On Globalisation from global and local perspectives, Spring term 2005.
| Ritva Kivikkokangas-Sandgren |
The main issues of globalisation are to be defined: These questions were in the “top ten” -list during the special course on Globalisation from global and local perspectives at the Department of Geography in the University of Helsinki in Spring 2005. Globalisation can be perceived as a glocalisation process perceived by active local peoples who finally would have the privilege to adopt, reject or adapt to the intermingling impacts of globalisation. |
Lectures, Group themes and Seminars |
| There were three lecturers (two lectures each), five group works and five seminar works: |
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Group themes and groups:
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Seminars of five topics:
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On the history of globalisation and geography’s responses to challenges? |
| First phase in globalisation thinking of the Old World |
| In globalisation it is possible to find out previous phases to pick up turning points from the historical events and “grand tours”. It is to be noted that globalisation is historically not a new phenomenon in itself. There were many “worldwide empires” even during Ancient times in China, Asia Minor and Middle East. (PDF) King Alexander The Great ruled over the “discovered world” during the 3 rd century and the Roman Empire extended to the “peripheries” of the world. In Africa the caravan routes had wandered through the continent for thousands of years, even though much of Africa’s ancient history was lost in the dimness by most Europeans. In modern times there were the great voyagers, explorers, conquistadors, imperialism and discoveries of the New World and the eras of Scientific revolution in the 15 th century, Renaissance, and the period of Enlightenment in the 17s. The Industrial Revolution in the West with their hunger for natural resources and new land in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Oceania, took their imperialist empire worldwide until 1960s, at what time most African colonies had got their independence. |
| Second phase of globalisation as development thinking with critical arguments |
| The historical globalisation of cores and peripheries was perceived from a new angle in the 1970s, at first through the speech of Meaning of Development by Dudley Seers in 1969. His critics towards the neoclassical economic theory created the new era of development theories, which made a clear difference between economy and development. (PDF) At the same time oil crises, the indebtedness of the Third World, the need for development cooperation from the rich G77 countries, and the new environmental problems were as signs of the new awareness to global thinking by the words: think globally, act locally.
Theories used to be linked to development problems between the cores (developing countries) and peripheries (Western world), such as the structural school of “dependencia” by Andre Gunder Frank (1969) in Latin America, Wallerstein’s The modern world system (1974) and The capitalist world economy (1979), which was based on the idea of interactive societies in the world. (PDF) |
| Third phase of networking globalisation by the IT-technology and global markets |
| In 1990’ there came the IT-boom of the world wide web for the interaction of the Western world. (PDF) It proved to be one of the best turning forces in the process of globalisation. Actually information technology was not the only techno-social innovation to be adopted by the progressive countries. Those countries which had previous technology poles in their basic infrastructure and educated people, were to succeed rapidly in the adoption of the IT-technology, measured by the new indicator of the Technological Achievement Index (TAI). (PDF) Potential leaders include in: India ( Bangalore), China, Brazil, Malaysia, Mexico, Hong Kong and Costa Rica. On the same ranking list there are Dynamic innovators as: South Africa, Thailand, The Philippines, Bolivia, Columbia, Peru, Jamaica and Iran. In the peripheries from the IT –development are: Nicaragua, Pakistan, Senegal, Ghana, Kenya, Nepal, Tanzania, Sudan and Mozambique. The highest peak of the TAI is situated in Finland, USA, Sweden and Japan. |
| Fourth phase towards the Global Agenda – can globalisation be tamed? |
| The new global division of labour, production and markets, entitled as “The China-phenomenon” or “The Kostamus-phenomenon” was the sign of the new era of developing countries to come into economic sight in terms of open markets, new purchasing power and low cost labour. (PDF) In addition to this, new innovations of the IT-sector for new computer models as “Simputer” in India were linked to the education of engineers of a huge amount in China and India. At the same time there is a sharpening divide between the poor and rich people in the NIC-countries of new economy. There are still economists who claim that economic prosperity would benefit all people in a long run.
The Presidents Halonen and Mkape from Tanzania, worked for the report on A Fair Globalisation: Creating Opportunities for All (2004). (PDF) Global agenda for a more equal world was compiled by the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation. Why do we need a Global Agenda? In the report there is a strong message that inequality and the gap between rich and poor countries seem to have increased in spite of the Millennium goals of poverty eradication. Also the inequality within the countries is increasing, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Caribbean, Central Asia, and even in Europe. China and India seem to be more profitable concerning the decline of absolute poverty. The relationship between inequality and globalisation was also proved by Held and McGrew (2002) in their book Globalisation/Anti-Globalisation, who claim that there are winners and losers in the process of globalisation, because of the structure of the world trade and the inequality of the distribution of income inside the countries. Most of Africa and big part of Latin America and South-Asia have been left outside the world trade. |
How geography with “regions” can make new responses to the challenges of globalisation? |
| Globalisation is often misunderstood as the synonym of homogenisation. A place is local and global at the same time. Local includes global, and global includes local. Global space is the formation of different places or locals. Places (locals) can be seen as the production of a human cultural impact. The uniqueness of places without any change is a myth. According to post-modern thinking, places can be perceived as dynamic and open smelting pots of interaction, whose volume and intensity is increasing during globalisation, as Massey & Jess already stated in 1995 (eds.): A Place in the world: Places, cultures and globalisation. In reality globalisation means the mixing up of social influences from outer world and their reflections on places. Through the mixing up of local and global interaction, it is the “mixing” which produces the new “uniqueness” not “homogeneity” of places. According to Rose (1995) (PDF) a person may own many regional identities at the same time, and feel like belonging to many regional dimensions or levels: local, regional, national, transnational and global. Similarly a person owns both individual and collective identities, which relate to local and global.
The challenging issue of Africa’s marginalisation in the context of globalisation processes is the whole continuum of key questions. Why Africa has been left out of globalisation? Is it a victim of globalisation? What are the historical and prevailing reasons why it cannot mobilise its resources for the benefit of countries locally and globally? There is imbalance between the global and local forces according to Borja (1997). The nation states today are too small to control and direct the global flows of power, wealth and technology of the new system dominated by the firms, and too big to represent the plurality of social interest and cultural identities. There is a need for para-political institutions and new regional entities as the formation of supra-national or transnational regions, linked to globalisation, instead of nation states. The “region” a playing ground has a better capacity to cooperate inside the certain region and with the outer world. Spatial integration between supra-national regions is a new phenomenon in history. The migration flow from rural to urban regions is a very rapid phenomenon as a regional impact of globalisation. Similarly the new desakota-regions (Potter 2004), between informal and formal city regions or agglomerations which serve as a “green” linkage and socio-economic intervention between the peri-urban and rural areas.
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