A

Seminar Report

ON

“GLOBALISATION”

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE AWARD OF

M.B.A

(MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION)

BY

ANANT SONI

M.B.A (2010-2011)

Guided by: Submitted to:

Miss. Ankita Juneja MissP.Vakula

(Faculty, MBA Dept.) (HOD MBA Dept.)

Introduction

A phenomenon by which the experience of everyday life, as

influenced by the diffusion of commodities and ideas, reflects a

standardization of cultural expressions around the world. Propelled

by the efficiency or appeal of wireless communications, electronic

commerce, popular culture, and international travel, globalization

has been seen as a trend toward homogeneity that will eventually

make human experience everywhere essentially the same. This

appears, however, to be an overstatement of the phenomenon.

Although homogenizing influences do indeed exist, they are far from

creating anything akin to a single world culture.

Emergence of Global Subcultures

Some observers argue that a rudimentary version of world culture is

taking shape among certain individuals who share similar values,

aspirations, or lifestyles. The result is a collection of elite groups

whose unifying ideals transcend geographical limitations.

“Davos” Culture

One such cadre, according to political scientist Samuel Huntington in

The Clash of Civilizations (1998), comprises an elite group of highly

educated people who operate in the rarefied domains of international

finance, media, and diplomacy. Named after the Swiss town that

began hosting annual meetings of the World Economic Forum in

1971, these “Davos” insiders share common beliefs about

individualism, democracy, and market economics. They are said to

follow a recognizable lifestyle, are instantly identifiable anywhere in

the world, and feel more comfortable in each other's presence than

they do among their less-sophisticated compatriots.

The International “Faculty Club”

The globalization of cultural subgroups is not limited to the upper

classes. Expanding on the concept of Davos culture, sociologist Peter

L. Berger observed that the globalization of Euro-American academic

agendas and lifestyles has created a worldwide “faculty club”—an

international network of people who share similar values, attitudes,

and research goals. While not as wealthy or privileged as their Davos

counterparts, members of this international faculty club wield

tremendous influence through their association with educational

institutions worldwide and have been instrumental in promoting

feminism, environmentalism, and human rights as global issues.

Berger cited the antismoking movement as a case in point: the

movement began as a singular North American preoccupation in the

1970s and subsequently spread to other parts of the world, traveling

along the contours of academe's global network.

Nongovernmental Organizations

Another global subgroup comprises “cosmopolitans” who nurture an

intellectual appreciation for local cultures. As pointed out by Swedish

anthropologist Ulf Hannerz, this group advocates a view of global

culture based not on the “replication of uniformity” but on the

“organization of diversity.” Often promoting this view are

nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that lead efforts to preserve

cultural traditions in the developing world. By the beginning of the

21st century, institutions such as Cultural Survival were operating

on a world scale, drawing attention to indigenous groups who are

encouraged to perceive themselves as “first peoples”—a new global

designation emphasizing common experiences of exploitation among

indigenous inhabitants of all lands. By sharpening such identities,

these NGOs have globalized the movement to preserve indigenous

world cultures.

Transnational workers

Another group stems from the rise of a transnational workforce.

Indian-born anthropologist Arjun Appadurai has studied English-

speaking professionals who trace their origins to South Asia but who

live and work elsewhere. They circulate in a social world that has

multiple home bases, and they have gained access to a unique

network of individuals and opportunities. For example, many

software engineers and Internet entrepreneurs who live and work in

Silicon Valley, California, maintain homes in—and strong social ties

to—Indian states such as Maharashtra and Punjab.

The persistence of local culture

Underlying these various visions of globalization is a reluctance to

define exactly what is meant by the term culture. During most of the

20th century, anthropologists defined culture as a shared set of

beliefs, customs, and ideas that held people together in recognizable,

self-identified groups. Scholars in many disciplines challenged this

notion of cultural coherence, especially as it became evident that

members of close-knit groups held radically different visions of their

social worlds. Culture is no longer perceived as a knowledge system

inherited from ancestors. As a result, many social scientists now

treat culture as a set of ideas, attributes, and expectations that

change as people react to changing circumstances. Indeed, by the

turn of the 21st century, the collapse of barriers enforced by Soviet

communism and the rise of electronic commerce have increased the

perceived speed of social change everywhere.

The term local culture is commonly used to characterize the

experience of everyday life in specific, identifiable localities. It

reflects ordinary people's feelings of appropriateness, comfort, and

correctness—attributes that define personal preferences and

changing tastes. Given the strength of local cultures, it is difficult to

argue that an overarching global culture actually exists. Jet-setting

sophisticates may feel comfortable operating in a global network

disengaged from specific localities, but these people constitute a very

small minority; their numbers are insufficient to sustain a coherent

cultural system. It is more important to ask where these global

operators maintain their families, what kind of kinship networks

they rely upon, if any, and whether theirs is a transitory lifestyle or a

permanent condition. For most people, place and locality still matter.

Even the transnational workers discussed by Appadurai are rooted in

local communities bound by common perceptions of what represents

an appropriate and fulfilling lifestyle.

Experiencing Globalization

Research on globalization has shown that it is not an omnipotent,

unidirectional force levelling everything in its path. Because a global

culture does not exist, any search for it would be futile. It is more

fruitful to instead focus on particular aspects of life that are indeed

affected by the globalizing process.

The Compression of Time And Space

The breakdown of time and space is best illustrated by the influential

“global village” thesis posed by communications scholar Marshall

McLuhan in Gutenberg Galaxy (1962). Instantaneous

communication, predicted McLuhan, would soon destroy

geographically based power imbalances and create a global village.

Later, geographer David Harvey argued that the postmodern

condition is characterized by a “time-space compression” that arises

from inexpensive air travel and the ever-present use of telephones,

fax, and, more recently, e-mail.

There can be little doubt that people perceive the world today as a

smaller place than it appeared to their grandparents. In the 1960s

and '70s immigrant workers in London relied on postal systems and

personally delivered letters to send news back to their home villages

in India, China, and elsewhere; it could take two months to receive a

reply. The telephone was not an option, even in dire emergencies. By

the late 1990s, the grandchildren of these first-generation migrants

were carrying cellular phones that linked them to cousins in cities

such as Calcutta (Kolkata), Singapore, or Shanghai. Awareness of

time zones (when people will be awake; what time offices open) is

now second nature to people whose work or family ties connect them

to far-reaching parts of the world.

McLuhan's notion of the global village presupposed the worldwide

spread of television, which brings distant events into the homes of

viewers everywhere. Building on this concept, McLuhan claimed that

accelerated communications produce an “implosion” of personal

experience—that is, distant events are brought to the immediate

attention of people halfway around the world.

The spectacular growth of Cable News Network (CNN) is a case in

point. CNN became an icon of globalization by broadcasting its U.S.-

style news programming around the world, 24 hours a day. Live

coverage of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Persian Gulf War

in 1991, and extended coverage of events surrounding the terrorist

attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., on September 11,

2001, illustrated television's powerful global reach. Some

governments have responded to such advances by attempting to

restrict international broadcasting, but satellite communication

makes these restrictions increasingly unenforceable.

The standardization of experience

Travel

Since the mid-1960s, the cost of international flights has declined,

and foreign travel has become a routine experience for millions of

middle- and working-class people. Diplomats, businesspeople, and

ordinary tourists can feel “at home” in any city, anywhere in the

world. Foreign travel no longer involves the challenge of adapting to

unfamiliar food and living arrangements. CNN has been an essential

feature of the standardized hotel experience since at least the 1990s.

More significantly, Western-style beds, toilets, showers, fitness

centres, and restaurants now constitute the global standard. A

Japanese variant on the Westernized hotel experience, featuring

Japanese-style food and accommodations, can also be found in most

major cities. These developments are linked to the technology of

climate control. In fact, the very idea of routine global travel was

inconceivable prior to the universalization of air-conditioning. An

experience of this nature would have been nearly impossible in the

1960s, when the weather, aroma, and noise of the local society

pervaded one's hotel room.

Clothing

Modes of dress can disguise an array of cultural diversity behind a

facade of uniformity. The man's business suit, with coloured tie and

buttoned shirt, has become “universal” in the sense that it is worn

just about everywhere, although variations have appeared in

countries that are cautious about adopting global popular culture.

Iranian parliamentarians, for example, wear the “Western” suit but

forgo the tie, while Saudi diplomats alternate “traditional” Bedouin

robes with tailored business suits, depending upon the occasion. In

the early years of the 21st century, North Korea and Afghanistan

were among the few societies holding out against these globalizing

trends.

The emergence of women's “power suits” in the 1980s signified

another form of global conformity. Stylized trouser-suits, with silk

scarves and colourful blouses (analogues of the male business suit),

are now worldwide symbols of modernity, independence, and

competence. Moreover, the export of used clothing from Western

countries to developing nations has accelerated the adoption of

Western-style dress by people of all socioeconomic levels around the

world.

Some military fashions reflect a similar sense of convergence. Rebel

fighters, such as those in Central Africa, South America, or the

Balkans, seemed to take their style cue from the guerrilla garb worn

by movie star Sylvester Stallone in his trilogy of Rambo films. In the

1990s the United States military introduced battle helmets that

resembled those worn by the German infantry during World War II.

Many older Americans were offended by the association with Nazism,

but younger Americans and Europeans made no such connections. In

2001, a similar helmet style was worn by elite Chinese troops

marching in a parade in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Chinese fashion underwent sweeping change after the death in 1976

of Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong and the resultant

economic liberalization. Western suits or casual wear became the

norm. The androgynous gray or blue Mao suit essentially

disappeared in the 1980s, worn only by communist patriarch Deng

Xiaoping and a handful of aging leaders who dressed in the uniform

of the Cultural Revolution until their deaths in the 1990s—by which

time Mao suits were being sold in Hong Kong and Shanghai

boutiques as high-priced nostalgia wear, saturated with postmodern

irony.

Entertainment

The power of media conglomerates and the ubiquity of entertainment

programming has globalized television's impact and made it a logical

target for accusations of cultural imperialism. Critics cite a 1999

anthropological study that linked the appearance of anorexia in Fiji

to the popularity of American television programs, notably Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210. Both series featured slender young

actresses who, it was claimed, led Fijian women (who are typically

fuller-figured) to question indigenous notions of the ideal body.

Anti-globalism activists contend that American television shows have

corrosive effects on local cultures by highlighting Western notions of

beauty, individualism, and sexuality. Although many of the titles

exported are considered second-tier shows in the United States, there

is no dispute that these programs are part of the daily fare for

viewers around the world. Television access is widespread, even if

receivers are not present in every household. In the small towns of

Guatemala, the villages of Jiangxi province in China, or the hill

settlements of Borneo, for instance, one television set—often a

satellite system powered by a gasoline generator—may serve two or

three dozen viewers, each paying a small fee. Collective viewing in

bars, restaurants, and teahouses was common during the early

stages of television broadcasting in Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, and

many other countries. By the 1980s video-viewing parlours had

become ubiquitous in many regions of the globe.

Live sports programs continue to draw some of the largest global

audiences. The 1998 World Cup men's football (soccer) final between

Brazil and France was watched by an estimated two billion people.

After the 1992 Olympic Games, when the American “Dream Team” of

National Basketball Association (NBA) stars electrified viewers who

had never seen the sport played to U.S. professional standards, NBA

games were broadcast in Australia, Israel, Japan, China, Germany,

and Britain. In the late 1990s Michael Jordan, renowned for leading

the Chicago Bulls to six championships with his stunning basketball

skills, became one of the world's most recognized personalities.

Hollywood movies have had a similar influence, much to the chagrin

of some countries. In early 2000 Canadian government regulators

ordered the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) to reduce the

showing of Hollywood films during prime time and to instead feature

more Canadian-made programming. CBC executives protested that

their viewers would stop watching Canadian television stations and

turn to satellite reception for international entertainment. Such

objections were well grounded, given that, in 1998, 79 percent of

English-speaking Canadians named a U.S. program when asked to

identify their favourite television show.

Hollywood, however, does not hold a monopoly on entertainment

programming. The world's most prolific film industry is in Bombay

(Mumbai), India (“Bollywood”), where as many as 1,000 feature films

are produced annually in all of India's major languages. Primarily

love stories with heavy doses of singing and dancing, Bollywood

movies are popular throughout Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

State censors in Islamic countries often find the modest dress and

subdued sexuality of Indian film stars acceptable for their audiences.

Although the local appeal of Bollywood movies remains strong,

exposure to Hollywood films such as Jurassic Park (1993) and Speed

(1994) caused young Indian moviegoers to develop an appreciation for

the special effects and computer graphics that had become the

hallmarks of many American films.

Food

Food is the oldest global carrier of culture. In fact, food has always

been a driving force for globalization, especially during earlier phases

of European trade and colonial expansion. The hot red pepper was

introduced to the Spanish court by Christopher Columbus in 1493. It

spread rapidly throughout the colonial world, transforming cuisines

and farming practices in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. It might

be difficult to imagine Korean cuisine without red pepper paste or

Szechuan food without its fiery hot sauce, but both are relatively

recent innovations—probably from the 17th century. Other New

World crops, such as corn (maize), cassava, sweet potatoes, and

peanuts (groundnuts), were responsible for agricultural revolutions

in Asia and Africa, opening up terrain that had previously been

unproductive.

One century after the sweet potato was introduced into south China

(in the mid-1600s), it had become a dominant crop and was largely

responsible for a population explosion that created what today is

called Cantonese culture. It is the sweet potato, not the more

celebrated white rice, which sustained generations of southern

Chinese farmers.

These are the experiences that cause cultural meaning to be attached

to particular foods. Today the descendants of Cantonese, Hokkien,

and Hakka pioneers disdain the sweet potato as a “poverty food” that

conjures images of past hardships. In Taiwan, by contrast,

independence activists (affluent members of the rising Taiwanese

middle class) have embraced the sweet potato as an emblem of

identity, reviving old recipes and celebrating their cultural

distinctions from “rice-eating mainlanders.”

While the global distribution of foods originated with the pursuit of

exotic spices (such as black pepper, cinnamon, and cloves),

contemporary food trading features more prosaic commodities, such

as soybeans and apples. African bananas, Chilean grapes, and

California oranges have helped to transform expectations about the

availability and affordability of fresh produce everywhere in the

world. Green beans are now grown in Burkina Faso in Central Africa

and shipped by express air cargo to Paris, where they end up on the

plates of diners in the city's top restaurants. This particular

exchange system is based on a “nontraditional” crop that was not

grown in Burkina Faso until the mid-1990s, when the World Bank

encouraged its cultivation as a means of promoting economic

development. The country soon became Africa's second largest

exporter of green beans. Central African farmers consequently found

themselves in direct competition with other “counter-season” growers

of green beans from Brazil and Florida.

The average daily diet has also undergone tremendous change, with

all nations converging on a diet high in meat, dairy products, and

processed sugars. Correlating closely to a worldwide rise in affluence,

the new “global diet” is not necessarily a beneficial trend, as it can

increase the risk of obesity and diabetes. Now viewed as a global

health threat, obesity has been dubbed “globesity” by the World

Health Organization. To many observers, the homogenization of

human diet appears to be unstoppable. Vegetarians, environmental

activists, and organic food enthusiasts have organized rearguard

actions to reintroduce “traditional” and more wholesome dietary

practices, but these efforts have been concentrated among educated

elites in industrial nations.

Western food corporations are often blamed for these dietary trends.

McDonald's, KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken), and Coca-Cola are

primary targets of anti-globalism demonstrators (who are themselves

organized into global networks, via the Internet). McDonald's has

become a symbol of globalism for obvious reasons: on an average day

in 2001, the company served nearly 45 million customers at more

than 25,000 restaurants in 120 countries. It succeeds in part by

adjusting its menu to local needs. In India, for example, no beef

products are sold.

McDonald's also succeeds in countries that might be expected to

disdain fast food. In France, for example, food, especially haute

cuisine, is commonly regarded as the core element of French culture.

Nevertheless, McDonald's continues to expand in the very heartland

of opposition: by the turn of the 21st century there were more than

850 McDonald's restaurants in France, employing over 30,000 people.

Not surprisingly, many European protest movements have targeted

McDonald's as an agent of cultural imperialism. French intellectuals

may revile the Big Mac sandwich for all that it symbolizes, but the

steady growth of fast-food chains demonstrates that anti-globalist

attitudes do not always affect economic behaviour, even in societies

(such as France) where these sentiments are nearly universal. Like

their counterparts in the United States, French workers are

increasingly pressed for time. The two-hour lunch is largely a thing

of the past.

Food and beverage companies attract attention because they cater to

the most elemental form of human consumption. We are what we eat,

and when diet changes, notions of national and ethnic identity are

affected. Critics claim that the spread of fast food undermines

indigenous cuisines by forcing a homogenization of world dietary

preferences, but anthropological research in Russia, Japan, and Hong

Kong does not support this view.

Close study of cultural trends at the local level, however, shows that

the globalization of fast food can influence public conduct. Fast-food

chains have introduced practices that changed some consumer

behaviours and preferences. For example, in Japan, where using

one's hands to eat prepared foods was considered a gross breach of

etiquette, the popularization of McDonald's hamburgers has had such

a dramatic impact on popular etiquette that it is now common to see

Tokyo commuters eating in public without chopsticks or spoons.

In late-Soviet Russia, rudeness had become a high art form among

service personnel. Today customers expect polite, friendly service

when they visit Moscow restaurants—a social revolution initiated by

McDonald's and its employee training programs. Since its opening in

1990, Moscow's Pushkin Square restaurant has been one of the

busiest McDonald's in the world.

The social atmosphere in colonial Hong Kong of the 1960s was

anything but genteel. Cashing a check, boarding a bus, or buying a

train ticket required brute force. When McDonald's opened in 1975,

customers crowded around the cash registers, shouting orders and

waving money over the heads of people in front of them. McDonald's

responded by introducing queue monitors—young women who

channeled customers into orderly lines. Queuing subsequently

became a hallmark of Hong Kong's cosmopolitan, middle-class

culture. Older residents credit McDonald's for introducing the queue,

a critical element in this social transition.

Yet another innovation, in some areas of Asia, Latin America, and

Europe, was McDonald's provision of clean toilets and washrooms. In

this way the company was instrumental in setting new cleanliness

standards (and thereby raising consumer expectations) in cities that

had never offered public facilities. Wherever McDonald's has set up

business, it rapidly has become a haven for an emerging class of

middle-income urbanites.

The introduction of fast food has been particularly influential on

children, especially since so many advertisements are designed to

appeal to them. Largely as a consequence of such advertising,

American-style birthday parties have spread to many parts of the

world where individual birth dates previously had never been

celebrated. McDonald's and KFC have become the leading venues for

birthday parties throughout East Asia, with special rooms and

services provided for the events. These and other symbolic effects

make fast food a powerful force for dietary and social change, because

a meal at these restaurants will introduce practices that younger

consumers may not experience at home—most notably, the chance to

choose one's own food. The concept of personal choice is symbolic of

Western consumer culture. Visits to McDonald's and KFC have

become signal events for children who approach fast-food restaurants

with a heady sense of empowerment.

Religion and Globalization

Central to Huntington's thesis in The Clash of Civilizations is the

assumption that the post-Cold War world would regroup into

regional alliances based on religious beliefs and historical

attachments to various “civilizations.” Identifying three prominent

groupings—Western Christianity (Roman Catholicism and

Protestantism), Orthodox Christianity (Russian and Greek), and

Islam, with additional influences from Hinduism and

Confucianism—he predicted that the progress of globalization would

be severely constrained by religio-political barriers. The result would

be a “multipolar world.” Huntington's view differed markedly from

those who prophesied a standardized, homogenized global culture.

There is, however, considerable ethnographic evidence, gathered by

anthropologists and sociologists, that refutes this model of

civilizational clash and suggests instead a rapid diffusion of religious

and cultural systems throughout the world. Islam is one case in

point, given that it constitutes one of the fastest-growing religions in

the United States, France, and Germany—supposed bastions of

Western Christianity. Before the end of the 20th century, entire

arrondissements (districts) of Paris were dominated by Muslims, the

majority of them French citizens born and reared in France. Thirty-

five percent of students in the suburban Dearborn, Michigan, public

school system were Muslim in 2001, making the provision of ḥalāl

(“lawful” under Islam) meals at lunchtime a hot issue in local politics.

By the start of the 21st century, Muslims of Turkish origin

constituted the fastest-growing sector of Berlin's population, and, in

northern England, the old industrial cities of Bradford and Newcastle

had been revitalized by descendants of Pakistani and Indian Muslims

who immigrated during the 1950s and '60s.

From its inception, Christianity has been an aggressively

proselytizing religion with a globalizing agenda. Indeed, the Roman

Catholic Church was arguably the first global institution, having

spread rapidly throughout the European colonial world and beyond.

Today, perhaps the fastest-growing religion is evangelical

Christianity. Stressing the individual's personal experience of

divinity (as opposed to priestly intercession), evangelicalism has

gained wide appeal in regions such as Latin America and sub-

Saharan Africa, presenting serious challenges to established Catholic

churches. Following the collapse of Soviet power in 1991, the Russian

Orthodox church began the process of rebuilding after more than

seven decades of repression. At the same time, evangelical

missionaries from the United States and Europe shifted much of

their attention from Latin America and Africa to Russia, alarming

Russian Orthodox leaders. By 1997, under pressure from Orthodox

clergy, the Russian government promoted legislation to restrict the

activities of religious organizations that had operated in Russia for

less than 15 years, effectively banning Western evangelical

missionaries. The debate over Russian religious unity continues,

however, and, if China is any guide, such legislation could have little

long-term effect.

In China, unauthorized “house churches” became a major concern for

Communist Party officials who attempted to control Muslim,

Christian, and Buddhist religious activity through state-sponsored

organizations. Many of the unrecognized churches are syncretic in

the sense that they combine aspects of local religion with Christian

ideas. As a result they have been almost impossible to organize, let

alone control.

Social scientists confirm the worldwide resurgence, since the late

20th century, of conservative religion among faiths such as Islam,

Hinduism, Buddhism, and even Shinto in Japan and Sikhism in

India. The social and political connotations of these conservative

upsurges are unique to each culture and religion. For example, some

sociologists have identified Christian evangelicalism as a leading

carrier of modernization: its emphasis on the Bible is thought to

encourage literacy, while involvement in church activities can teach

administrative skills that are applicable to work environments. As a

sociologist of religion, Berger argues that “there may be other

globalizing popular movements [today], but evangelicalism is clearly

the most dynamic.”

Demographic Influences

Huntington's “clash of civilizations” thesis assumes that the major

East Asian societies constitute an alliance of “Confucian” cultures

that share a common heritage in the teachings of Confucius, the

ancient Chinese sage. Early 21st-century lifestyles in Tokyo, Seoul,

Beijing, Taipei, and Hong Kong, however, show far more evidence of

globalization than Confucianization. The reputed hallmarks of

Confucianism—respect for parental authority and ancestral

traditions—are no more salient in these cities than in Boston,

London, or Berlin. This is a consequence of (among other things) a

steady reduction in family size that has swept through East Asian

societies since the 1980s. State-imposed restrictions on family size,

late childbearing, and resistance to marriage among highly educated,

working women have undermined the basic tenets of the Confucian

family in Asia.

Birth rates in Singapore and Japan, in fact, have fallen below

replacement levels and are at record low levels in Hong Kong; birth

rates in Beijing, Shanghai, and other major Chinese cities are also

declining rapidly. These developments mean that East Asia—like

Europe—could face a fiscal crisis as decreasing numbers of workers

are expected to support an ever-growing cohort of retirees. By 2025,

China is projected to have 274 million people over age 60—more than

the entire 1998 population of the United States. The prospects for

other East Asian countries are far worse: 17.2 percent of Japan's 127

million people were over age 65 in 2000; by 2020 that percentage

could rise to 27.

Meanwhile, Asia's “Confucian” societies face a concurrent revolution

in family values: the conjugal family (centring on the emotional bond

between wife and husband) is rapidly replacing the patriarchal joint

family (focused on support of aged parents and grandparents). This

transformation is occurring even in remote, rural regions of

northwest China where married couples now expect to reside in their

own home (“neolocal” residence) as opposed to the house or compound

of the groom's parents (“patrilocal” residence). The children produced

by these conjugal units are very different from their older kin who

were reared in joint families: today's offspring are likely to be

pampered only children known as “Little Emperors” or “Little

Empresses.” Contemporary East Asian families are characterized by

an ideology of consumerism that is diametrically opposed to the neo-

authoritarian Confucian rhetoric promoted by political leaders such

as Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and Hong Kong's Tung Chee-hwa at

the turn of the 21st century.

Italy, Mexico, and Sweden (among other countries) also experienced

dramatic reductions in family size and birth rates during the late

20th century. Furthermore, new family formations are taking root,

such as those of the transnational workers who maintain homes in

more than one country. Multi-domiciled families were certainly

evident before the advent of cheap air travel and cellular phones, but

new technologies have changed the quality of life (much for the

better) in diaspora communities. Thus, the globalization of family life

is no longer confined to migrant workers from developing economies

who take low-paying jobs in advanced capitalist societies. The

transnational family is increasingly a mark of high social status and

affluence.

Political Consequences of Globalization

Challenges to national sovereignty and identity

Anti-globalism activists often depict the McDonald's, Disney, and

Coca-Cola corporations as agents of globalism or cultural

imperialism—a new form of economic and political domination.

Critics of globalism argue that any business enterprise capable of

manipulating personal tastes will thrive, whereas state authorities

everywhere will lose control over the distribution of goods and

services. According to this view of world power, military force is

perceived as hopelessly out of step or even powerless; the control of

culture (and its production) is seen as far more important than the

control of political and geographic borders. Certainly, it is true that

national boundaries are increasingly permeable and any effort by

nations to exclude global pop culture usually makes the banned

objects all the more irresistible.

The commodities involved in the exchange of popular culture are

related to lifestyle, especially as experienced by young people: pop

music, film, video, comics, fashion, fast foods, beverages, home

decorations, entertainment systems, and exercise equipment.

Millions of people obtain the unobtainable by using the Internet to

breach computer security systems and import barriers. “Information

wants to be free” was the clarion call of software designers and

aficionados of the World Wide Web in the 1990s. This code of ethics

takes its most creative form in societies where governments try

hardest to control the flow of information (e.g., China and Iran). In

1999, when Serbian officials shut down the operations of Radio B92,

the independent station continued its coverage of events in the

former Republic of Yugoslavia by moving its broadcasts to the

Internet.

The idea of a borderless world is reflected in theories of the “virtual

state,” a new system of world politics that is said to reflect the

essential chaos of 21st-century capitalism. In Out of Control (1994),

author Kevin Kelly predicted that the Internet would gradually erode

the power of governments to control citizens; advances in digital

technology would instead allow people to follow their own interests

and form trans-state coalitions. Similarly, Richard Rosecrance, in

The Rise of the Virtual State (1999), wrote that military conflicts and

territorial disputes would be superseded by the flow of information,

capital, technology, and manpower between states. Many scholars

disagreed, insisting that the state was unlikely to disappear and

could continue to be an essential and effective basis of governance.

Arguments regarding the erosion of state sovereignty are particularly

unsettling for nations that have become consumers rather than

producers of digital technology. Post-Soviet Russia, post-Mao China,

and post-Gaullist France are but three examples of Cold War giants

facing uncertain futures in the emerging global system. French

intellectuals and politicians have seized upon anti-globalism as an

organizing ideology in the absence of other unifying themes. In Les cartes de la France à l'heure de la mondialisation (2000; “France's

Assets in the Era of Globalization”), French Foreign Minister Hubert

Vedrine denounced the United States as a “hyperpower” that

promotes “uniformity” and “unilateralism.” Speaking for the French

intelligentsia, he argued that France should take the lead in building

a “multipolar world.” Ordinary French citizens also were concerned

about losing their national identity, particularly as the regulatory

power of the European Union began to affect everyday life. Sixty

percent of respondents in a 1999 L'Expansion poll agreed that

globalization represented the greatest threat to the French way of

life.

Anti-Globalism Movements and the Internet

Anti-globalism organizers are found throughout the world, not least

in many management organizations. They are often among the

world's most creative and sophisticated users of Internet technology.

This is doubly ironic, because even as NGOs contest the effects of

globalization, they exhibit many of the characteristics of a global,

transnational subculture; the Internet, moreover, is one of the

principal tools that makes globalization feasible and organized

protests against it possible. For example, Greenpeace, an

environmentalist NGO, has orchestrated worldwide protests against

genetically modified (GM) foods. Highly organized demonstrations

appeared, seemingly overnight, in many parts of the world,

denouncing GM products as “Franken foods” that pose unknown (and

undocumented) dangers to people and to the environment. The

bioengineering industry, supported by various scientific

organizations, launched its own Internet-based counterattack, but

the response was too late and too disorganized to outflank

Greenpeace and its NGO allies. Sensational media coverage had

already turned consumer sentiment against GM foods before the

scientific community even entered the debate.

The anti-GM food movement demonstrates the immense power of the

Internet to mobilize political protests. This power derives from the

ability of a few determined activists to communicate with thousands

(indeed millions) of potential allies in an instant. The Internet's

power as an organizing tool became evident during the World Trade

Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle, Washington, in 1999, in

which thousands of activists converged on the city, disrupting the

WTO meetings and drawing the world's attention to criticisms of

global trade practices. The Seattle protests set the stage for similar

types of activism in succeeding years.

The Illusion of Global Culture

Localized responses

For hundreds of millions of urban people, the experience of everyday

life has become increasingly standardized since the 1960s. Household

appliances, utilities, and transportation facilities are increasingly

universal. Technological “marvels” that North Americans and

Europeans take for granted have had even more profound effects on

the quality of life for billions of people in the less-developed world.

Everyday life is changed by the availability of cold beverages, hot

water, frozen fish, screened windows, bottled cooking-gas, or the

refrigerator. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that these

innovations have an identical, homogenizing effect wherever they

appear. For most rural Chinese, the refrigerator has continued to be

seen as a status symbol. They use it to chill beer, soft drinks, and

fruit, but they dismiss the refrigeration of vegetables, meat, and fish

as unhealthy. Furthermore, certain foods (notably bean curd dishes)

are thought to taste better when cooked with more traditional fuels

such as coal or wood, as opposed to bottled gas.

It remains difficult to argue that the globalization of technologies is

making the world everywhere the same. The “sameness” hypothesis

is only sustainable if one ignores the internal meanings that people

assign to cultural innovations.

Borrowing and “translating” popular culture

The domain of popular music illustrates how difficult it is to unravel

cultural systems in the contemporary world: Is rock music a

universal language? Do reggae and ska have the same meaning to

young people everywhere? American-inspired hip-hop (rap) swept

through Brazil, Britain, France, China, and Japan in the 1990s. Yet

Japanese rappers developed their own, localized versions of this art

form. Much of the music of hip-hop, grounded in urban African

American experience, is defiantly antiestablishment, but the

Japanese lyric content is decidedly mild, celebrating youthful

solidarity and exuberance. Similar “translations” between form and

content have occurred in the pop music of Indonesia, Mexico, and

Korea. Even a casual listener of U.S. radio can hear the profound

effects that Brazilian, South African, Indian, and Cuban forms have

had on the contemporary American pop scene. An earlier example of

splashback—when a cultural innovation returns, somewhat

transformed, to the place of its origin—was the British Invasion of

the American popular music market in the mid-1960s. Forged in the

United States from blues and country music, rock and roll crossed

the Atlantic in the 1950s to captivate a generation of young Britons

who, forming bands such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, made

the music their own, then reintroduced it to American audiences with

tremendous success. The flow of popular culture is rarely, if ever,

unidirectional.

Subjectivity of Meaning—the case of Titanic

A cultural phenomenon does not convey the same meaning

everywhere. In 1998, the drama and special effects of the American

movie Titanic created a sensation among Chinese fans. Scores of

middle-aged Chinese returned to the theatres over and over—crying

their way through the film. Enterprising hawkers began selling

packages of facial tissue outside Shanghai theatres. The theme song

of Titanic became a best-selling CD in China, as did posters of the

young film stars. Chinese consumers purchased more than 25 million

pirated (and 300,000 legitimate) video copies of the film.

One might ask why middle-aged Chinese moviegoers became so

emotionally involved with the story told in Titanic. Interviews among

older residents of Shanghai revealed that many people had projected

their own, long-suppressed experiences of lost youth onto the film.

From 1966 to 1976 the Cultural Revolution convulsed China,

destroying any possibility of educational or career advancement for

millions of people. At that time, communist authorities had also

discouraged romantic love and promoted politically correct marriages

based on class background and revolutionary commitment.

Improbable as it might seem to Western observers, the story of lost

love on a sinking cruise ship hit a responsive chord among the

veterans of the Cultural Revolution. Their passionate, emotional

response had virtually nothing to do with the Western cultural

system that framed the film. Instead, Titanic served as a socially

acceptable vehicle for the public expression of regret by a generation

of aging Chinese revolutionaries who had devoted their lives to

building a form of socialism that had long since disappeared.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin invited the entire Politburo of the

Chinese Communist Party to a private screening of Titanic so that

they would understand the challenge. He cautioned that Titanic

could be seen as a Trojan horse, carrying within it the seeds of

American cultural imperialism.

Chinese authorities were not alone in their mistrust of Hollywood.

There are those who suggest, as did China's Jiang, that exposure to

Hollywood films will cause people everywhere to become more like

Americans. Yet anthropologists who study television and film are

wary of such suggestions. They emphasize the need to study the

particular ways in which consumers make use of popular

entertainment. The process of globalization looks far from hegemonic

when one focuses on ordinary viewers and their efforts to make sense

of what they see.

Another case in point is anthropologist Daniel Miller's study of

television viewing in Trinidad, which demonstrated that viewers are

not passive observers. In 1988, 70 percent of Trinidadians who had

access to a television watched daily episodes of The Young and the Restless, a series that emphasized family problems, sexual intrigue,

and gossip. Miller discovered that Trinidadians had no trouble

relating to the personal dramas portrayed in American soap operas,

even though the lifestyles and material circumstances differed

radically from life in Trinidad. Local people actively reinterpreted the

episodes to fit their own experience, seeing the televised dramas as

commentaries on contemporary life in Trinidad. The portrayal of

American material culture, notably women's fashions, was a

secondary attraction. In other words, it is a mistake to treat

television viewers as passive.

The Ties That Still Bind

Local culture remains a powerful influence in daily life. People are

tied to places, and those places continue to shape particular norms

and values. The fact that residents of Moscow, Beijing, and New

Delhi occasionally eat at McDonald's, watch Hollywood films, and

wear Nike athletic shoes (or copies thereof) does not make them

“global.” The appearance of homogeneity is the most salient, and

ultimately the most deceptive, feature of globalization. Outward

appearances do not reveal the internal meanings that people assign

to a cultural innovation. True, the standardization of everyday life

will likely accelerate as digital technology comes to approximate the

toaster in “user-friendliness.” But technological breakthroughs are

not enough to create a world culture. People everywhere show a

desire to partake of the fruits of globalization, but they just as

earnestly want to celebrate the distinctiveness of their own cultures.