What is Globalization / Blog 1 / Kiara Juliane Annisa

1.    Summary :

Globalization has been an issue in the modern world, but what is actually globalization? And how that term can be made in the first place? To start with, ‘what is Globalization ?” is a very general question, there are many topics that globalization has for example like global citizenship, migration, human rights, etc. In 1997 Velho has spoken of globalization as an object, a perspective and a horizon. The object approach involves thinking of globalization as a single process, as if ‘it’ were being addressed from an Archimedean standpoint. Velho argues that scholars and observers think that the world has takes on a different manner towards the global terms. And the last thing in Velho paradigm, globalization might be understood as the direction in which the world considered as a whole is moving. But once again this is only a presupposition, the idea of globalization actually never fully adhere in the academic. In fact the usage of this term is spreading only after the fall of the berlin war in 1989 and the fall down of communism regime. Turns out that not everyone could accept the concept of globalization, as in the late 1990s there are a massive movement name antiglobalization movement that against the concept, and this movement take their opinion in a demonstration (sometimes they do it violently too) in a global organization such as World Trade Organization (WTO).


The Parameters of The General Process of Globalization

In the articles it said that it is very widely thought that the most important single defining feature of globalization is that increasing connectivity. But it actually it is very complex to define how a globalization works, and it certainly took many aspects in the process. Samuel Huntington in his articles predicted that, with the assumed end of the cold war, centered as it was upon the conflict between the United States and USSR, the major world conflicts from there would not be ideologically based but rather focused more on civilization issues. In his argument Huntington said that civilization conflicts would revolve above all upon profound differences in conception of the nature and purpose of human life.

The Dimensions of Globalization

Many sociologist books and articles define three major dimensions of Globalization and it consist of the economic, the political and the cultural. The most dominant dimension out of three is the cultural, as we can see in the modern world it is really common to see another culture being absorbed and use in your own country, particularly the western culture. In our everyday life we can see that there are so many products that we use and consume such as nike product, starbucks, and the most popular in McDonald. Ritzer used a term McDonaldization (2000) to describe the impact that McDonald franchise bring to other people culture in different countries. It is also being localized in order for the product to be more accepted in a homogenous country.

The Form of Globalization

Many sociologist used Immanuel Wallerstein (1974, 1980, 1989) pattern of globalization to address this particular topic. He argued that there other ways in which the world could have become what we have here called a single place, or in simple where there are no nations and everything is not labeled. There are a few thing that we have to know about this concept, first attention should quickly be drawn to the inclusion of the nation-state in the process of globalization, next is the inclusion of selves within the general frame of global change has been motored by the conviction that it is not viable to exclude individuals, this is explaining how globalization is not only happened in a major aspect but also the minor one such as our daily lives. And the last one is component of humanity, this is talking about the relationship a human have with their surroundings environment.

Glocalization

We’ve heard a lot about globalization but we’ve never heard about Glocalization, so what is Glocalization and what makes it different with globalization? Glocalization is a concept that was concerning the relationship between the global and local, and it also has been gaining attention in the business studies. We might be wondering how can we relate this two word as ‘local’ and ‘global’ has a very opposite meaning. Some scholars actually tried to study this matters to find what can we do to overcome this, they agree that we shouldn’t think of this two terms as an opposite meaning but rather the same. Because if we started to think ‘local’ and ‘global’ as a different things we will ended up hating one of it, but if we actually try to use those two terms as a whole and didn’t accentuate one of it we could actually merge that to become one concept.

2.    What was interesting/what did you learn ?

While reading the materials I found out that globalization is not a simple thing and that is actually a complex concept. One thing that I find really interesting is a term Globalization. I didn’t know this concept exist before and I it really catch my attention how sociologist actually search for a way to make the word ‘local’ and ‘global’ into one big concept.

3.    Discussion Point :


In the dimension of Globalization chapter it says that Globalization has 3 major dimension that consist of the cultural, the economic, and the political. And it also said that the most dominant one is the cultural. I want to know what role that the economic and the political do in the globalization? And also are there any minor dimension that also exist in the globalization concept?


source read : Roland Robertson and Kathleen E. White articles
 

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