual Report of Social Indicators. New York: Department of City Planning.
Evans, P et al. 2001. Livable Cities: The Politics of Urban Livelihood and Sustainability, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Falk, R. 1999. Predatory Globalization: A Critique., Cambridge: Polity Press.
Krase, J. 2002. Navigating Ethnic Vernacular Landscapes: Then and Now. Journal of Architectural and Planning Research. 19(4):274-281.
Lechner FJ and J Boli (eds). 2000. The Globalization Reader. Oxford: Blackwell.
Logan, JR. 2000. Still a Global City: The Racial and Ethnic Segmentation of New York. In Globalizing Cities: A New Spatial Order?, edited by P Marcuse and R van Kempen. Oxford: Blackwell.
Marcuse, P and R van Kempen. 2000. Globalizing Cities: A New Spatial Order?, Oxford: Blackwell.
Sklair, L. 2001. The Transnational Capitalist Class. Oxford: Blackwell.
Talwar, JP. 2002. Fast Food, Fast Track? Immigrants, Big Business, and the American Dream. Boulder, CO: Westview.
van Vliet, W. 2002. Cities in a globalizing world: from engines of growth to agents of change. Environment & Urbanization. 14(1):31-40.