Indigenizing globalization and the hydraulics of culture: taking Chinese philosophy on its own terms

The term globalization has taken on two competing senses. The dominant sense is that associated at the ideological level with the dissemination of a rational and moral consensus born of the European Enlightenment and, at the practical level, with rights-based democratic institutions, free enterprise capitalism and rational technologies. Beyond the provincial, decidedly Western, sense of globalization, there is a competing meaning that recognizes the potential contributions of non-Western cultures. In this second sense, globalization simply refers tothe mutual accessibility of cultural sensibilities. I use these two modes of ‘globalization’ to outline the recent history of comparative philosophy, where professional philosophy over recent decades has been complicit as a cultural companion to the more often noticed political and economic forces that promote the homogenization of the human experience. Fortunately, globalization as the mutual accessibility of cultural sensibilities is a symbiotic pressure in our cultural hydraulics that is pushing indigenous philosophical traditions to the surface and reinforcing their worth. The outcome, hopefully, will be local traditions reinvigorated by challenges introduced from their periphery.     

Flow of Online Content from Production to Consumption in the Context of Globalization Theory

Some studies have regarded globalization as a process of cultural homogenization, while others see it as one of cultural heterogenization. This conflict stems from their focus on either the production or consumption side of cultural products based on globalization theories bifurcated into political economy and cultural studies. This study covers the production, distribution, and consumption sides in online content flow and examines the effects of economic, geographic, and linguistic factors. This question is explored through the study of longitudinal changes in the number of Internet hosts from 1995 to 2010, online network connectivity among 174 countries, and geographic distribution of the top 300 web domains. The results suggest that the economic factor was most likely to have an impact on the flow of online content from production to consumption, but that its impact weakened over time. In addition, geographic proximity accounted for the bilateral relationship between countries. Limitations of world-system theory are also discussed.     

Managing Food: Cajun Cuisine in Economic and Cultural Terms

Abstract This study highlights some cultural and economic aspects of food. The focus is on Cajun, one of the most popular cuisines in the United States. Interviews, conversations, and observations were conducted with 19 individuals involved in some aspect of processing, distributing, or retailing food in southern Louisiana. The perspective that frames the analysis focuses on the effects of culture and the economic forces that both produce and are a product of cultural processes. I argue that Cajun food is used as a source for both economic and cultural rewards, derived through economic and cultural value‐added processes that occur simultaneously in the preparation of this food. In addition, I consider how these processes are affecting the taste of Louisiana foods.     

TECHNICAL AND INSTITUTIONAL STATES: Loose Coupling in the Human Rights Sector of the World Polity

While human rights treaties have become increasingly popular over the past quarter century, there has not been a corresponding improvement in human rights practices. This discrepancy implies that a country's formal pledge to uphold human rights principles is "loosely coupled" from its actual performance. In this study, I develop a model of loose coupling based on organizational research and apply it to the human rights sector of the world polity. Empirically, I identify a set of institutional states whose human rights practices fall short of their treaty commitments, as well as a set of technical states whose practices exceed their commitments. Analyzing an unbalanced data set with a maximum of 755 observations across 167 countries during the 1975 to 2000 period, I use random effects models to predict a state's location on the Human Rights Decoupling Index (HRDI). The findings illustrate the importance of several organizational concepts for predicting a state's HRDI score. In particular, the analyses reveal the countervailing effects of globalization. While economic globalization (i.e., trade and foreign investment) is associated with the technical (positive) end of the HRDI, cultural globalization (i.e., memberships in international organizations) is associated with the institutional (negative) end.     

Networked audiences and cultural globalization

Most research approaches globalization from a top‐down perspective that looks at how past economic, political, and cultural arrangements influence non‐Western cultures. This essay instead uses the concept of the networked audience as an entry point to understand the dynamics of cultural globalization. We first discuss the mass audience in relation to cultural imperialism/homogenization. We then examine the recent shift to the networked audience in the context of digital globalization, computer networking, and social media. Afterwards, we investigate how the conceptualization of global networked audiences contributes to new understandings of global cultures and exchanges. The network perspective suggests that the traditional conceptualization of globalization via the center‐periphery model no longer works, but rather that cultural flows through networks enable individuals to have some, but limited, agency and power to resist corporate and elite controls.     

Limitations of existing cultural globalization perspectives: A case study of the influence of technology on sexualities

Literature on market participation via location‐based mobile dating apps (LBMDAs) typically engages two different perspectives: global and local. While global perspectives anticipate similarities resulting from cultural homogenization (i.e., LBMDA profiles should exhibit uniformity in otherwise diverse locations), local perspectives anticipate differences resulting from cultural heterogenization (i.e., LBMDA profiles should exhibit variability by location). Although existing research recognizes how technology amplifies both homogenization and heterogenization, the direction of its effects remains unclear. Scholars also treat these processes as diametrically opposed, despite the theoretical and empirical limitations of doing so. This review addresses these limitations through an alternative conceptual framework that triangulates existing literature on globalization, technology, and sexualities. Specifically, I use this framework to explore the mix of global/local influences on exchanges on LBMDAs for gay men/men who have sex with men in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Brazil. In doing so, I demonstrate one way to more accurately map the extent to which globalization affects sexual culture across countries while accounting for the unique situational conditions of local sexual cultures.     

The Chinese Policy of Highly-Qualified Human Capital: A Strategic Factor for Global Competition in Innovation

International migration is a historical phenomenon, which only recently has gained increasing importance, representing a focal point on the political agenda in most countries. One of the reasons is the deep transformation occurring in last decades, both at global and local level, of the role played by its protagonists that are turning to be transnational agents. This is especially true for the skilled professionals, who migrate internationally. As a matter of fact, international human capital mobility is now regarded as “brain circulation” rather than “brain drain”: this new concept concerns individuals who maintain frequent and continued social, economic and political ties with their country of origin, exceeding thereby the territorial and cultural boundaries. In this scenario, China is one of the main sending countries of highly-skilled migrants, through which it can built economic and academic relations with other economic and technological advanced countries. Recently, Chinese policy makers have started to consider the brain drain phenomenon as an opportunity for the transmission of business and technological know-how, as well as tacit knowledge that is hard to find through official channels. This article intends to contribute to the scientific debate on the subject, highlighting the international relevance of the so-called Overseas Chinese Professionals (OCPs), investigating their spatial distribution and features. Besides, the paper will examine the emerging returning flow and the challenge that the country will have to cope with in the next future to impose itself as a innovative leading economy.     

The globalization of football: a study in the glocalization of the 'serious life'

Sport, in particular football, constitutes one of the most dynamic, sociologically illuminating domains of globalization. This paper examines the globalization of football with particular reference to Robertson's theorizations of global processes. We examine football's cultural globalization through the concept of 'glocalization', which highlights the interdependence of local and global processes within the game's identities and institutions. We address economic globalization in football by considering the world's leading clubs as 'glocal' transnational corporations. We assess the political globalization of football with reference to the possible enhancement of democracy within the game's international governance. We conclude by affirming the utility of sport in advancing our empirical and theoretical understanding of globalization processes.     

GLOBALIZATION, NATIONAL CULTURES AND CULTURAL CITIZENSHIP

The article develops an argument in respect of the media of mass communication, globalization processes and what I call cultural citizenship. In the first instance, I argue that in the British and European contexts that national cultures remain more powerful constructions than many postcolonial and postmodern critics seem aware. Secondly, in respect of cultural citizenship, I argue for a three layered component in respect of: (1) the emergence of cultural cosmopolitanism; (2) the specific application of rights and duties to both the television and film industries and; (3) the importance of the concept of civil society. The aim is to thread together a concern for globalizing processes and an attempt to outline a theory of cultural citizenship in respect of the development of systems of communication.     

Globalization and Collective Labor Rights

The impact of globalization has been a perennial source of contention, and issues regarding labor rights have been a visible aspect of this struggle. Despite the popular controversy about a potential “race to the bottom” regarding globalization and labor rights, the empirical record on these linkages remains mixed. Moreover, despite the multifaceted nature of globalization, extant literature in this area has focused purely on several specific facets of economic globalization, such as trade and FDI. We focus on two additional aspects of globalization, social and political integration, as well as a broadly based measure of economic globalization, and examine how they influence collective labor rights—both in terms of labor laws, as well as their enforcement in practice—in the developing world from 1986 to 2002. We find that all three facets of globalization are negatively related to labor rights. Specifically, social, political, and economic globalization are related to the decoupling of labor practices from extant labor laws; that is, labor practices deteriorate while labor laws remain largely unaffected.     

Cultural Imperialism Versus Globalization of Culture: Riding the Structure‐Agency Dialectic in Global Communication and Media Studies

This article discusses and analyzes the dialectic between so‐called cultural imperialism and globalization of culture perspectives in global communication and media studies. At an extreme, cultural imperialism is cast as the international extension of the long‐discredited hypodermic needle theory which views cultural consumers as passive automatons. At the other end of the extreme, the globalization of culture perspective is cast as a wildly postmodern standpoint in which free‐floating individuals are said to be able to make an infinite set of localized meanings from cultural products. There has been a growing trend among many global communication and media scholars to locate a productive middle ground between cultural imperialism and globalization of culture. In this author’s view, the most effective melding of the two perspectives would situate local, creative appropriation of cultural objects against the backdrop of larger, hegemonic regional and global macro‐forces. This approach ought also to acknowledge the many complexities that characterize the intersections among globalization, culture, and media, including the ways in which the local, national, regional, and global constitute one another and the ways in which resistance to local hegemony can paradoxically fuel national or global hegemony.     

Human rights and world culture: The diffusion of legislation against the organ trade

ABSTRACT

Due to the process of globalization, rapid medical and technological advances, and the persistence of the global scarcity in organs, the organ trade has grown to become an international issue of increasingconcern. Over the past several decades, more than 100 countries have passed legislation banning the commercial trade in organs. What explains this rapid, global diffusion of commercial transplantation laws, and what are the key factors influencing legislation? This studyexplores these questions through an analysis based on sociology’s world culture, world polity theory. Utilizing survival analysisn models, the study covers 127 countries from 1965-2012. Results offer support for the world culture/world polity theoretical framework, while economic development also impacts legislation. The global trendtoward legislation is influenced by global, cultural, and economic factors.     

The end of the world as we know it: Popular music's cultural mobility

Abstract

Popular music has moved to the centre of economic life, suggesting a shift in the political economy of advanced societies. The transition has been marked by a concomitant shift in the centrality of popular music in social life, assisted by new technologies. More importantly, the changes have been brought about by the reorganization of record company ownership and activity since the 1980s. This paper suggests that cultural studies could apply aspects of the research and analysis methods developed in institutional economics, to a study of the relationship between cultural and economic formations. Institutional economics, especially as proposed by Thorstein Veblen, provides a pragmatic critique for cultural industries in an era of globalization and rising corporate power. In this paper I have used institutional economics to illustrate how the shift in the organization of popular music has taken place within the corporate economy. The use of popular music as a feature of the corporate economy has involved the expansion of all forms of entertainment into the information economy. This convergence of activities and interests located in and around popular music is described by the term ‘cultural mobility’.     

Martial arts and the globalization of US and Asian film industries

Abstract

This article investigates how globalization is affecting film industries in the USA and Asia. It argues that these industries are becoming more closely integrated with one another both materially and aesthetically, and that this in turn is leading to the denationalization of individual films and film industries on both sides of the Pacific. The article explores how globalization is experienced differently by different film industries – and by different sectors within individual industries – and how it entails both losses and opportunities for Asian film makers. Taking the contemporary Hollywood and East Asian martial arts film as an exemplary cultural style of globalization, it also looks at how integration involves both cultural homogenization and the production of difference. Specific topics discussed include the growth of Hollywood's Asian markets, Jackie Chan and the flow of Hong Kong talent into Hollywood, Hollywood remakes of South Korean movies, the resurgence of Asian film industries, Hollywood's local-language film production and Zhang Yimou's Hero.     

Gendered Global Migrations

The globalization of migration has entailed a greater diversity and stratification of migration. Integrative approaches, such as transnationalism, structurationism and alternative circuits of globalization, have helped to place migration in broader socio- cultural fields but have not adequately addressed the complex gendered stratification generated in countries of origin and destination. Much literature focuses on the socio-economically disadvantaged, especially those undertaking domestic and sex work, but the opening up of skilled migration in developed countries, increasingly in feminized welfare sectors, is creating new lines of exclusion and inclusion and privileging the skilled and educated of the Third World. It also means that a neat division between the masculine high-tech sector and the feminine intimate, racialized and menial 'other' does not do justice to the complexity of gendered migratory flows. This article explores diverse forms of female migrations, labour market positions and the intersection of class, racialization and gender. I argue that we need to question the relegation of female migrants to the subordinate circuits of globalization and to extend our analysis beyond productive and reproductive labour in less skilled sectors. The inclusion of female skilled migrants can add a distinctive counter narrative, which includes care for and education of people, to our conceptualization of a knowledge economy and society, which tends to be based on scientific and technological sectors.     

Moving away from globalization and the “flattening” of Social Work: Preserving Context in International Efforts

Contextual awareness has been a professional trademark and has differentiated social work intervention from other professions. Context in social work has traditionally included tangible and intangible factors such as an intimate understanding of the cultural milieu, familiarity with local history, languages, traditions, and sensibilities. The current concern is that given the forces of globalization and managerialism, social work practice and education in many countries have distanced themselves from addressing context in curriculum building and have become mechanistic in program design and delivery. This paper contrasts the concepts of internationalization and globalization. The authors concur with the perspective that the movement to globalize society was the result of economic forces and unfortunately spread into culturally embedded fields such as social work. They propose that globalization in social work has changed the direction of former efforts at internationalization, which were designed primarily to develop cross-national perspectives on human experiences. After a review of current trends in globalization, the authors offer cautionary words about well-intended efforts that can easily become educational frameworks imposed from the outside, with the power of disrupting cultures.     

European Cohesion? Globalization,Autonomization, and the Dynamics of EU Integration

Globalization is frequently assumed to be responsible for creating the economic environment in which a much greater degree of European Union (EU) economic integration is deemed necessary. In contrast, this paper argues that globalization, in conjunction with neo-liberal growth, has led to autonomization as well as integration. The term autonomization designates both that economic governance is increasingly delegated to autonomous regions, and that neo-liberal economic policies tend to fragment and divide in their pursuit of growth. The paper investigates the tension between the role in which globalization has cast the region, and the region as a central player in the EU's cohesion strategy. Cohesion policy-measures to combat underdevelopment and backwardness-plays a key role in integration and growth strategies. It is argued that cohesion has become detached from its redistributive origins and incorporated in a discourse of competitiveness and growth. The region has emerged as both the site upon which the global acts upon the EU, and the level at which the EU has determined that the processes of globalization can best be accommodated. It is suggested that the tension between cohesion and autonomization introduced by globalization is a central dynamic at work in the contemporary EU.     

Ayahuasca healing beyond the Amazon: the globalization of a traditional indigenous entheogenic practice

Ayahuasca commonly refers to a psychoactive Amazonian indigenous brew traditionally used for spiritual and healing purposes (that is as an entheogen). Since the late twentieth century, ayahuasca has undergone a process of globalization through the uptake of different kinds of socio‐cultural practices, including its sacramental use in some new Brazilian religious movements and its commodified use in cross‐cultural vegetalismo practices, or indigenous‐style rituals conducted primarily for non‐indigenous participants. In this article, I explore the rise of such rituals beyond the Amazon region, and consider some philosophical and political concerns arising from this novel trend in ayahuasca use, including the status of traditional indigenous knowledge, cultural appropriation and intellectual property. I discuss a patent dispute in Unites States and allegations of biopiracy related to ayahuasca. I conclude the article with some reflections on the future of ayahuasca drinking as a transnational sociological phenomenon.     

The Mechanisms of Social Exclusion in Modern Society: The Dilemma of Active Labor Market Policy*

In this article, I examine the social exclusion approach that has influenced social policy in Europe, and demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach in explaining the emergence of new forms of inequality in modern society. First, I consider recent studies of social exclusion to show two important points: the paradigm shift from poverty to social exclusion and the introduction of a new policy framework of social inclusion. At the same time, I examine the inherent dilemma of social exclusion in response to radical critics of the social exclusion approach. Next, I point out an internal dilemma in the active labor market policies prioritized today by European Union member states. This dilemma is that these policies make the unemployed more vulnerable by forcing them into paid work. I then show how the enhancement of social networks in local communities and the provision of assistance to support cultural identity can serve as a buffer to compensate for the destructive influence of the economic dimension of social inclusion. In addition, I point out that citizenship as rights claiming is indispensable to social inclusion for all. Finally, drawing on the analysis outlined above, I conclude that a multi-tiered mechanism of social inclusion can reasonably be considered the most effective framework in a precarious society where people bear various risks in the era of globalization.