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Response on Globalization

Frederick Cooper analyses the concept of globalization through the lens of linguistic (189). According to him, the term globalization is inadequate because it states that a single system is now uniting the entire globe. However, short look at African countries and some other less developed countries across the globe provides a clear understanding that there globalization lacks global-scale size and historical perspective (Cooper 192). This implies that the term is imperfect due to limits of interconnection and lack of plurality of linkages. For some countries, globalization means deepening of their isolation and insularity in terms of transformation (Cooper 196). However, the problem is not with the term, but in its manifestation in the real world.
Arjun Appadurai investigates globalization as a cultural interconnectedness. He points at the fact that in the past cultural unification could have been achieved only through religious expansion and warfare (Appadurai 1). Today, people of different cultures voluntarily give up their traditions and cultural peculiarities to embrace homogeneity (Appadurai 5). Such transformation is happening simultaneously through different channels as ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, finanscapes, and ideoscapes. Such flows despite having some obvious disjunctures are likely to converge and create a global culture that may simplify communication between people, but damage uniqueness and traditions. However, the new cultural economy would be difficult to control, as it is a complex order with a huge number of centers (Appadurai 6).

Works Cited

Appadurai, A. Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy. Public Culture 2.2 (1990): 1-24.
Cooper, F. What is the Concept of Globalization Good for? An African Historian’s Perspective. African Affairs 100 (2001): 189-213.