Week 7 Analysis

Analysis comes from ch. 5 of Global Transformations , and Globalization and Culture by Nederveen Pieterse. In reading the book "Globalization and Culture" I am really starting to understand the synonymous language in the words capitalism and modernity. Like the Black Crows song, "I am seeing things for the first time...of my liiife!" A lot of the growing disatisfaction of my generation has to do with capitalism. However, capitalism (singular) is an advent of a modern conception of man and nature. As we begin to unravel the terms and face them undeniably with globalization we see a fracturing of our current power structures. The so-called problems that Globalization has started is in fact a backlash of the dialectic of modernity. Globalization is not just a time -space compression but a more paradoxical way of looking at the world as in Pieterse' definition of Globalization:

Globalization is an objective, emperical process of increasing economic and political connectivity, a subjective process unfolding in consciousness as the collective awareness of global interconnectedness, and a host of specific globalizing projects that seek to shape gloabl conditions. (Pieterse 16-17)

What we must come to terms with is the circumstances that nowadays we are all "Moroccan girls doing Thai boxing in Amsterdam", that is we are all mixing cultural elements and traces across places and identities (Pieterse 109)

The common experience now is that we are all experiencing, in one way or another, this mixing or hybridity of borders. One thing that we must keep in mind is that while globalization is all around us, it can, and often does, come with polarizing effects that highten inequality and underdevelopment on a GLOBAL scale. The nation-state that has, for so long, been creating larger gaps between the haves and have nots is being overpowered by the evolution of international, regionalized movements.

All this does not mean that boundaries fade or vanish; they never will because boundaries are a function of power and social life. (Pieterse 110)

We can therefore begin to map out other possible structures that will soon arise to take the fallen national/govenmental borders, these being boundaries of religion, ethnicity, or consumerism. My question with the text comes in the practical aspects of reimagining this hybridization of culture. What does it mean to acknowledge rather than suppress it? What good does this do? This is the question that keeps arising with my emersion into the faults of the Post-Modern. Where do we go from here? Is mere acknowledgement enough? What can be acknowldged is that there will continually be boundaries set up by the powerful, whether that be a state, or Global National Corporation. We, as Christians must deconstruct out alignment with powerful structures and refocus our attention to a Theology of Weakness. Especially in times of fruition people will become aligned with the powerful to preserve themselves. In light of our topic on War, we must pay extra careful attention that we are not setting up another power that takes hold of these borders, because domination will be creeping in the shadows. I want to conclude this section with the conclusion that the book gives in all its post-structuralist glory:

It is by virtue of cultural understandings of nationhood (or ethnicity, religion, identity, national security, national interests) that boundaries end up where they do. Powerful interests are invested in boundaries and borders, affecting the fates of classes, ethnic groups, elites; while borders and boundaries are a function of differentials of power, they are social constructions that are embedded and encoded in cultural claims. The distinction, then, does not run between conflict and culture, for conflict is a cultural exercise. Domestic politics is conducted through politics of cultural differences and so is international politics. This is what is at stake in discussions of culture. Since culture is a battleground, hybridity is a matter of mapping no-man's land. Hybridity does not preclude struggle but yields a multifocus view on struggle and by showing multiple identity on both sides, TRANCENDS THE "US VERSUS THEM" DUALISM THAT PREVAILS IN CULTURAL AND POLITICAL ARENAS. (Pieterse 117)

Ch. 5 of Global Tranformations was interesting because it explained the fluidity of Multi-National Corporations. I am used to thinking of Corporations as strictly U.S., but they are not longer seen as being bound to a particular nation. They act within the best interest of the company so when they are pressured by a local government for their business practices they can pick up and relocate to the area that best fits their needs. They are not American, Japanese, English but rather Sony, Adidas, and Levi's. They also exhibit an almost hopeful push towards unification of peoples, where ideas are shared and challenged in a mutually benificial way, not because of prejudiced allegiance but superior innovation. There are a lot of concerns with this approach but, again, I see a hope as well. Corporations are beyond my comprehension right now though, because I have only looked into their negative aspects. But that does little in light of transformation, because they are not going to be toppled in the near future. So again, we must reimagine what ways we can transform them to move into a more positive existence.