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Globalization


Semesterangivelse: Forårs kursus

 


Udgave: Forår 2013 Samf
ECTS points: 10 ECTS
Punkter: 10 ECTS

Semester:

Forår 2013
Institutter: Sociologi
Studieordning: Fagkategori: Sociologiske teorifag
Uddannelsesdel: Kandidat niveau
Kontaktpersoner: Klaus Kondrup
Skema- oplysninger:  Vis skema for kurset
Samlet oversigt over tid og sted for alle kurser inden for Lektionsplan for Det Samfundsvidenskabelige Fakultet Forår 2013 Samf
Undervisnings- form: Post graduate course 10 X 3 hour sessions with lecture, discussion, group work, and exercises.
The lecture notes are distributed as handout at each lecture and made available on the course website.
Formål: The course aims at giving an introduction to the phenomenon of globalization by encompassing a wide range of angles on globalization into the theoretical perspective of political geography. In the theoretical framework of the course, elements of human geography, political anthropology and cultural sociology are synthesized and placed within the framework of political geography by introducing the notion of cultural orders as an analytical nucleus for the study of phenomena in Global Studies
Indhold: In the first part of the course, a specter for analysis is introduced to operationalize the theoretical framework. Focus is on presenting theories of globalization in which the aspect of human territoriality is central. Concepts like cultural order, hegemony and the political are introduced to make sense of globalization in an attempt to introduce a sociological understanding of sources, nodes, and consequences of globalization. By the term nodes of globalization the aim is to describe cultural and economic tiers through which the transformation of the modes of interconnectedness can be grasped and effects of globalization can become visible through analysis.
In the second part of the course, we seek to grasp globalization by presenting three topics in Global Studies through which we add an empirical focus. Here the use of cases, statistics, ethnographic and micro sociological tools are brought in to illustrate the theoretical points and substantiate the focus of the individual assignments. Three major themes frame these sessions. Firstly, we focus on the notion of nationhood. In globalization nationhood is reinterpreted and challenged. On the one hand, the myth of the nation is no longer undisputed as the bearer of political identity; on the other hand the rise of nationalism is one of the key political actualizations trailing the intensification of globalization since 1990s. Secondly, we enter into the notion of a global cultural hegemony. Bollywood produces more movies than Hollywood, but Hollywood movies are seen all over the world where Bollywood movies appear to bore non-Indian audiences. Asia may be rising as an economic powerhouse due to globalization, but does that mean that it can present a cultural rivalry to the dominant Western culture? We focus on the western discourse of love dominating the visual media industry. In this case we present statistics on the transformations of basic social institution of the family in China, India, Europe and USA. Thirdly, we engage into a study of the new global elites we name the cosmopolitan elite defined by being unattached to place hence can be understood truly global in their belonging. Do they present a new ideal? What is the fabric of their apparent freedom? And what is the quality of the freedom they seemingly endure? Here issues of individuality and seriality are interesting for the socio-anthropological analysis.
The course ends with a seminar in which participants give feedback on each other’s individual draft assignments. In the first seminar (session 6), participants formulate individual research. Participants are expected to make use of the specter for analysis, to make use of the theoretical frame presented throughout the course in specifying their problem statement and are encouraged to add literature to the syllabus in relation to the individual cases. In the second seminar (session 10) we evaluate the choices made in the individual analysis and seek to strengthen each other’s essays by receiving feedback from an opponent from the class and Kondrup.
Intro 1. How did our view of the world come to be?

We commence by introducing the main discipline of research and the central concept of place. The theoretical nexus between cultural theory, political theory, and socio-economic theories necessary to grasp globalization are synthesized into a specter for analysis to be used in analyzing cultural orders throughout the course. After a short historical introduction to the perspective of political geography, we open the question of whether the age of globalization has come to a turning point after the cold war. Hereby we prepare to investigate the affirmative hypothesis that there is such a turning point through the following three lectures. The first lecture aims at preparing for the study of cultural orders and a distinction between ideology, history, myth, and utopia is invoked in order to substantiate our understanding of worldview and the generation of norm. Finally, the negative hypothesis is suggested and presented by an introduction to the second part of the course where cultural orders are investigated as elites. There is no turning point before complete transformation. Here George Sorel’s analysis of the bourgeois imitating the leisure class of aristocrats, thinkers and artists from The Illusions of Progress (1908) is presented as a paradigm for studying cultural orders. Interestingly, Sorel suggests the imminent decline of the class bourgeois class, but today we may ask: does globalization act as a catalyst for the transformation of middle class culture? If so, how?

Basic concepts: human territoriality, place, globalization and cultural orders Focus: How did our globalist view of the world come to be?

2. Interconnectedness

Central to our theoretical approach to the study of the effect of globalization is the notion of cultural order and the idea that the transformation of interconnectedness may challenge the fabric of cultural orders. Be introducing the notion of cultural order, we enable the study of nationhood, the middle class and the study of elites our three focal points in the empirical part of the course. In this second lecture we found the notion of cultural order in political geography and cultural theory. Through this theoretical framework it becomes possible to investigate transformation of the patterns of interconnectedness as found in different realms for thought: In politics the term interdependence is central, in talking about technology we speak about networks, in economics the movement of capital is in focus, in cultural studies new modes of informational exchange are prevalent. Basically, changes of interconnectedness in the age of globalization give rise to a new socio-geographic ordering of space changing the condition for the formation of cultural orders.
Primary literature: Kai Hafez: The Myth of Media Globalization, translated by Alex Skinner, Polity Press, 2007, p. 1 - 23
Secondary literature: John Agnew: Globalization and Sovereignty, p. 27 – 60

Part One: Sources, Nodes and Consequences of globalization
3. Technological and Political Sources of Globalization

In the second lecture we investigate the premises for globalization and highlight some technological and political drivers of globalization. Here we introduce the concept of cultural order is and discuss the changing condition for human territoriality in a conflict zone. In this light the focus comes on the command structure necessary to facilitate these conditions, politically. We take the case of global wars and world peace. The particular objects of study are the militaries as cultural orders, and the global political interest as a cult of fortunate countries, what Martin Shaw (2000) calls The Western Conglomerate of States. The advantage of our definition of cultural orders as demarcated societal orders allows us to intersect the politico-military and the socio-economic in one specter for analysis whereby we seek to answer the question of a turning point in globalization affirmatively. Yes, there is a rising cultural hegemony and a stabilizing global strategic architecture, a new technological and political condition, which we shall investigate further.
Primary literature: Richard Devetak: Globalizations Shadow in R. Devetak and C. W Hughes: Globalization of Political Violence, Routledge, N.Y., 2008, p. 1-26 +
Secondary literature: Anssi Paasi: Territory in Agnew, Mitchell and Toal (ed.): A Companion to Political Geography, Blackwell, Oxford, 2008, p. 109 – 122 + Robert A. Schultz: Information Technology and the Ethics of Globalization, Herschey, New York, 2010, p. 31 - 44
Focus: Globalization of violence

4. Cultural and Economic Nodes of Globalization

Now we are ready to use our specter for analysis. By nodes of globalization we shall refer to the immanent tiers. These inner bindings of the structures of globalization allow us to speak about intensity of globalization and to contrast that metaphor with density and materiality. The central theoretical concept is here place. We come to speak about phenomena like inequality and other global divisions in relation to human territoriality and cultural orders. How does cultural and economic capital accumulation change the condition for our notion of home and world? An introduction is given to the financial transaction economy and its intense boom after the cold war ended. We understand that globalization is merely an intensification of certain aspects of culture, not a bearer of culture in itself. Still the world appears to form nodes of globalization, tiers between different systems of distribution that mutually reinforce new modes of interconnectedness. We focus on understanding the inter-systemic tiers between cultural systems and economic systems to investigate the transformation of cultural orders in the globalization of capitalism.
Primary literature: Martin J. Gannon: Paradoxes of Culture and Globalization, Sage Publications, USA, 2008, p. 190 - 209
Secondary literature: David Held and Ayse Kaya: Introduction in David Held and Ayse Kaya (ed.): Global Inequality, Polity Press, USA, 2007, p. 1-25
Focus: The role of cultural orders in our specter for analysis

5. Socio-geographic consequences of Globalization

Threading waters while expanding our hypothesis we come to terms with our analysis and ask to the plain political geography of the matter. Is there a turning point in globalization? - Ought there be one? A short lecture makes an attempt to answer to this question while producing a number of interesting cases for studying effects of globalization. This fifth session is build around group discussions and the aim is to come up with interesting angles on studying the transformation of interconnectedness in a concrete cultural order. Students are encouraged to come up with examples and form and elaborate on individual topics.
Central concepts: instantaneity, simultaneity, density and intensity
Primary literature: Scott Lash: Intensive Culture – Social Theory, Religion and Contemporary Capitalism, SAGE Publications, London, 2010, p. 1-42
Secondary literature: Hardt & Negri: Empire, Harvard University Press, 2000, p. 304 – 369 + G. Kendal & G. Wickam: Understanding Culture, Sage Publications, London, 2001, p. 1-4 & 101 – 164

Challenges of Globalization
6. Globalization Seminar I

In the first seminar session we focus on the practical matter of preparing assignment and forming the participants individual topic of interest. Part of the seminar will introduce how to make problem statements for individual assignments. We discuss how to form individual topics and a guideline is given for how to write student essays. The aim for this session is that all have a genuine problem statement for use in polity analysis after the session. This session contains a small group exercise on how to form problem statements.

7. Nationhood in Question

The nation-state is consolidated as the dominant political form. Two forces appear to be antinomical globalization. On the one side, the nation-state is challenged by globalization and must meet demands on the organization of the polity in order to stay afloat. We take the case of the crisis of European social democracy and globalization where the demands from an increasingly liberalized global economy threatens the way of life consolidated through the success of the social democratic movement throughout the 20th century. The global repercussions of the relative success of social democracy and the European model of the modern state are not to be underestimated. We track the spread of this norm of political form globally and focus on the rise of the nation-state in India, China and South America. Primary literature: Steffen Schneider, Achim Hurrelmann, Zuzana Krell-Laluhová, Frank Nullmeier, Achim Wiesner: Democracy’s Deep Root – Why the Nation State Remains Legitimate, Palgrave Macmillan, N.Y. 2010, p. 58 - 154
Secondary literature: Kai Hafez: The Myth of Media Globalization, translated by Alex Skinner, Polity Press, 2007, p. 100 – 127 + Junjie Chen: Globalizing, Reproducing and Civilizing Subjects in C. H. Bowner and C. F. Sargent (ed.): Reproduction, Globalization, and the State, Duke University Press, Durham, 2011

8. Notions of Cultural Hegemony

The general topic for this 8th lecture is the rise of the global middle class and global consumerism as the base for cultural order in globalization. A case in point is here the dominance of western consumerism and the middle class consumption patterns in relation to the cultural hegemony tailing the cultural order of Hollywood stardom. Here we come pass the spread of soap operas throughout the 1990s and Bollywood as a national Indian phenomenon that did not catch on globally where Hollywood products are global. We take the case of the discourse on love in the globalized world and seek to make sense of the relation between family patterns and globalization by deploying statistics on divorce, urban migration and what we may find of interest.
Primary Literature: George Yúdice: The Expediency of Culture – Use of Culture in the Global Era, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2003, p.1 - 108
Secondary literature: Rekha Pande & Theo P. van der Weide (ed.): Globalization, Technology Diffusion and Gender Disparity, Information Science Reference (IGI Global), USA, 2012, p. 277 – 291 + Sor-Hoon Tan & John Whalen-Bridge (ed.): Democracy as Culture – Deweyan Pragmatism in a Globalizing World State University of New York Press, USA, p.31 – 62 + Anandam Kavoori: The Logics of Globalization, Lexington Books, UK, 2009, p. 27 – 54 + Sarita Agrawal: Globalization, Consumption and Green Consumerism in Yadav, Deep & Roy (ed.): Globalization and the Indian Economy, New Century Publications, New Delhi, India, 2009, p. 347 - 356

9. Cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitan elites are usually determined as being unbound by place, but actually they do seem to concentrate around specific locations. In this lecture we take interest in cosmopolitanism as a dawning norm for middle class youth, presenting a collision of norms within the middle class as its usually form nodalities by intersystemic constructions combining national culture and national economies. Seriality and Individuality in the global youth culture forms the case studied here.
Primary literature: David Harvey: Cosmopolitanism and Geographies of Freedom, Columbia University Press, N. Y., 2009, p. 166 – 201
Secondary literature: Mark Olssen: Towards a Global Thin Community – Nietzsche, Foucault, and the Cosmopolitan Commitment, Paradigm Publishers, USA, 2009, p. 161 – 233 + Robert A. Schultz: Information Technology and the Ethics of Globalization, Herschey, New York, 2010, p. 90 – 107 + U. Beck and E. Grande: Cosmopolitian Europe, Polity Press, 2007, p.94-135

10. Seminar

We distribute draft analysis to each other and have this feedback session before handing in papers. In Copenhagen University the essays handed in accounts for all the ECTS credits received from course work hence we discuss form and content while giving constructive feedback to each other before deadline. In this second and final seminar we give feedback on student essays. Each is given an opponent for evaluation of draft analysis and Kondrup evaluates choices made in the individual draft analysis. The feedback session is designed to strengthen student essays.
Lærebøger: As a textbook on globalization we use
Ritzer, George: Globalization, the essentials, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2011
Tilmelding:
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• Afløsningsopgave

Bedømmelse: 7-trins-skala
Individuel eller gruppe
Ekstern censur
Omfang: Max 15 sider á 2400 tegn (inkl. mellemrum). Ved gruppebesvarelser tillægges 50 % á 2400 tegn pr. ekstra studerende.
Bemærk: Ved gruppebesvarelser skal den enkelte studerendes bidrag kunne konstateres.

Handing in of papers:

Deadline for handing in essay/synopsis

12.00 o’clock in the secretariat (16.1.26) - please click on the link below, to see the submission dates.

Deadline for aflevering af skriftlige opgaver/handing in papers


Kursus hjemmeside:
Bemærkninger: Kurset fungerer også som liniefag for specialiseringsretningen: Politisk Sociologi
Undervisnings- sprog: Kun engelsk
Sidst redigeret: 19/3-2013



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