Tutorial 2: Globalization and Dystopia

Department of Geography

* Unpacking Globalization
* Academic Skills: Dissecting an academic article
* Project 2: Globalization

* Globalization (or globalisation) is the process

of international integration arising from the

interchange of world views, products, ideas,
and other aspects of culture. Advances
in transportation and telecommunications infra
structure, including the rise of
the telegraph and its posterity the Internet,
are major factors in globalization, generating
further interdependence of economic and
cultural activities.

In the back of that van, I scribbled down four words in my notebook:

The world is flat. As soon as I wrote them, I realized that this was the
underlying message of everything that I had seen and heard in Bangalore
in two weeks of filming. The global competitive playing field was being
levelled. The world was being flattened.
As I came to this realization, I was filled with both excitement and dread.
The journalist in me was excited at having found a framework to better
understand the morning headlines and to explain what was happening in
the world today. Clearly Nandan was right: It is now possible for more
people than ever to collaborate and compete in real time with more
other people on more different kinds of work from more different
corners of the planet and on a more equal footing than at any previous
time in the history of the worldusing computers, e-mail, fiber-optic
networks, teleconferencing, and dynamic new software.
(Friedmann, 2005: 2)

* A level playing field

* More people from different cities can come together to
create more possibilities

* More people can rise above poverty and create new lives
for themselves

* New solidarities, new cultures, new technologies

* New varieties of products, food, consumer goods
* New modes of understanding different people from
different parts of the world

Yet Londons identity, its ability to be and continually become what it

is, is built on far more than the finance and business services and the
neoliberal constellation at the central of the new imperium. And the
relations upon which it feeds go far beyond the economic, to take in all
aspects of the cultural, social and political.
In obvious material terms Londons existence depends on daily supplies
from around the planet and, at the other end of the process as it were
its production of waste, its emission of carbon its footprint is also
geographically extensive. Ordinary Londoners, as well as the
significantly wealthy, share in the responsibilities imposed by this
identity.
(Massey, 2007: 181)

*Power geometries
*Accumulation of identity and resources in a particular
place at the expense of distant others

*A global sense of place citizens of the world

*Geographies of responsibility (Massey, 2007)

*The world is flat v2

*Human Geography without scale? (Marston et al, 2005)
*The world as intensively and extensively relational

Globalization has enabled the

expedition and intensification of
exploitation of labour.

* Argument
* Conceptual Framework
* Methodology
* Findings
* Significance

* Make sure your argument is CLEAR and EASY TO

UNDERSTAND.
* Make sure your conceptual framing is
appropriate to your argument.
* Make sure you give enough consideration to
your METHODOLOGY and METHODS.
* Do not be OVERLY DESCRIPTIVE/ CUTE.

*SO WHAT what does your piece tell

us that we dont already know?

* Backward and Forward Referencing

* Reading academically and making notes
* Citing correctly
* Elyse,2014
* Elyse and Zoe, 2014
* Elyse et al, 2014
* Elyse, 2014: 56
* Elyse, quoted in Clare, 2014

* ANY TOPIC related to GLOBALIZATION in

SINGAPORE.

* Capital Flows Economic Globalization

* Migration and Transnationalism People across
borders

* Cultural diffusion
* Place identity

* Fieldwork must be done

* Interview minimum of 6 relevant respondents
* Participant observation
* DO NOT USE Questionnaire Surveys

*Project 1 vs Project 2?

* Introduction (30%)
* Argument (Objectives) and research questions
* Definition and conceptual framing of globalization
* Methodology (15%)
* Who/ where/ how interviewees?
* Shortcomings and challenges?
* Analysis/ Discussion (40%)
* Linking your findings to your argument/ conceptual framing
* Be careful not to overextend your findings just for the sake

of fulfilling your arguments/ conceptual framing (for example

Pang and Chang, 2013)
dont skew your empirics to fit your argument
* Conclusion (15%)
* Summary of your findings and arguments
* What have you learnt about globalization from this exercise?

Globalization
(macro concept)
Relationality

Power
geometries
(Massey, 1999)

Geographies of
responsibility
(Massey, 2007)

Place

Sense of place/
Place identity
(Tuan, 1974)

Context The proliferation of global coffee chains like Starbucks has resulted in a phenomenon
where youth like to be seen holding a cup of starbucks and hanging out in these coffee joints.
Such behaviour is perceived by the youth themselves as cool and contemporary.

Argument This papers argues that the neighbourhood coffeeshop (kopitiam) has emerged as a
place where drinking coffee is a means of asserting an ordinary place identity vis--vis a
spectacular performance of identity in the former.
Conceptual framing Nonplace vs. Place
Research questions e.g. To youth who frequent kopitiams:
Do you and your friends come here often? What are the reasons?
Do you think the routine of drinking coffee together has resulted in a stronger bond amongst
one another, and to the neighbourhood?
Analysis/ Discussion All our respondents say that having a smoke and coffee gives them an
intimate space to talk about both serious and frivolous stuff. It is also important for them to be
able to stretch out their legs on chairs and just relax. This shows how the act of drinking coffee
is a means of maintaining friendships and neighbourly relations. The fact that some youth prefer
to be able to access a tranquil place without having to dress and make up shows how
countercurrents to globalizing tendencies are not unthinkable.
Conclusion Undertaking this research has taught us that while globalizing phenomena may enact
increasingly homogeneous and spectacular identities in particular social groups, the importance
of ordinary relations should not be seen as an afterthought.

* Project outline
* All group members present*
* CC all members in email thread