Globalization and Diversity
After reading the Introduction of the course textbook, focusing in the globalization section and the power point presentation (PPT)
“Globalization amid Diversity”, answer the following question:
Why is it said that, “…globalization is seen as more than an economic strategy to perpetuate the advantages of rich countries: it is
also viewed as a cultural threat” (de Blij and Muller 2010: 31)? “Focus more in the essay is why globalization is viewed as a cultural
threat.” This is the introduction of the textbook focusing in the globalization section:
GLOBALIZATION
Globalization is essentially a geographical process in which spatial relations—economic, cultural, political— shift to ever broader
scales (now driven in no small part by recent rapid advances in communication and trans- port technologies). What this means is that
what hap- pens in one place has repercussions in places ever more distant, thereby integrating the entire world into an ever “smaller”
global village. Globalization comes into our homes via television, computers, and smartphones: news today has never traveled faster,
and sometimes even gov- ernment leaders turn to the Internet on their personal electronic devices to get the latest reports on interna-
tional events.
Globalization is not something entirely new. The second half of the nineteenth century, for instance, also witnessed major advances in
the intensification of global interdependence. It was particularly affected by new technologies such as the steamship, the railway, and
the telegraph, which subsequently were followed by the first motor vehicles and airplanes. With today’s newest tech- nologies, the
world is becoming ever more interconnected. Thus geography and our knowledge of the world’s realms and regions become increasingly
important—because what happens elsewhere will have consequences wher- ever you are.
Global Challenges, Shared Interests
Globalization plays out in various spheres, from the envi- ronmental to the cultural to the economic. Today’s mostpressing
environmental issue, no doubt, is global warm- ing, a threat to the world at large. It is clear that we must confront this problem
together, but it is far from easy to agree on strategies. Some countries are bigger polluters than others, some have more resources
than others, and some are more developed than others. How to divide the burdens? At the Durban (South Africa) Conference on Climate
Change in 2011, for the first time govern- ments from around the world committed themselves to preparing a comprehensive global
agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The good news was that the deal included developed and developing countries, as well as
the participation of the United States, which had been reluctant to get involved in previous interna- tional efforts. The bad news is
that the process will be an excruciatingly slow one: the target date for complet- ing the agreement is 2015, and the actual reductions
of emissions would not commence until 2020. On top of that, it remains to be seen if the agreement will be legally binding.
Culturally, too, the world is coming closer together, and this is most apparent in global migration flows. Such migration used to be
uncommon because most people were
rooted in their home environment, where they lived out their entire lives. When residential relocation did occur, it used to be one-
way, with people migrating from one place to another and then staying put. But in the current global- ization era, migration flows have
intensified, in part be- cause people now possess far greater knowledge about opportunities elsewhere. Moreover, it is now much easier
to travel back and forth, which allows migrants to maintain close ties with their original home countries. Not surpris- ingly, as the
number of highly mobile transnational mi- grants has increased, they have become instrumental in the spreading of cultures around the
world. Examples include Algerians in Paris, Haitians in Montreal, Cubans in Miami, Mexicans in Los Angeles, Indians in Singapore, and
Indo- nesians in Sydney.
But it is also important to keep in mind that peo- ple’s mobility is often constrained, because some parts of this highly uneven world
are so much better off than others. High-income countries are a magnet for mi- grants, but all too often they cannot get access.
Millions of workers aspire to leave the periphery, which contains the world’s poorest regions, to seek a better life some- where in the
core. Trying to get there, many of them dieevery year in the waters of the Mediterranean, the Carib- bean, and the Atlantic. Others
risk their lives at the bar- riers that encircle the global core as if it were a gated community—from the “security fence” between
Mexico and the United States to the walls that guard Israel’s safety to the razor wire that encircles Spain’s outposts on North
Africa’s shore.
When the world economy entered a deep, ex- tended downturn in 2008, unemployment skyrocketed and opportunities for migrants declined
accordingly. In Europe, undocumented migration plunged 33 percent from 2008 to 2009 alone, and along the U.S.-Mexican border the number
of interceptions fell by 23 percent during the same 12-month period. As the global econ- omy recovers, immigration rates are expected
to in- crease concomitantly.
Winners and Losers
If a geographic concept can arouse strong passions, global- ization is it. To most economists, politicians, and business- people, this
is the best of all possible worlds—the march of international capitalism, open markets, and free trade. In theory, globalization breaks
down barriers to foreign trade, stimulates commerce, brings jobs to remote places, and promotes social, cultural, political, and other
kinds of exchanges. High-tech workers in India are employed by computer firms based in California. Japanese cars are assembled in
Thailand. American footwear is made in China. Fast-food restaurant chains spread standards of service and hygiene as well as familiar
(and standardized) menus from Tokyo to Tel Aviv to Tijuana. If wages and standards of employment are lower in peripheral countries than
in the global core, production will shift there and the gap will shrink. Everybody wins. Economic geographers can prove that global
economic integration allows the overall economies of poorer countries to grow faster: com- pare their international trade to their
national income, andyou will find that the gross national income (GNI)* of those that engage in more foreign trade (and thus are more
“globalized”) rises, while the GNI of those with less actually declines.
But there is another, more complicated issue. Al- though many countries, even lesser-developed ones that were able to latch onto
globalization, have witnessed ac- celerated economic growth and rising per capita incomes, inequality within these countries has
frequently increased just as fast. In other words, uneven development within countries has become more pronounced. As noted earlier,
this is particularly obvious in China, the fastest-growing economy in the world over the past two decades: much of this growth took
place in its Pacific coastal zone, not in the interior of the country, and income differentials be- came ever wider. And the same is
true in India and most other emerging markets. This is why a regional approach is so important to understanding what is going on in the
world economy.
Globalization in the economic sphere is proceeding under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO), of which the United States
is the leading architect. To join, countries must agree to open their economies to foreign trade and investment. The WTO has 159
member- states (Russia being among the latest to join in 2012), all expecting benefits from their participation. But the lead- ing
global-core countries themselves do not always oblige when it comes to creating a “level playing field.” The case of the Philippines is
often cited: Filipino farmers found themselves competing against North American and Euro- pean agricultural producers who receive
subsidies to sup- port production as well as the export of their products— and losing out. Meanwhile, low-priced, subsidized U.S. corn
appeared on Filipino markets. As a result, the Phil- ippine economy lost several hundred thousand farm jobs, wages went down, and WTO
membership had the effect of severely damaging its agricultural sector. Notsurprisingly, the notion of globalization is not popular
among rural Filipinos.
Opposition to globalization is not confined to the periphery: in the United States and western Europe, WTO meetings have often been
plagued by protests and demon- strations by those who believe that the global economy is “rigged” to benefit the few while most lose
out. The global financial crisis that began in 2008 created a more specific, concrete target of such criticism: in 2011, the so-called
“Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators in New York City triggered a global protest movement against corporate greed and corruption of the
financial sector. Their slogan, “We are the 99%” (see photo), underscored their claim that the great majority of people in the world do
not benefit from the workings of the global economy.
Now i going to upload the PPT Presentation. Your answer should be written in your own words and include comments on why detractors of
globalization reject this trend. Explain your answer in NO less than 400 words.
It is also very important that you include pertinent examples from your own experience. If you use an external source, you must cite
this/these source/s in the text, in parenthesis at the end of the sentence using quotation marks if it is a direct quote, including the
last name/s of the author/s, year of publication, and the page number (i.e., Neumann 2013: 63). If you are using an external source
writing this information in your own words, then you must cite at the end of the sentence, using parenthesis, the last name/s of the
author/s and the year of publication (i.e., Neumann and Price 2013). All sources cited in your essay must also be included in a
separate page on a Bibliography/Reference section at the end of your essay. You must format your work according to the required
Technical Aspects described in the course syllabus: a) 12-point font (Arial, Times New Roman, Garamond, or Book Antiqua); one-inch
margins all around; double-spaced; and, number the pages.
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